Oxfordshire, England
The Ruskin School of Art at Oxford University offers a three-year studio-based BFA course in which students work alongside each other in collaboratively- organized studios.
She went by Lizzy there. Lizzy Smith.
She figured the name wasn’t a complete lie as her name was Elizabeth and her mother’s maiden name was Smith.
Lizzy was a transfer student from Columbia University in New York City who arrived at Oxford that fall. She was an art major, fine art to be exact, and the (program) was happy to have her and welcomed Lizzy with open arms.
Especially since a large donation had been made in her name on behalf of her acceptance.
Possibly at the price of an auctioned off original Monet.
But she wasn’t about to share that detail.
In the beginning, she stuck to herself, not necessarily being cold to her other classmates, just never allowing them to have a glimpse into her brain. She heard the things that they made up about her- that she had relatives in the KGB (true), that someone bought her way in (very true), and that she was still involved in organized crime (no longer true).
(But it was).
However, her favorite rumor was that she was the lovechild of Prince William and his mistress and that’s why she was transplanted at Oxford without a moment’s notice, and granted access to one of the most selective art programs in the world without a single portfolio review.
She really thought about running with that one but didn’t feel like hiding from the royal guard.
Again.
She had a fairly good start to her semester. She continued to keep to herself, smiling at her fellow art classmates and even going out with them every now and again. She thought she was happy there, that she could fit herself into this mold of a perfect and unproblematic school girl who just wanted to major in the pieces of art that hung (secretively) around her friend’s and family’s homes across the world.
But then November came along and all of a sudden she found herself yearning for the comfort of the Georgetown townhouse or Central Park brownstone that she was used to spending her Thanksgiving holiday in.
She decided that it was only slightly okay to miss her cousin’s red wine-induced babbling, her best friends arriving almost too late and her father yelling at them for stressing out her mother. She allowed herself to miss her big, bad, teddy bear of a “brother,” who she always snuck off with to “take a walk” before stuffing their faces with mashed potatoes. She missed it all, the way it smelled, the warmth from the fire on her always cold skin, and the grey cashmere sweater that she wore every year.
Thinking about it, she didn’t miss it all.
She didn’t miss him.
(Yes, she did).
So she got way too drunk on the third Thursday of November 2018 and spilled all of her secrets to her roommate, Ethel Muggs.
Well, not all of them.
She told Ethel of her days at “Georgetown” and how she would shoplift at the luxury stores that her family had cards on file for. She told her about the time she impersonated her mother and took all of the money out of the safety deposit box.
What she didn’t tell Ethel, though, was that her name wasn’t Lizzy Smith.
Her name was Elizabeth Cooper, and she was a thief.
Not your regular run of the mill robbing a Chanel or taking money out of the safety deposit box (though she did do that). No, she was the type of thief who owned multiple passports and identities and had family members who could perfectly recreate a Picasso for her to swap at a swanky party on the Upper East Side.
She didn’t tell Ethel that she, in fact, had never even been to college and she really did buy her way in by selling a Monet to a gentleman that her cousin found for more money than it was actually worth.
She also didn’t tell Ethel that in selling that Monet, she sold her soul to a life of no more cons or jobs and a complete cease of communication between her and her...
Partner.
He was the type of partner that from the outside, people might consider toxic. He became so because he caught her with her hand in his jacket pocket at a party they were both attending. He grabbed her wrist and dragged her to the most secluded bathroom in the entire apartment and slammed the door shut behind them.
“Who do you think you are?” he asked, eyes surprisingly light considering the situation they were in.
She smiled and stepped around him so her back was pressed again the far wall with a direct view of both him and the door.
“Elizabeth,” she answered honestly. Deciding that in this situation, the best thing to do was tell the truth.
Because sometimes the best con was the one where you didn’t have to lie at all.
“Well, Elizabeth,” he said and walked towards her slowly. “You have some explaining to do.”
She held her breath and allowed him to continue. She knew his name from when she saw the guestlist for the party and made him her mark. She knew exactly how much he was worth, how his parents made their money and the fact that he had a G-5 on standby for any and all business reasons.
And a second for pleasure.
“I do?” she asked.
“Yes,” he whispered. He was close enough to her now that he didn’t have to talk very loud. “You have to show me how to do that.”
So that was where it started. In a dingy bathroom in one of the most expensive apartments D.C. had to offer.
That’s where she met her partner in crime.
She realized the next morning that she thankfully didn’t actually tell Ethel everything about her life, just the very much watered-down version of it.
Swallowing a handful of Advil and packing up her bag, filling it to the brim with sketchbooks and paintbrushes wrapped in a canvas sheet, Betty felt the burner phone she wedged between her mattress and box spring buzz with an incoming call and pretended that she didn’t know who it was.
She walked out of her room and went through the rest of the day in a haze which hung over her for the next week. Each morning at nine-fifteen the phone would ring five times before curling off. It was three-fifteen am in D.C. and she knew that, unless he was calling from somewhere else in the world, he was waiting up for her every night, listening to the phone ring five times before hanging up and going to sleep, only to repeat the process every twenty-four hours.
It was getting to a point where she almost couldn’t deny the call. Where she almost picked up and answered a simple, “talk to me,” and trying not to smile at his, “not a single hello, BC, I thought you loved me more than that.”
And she did.
But it was an almost. So she didn’t pick up the phone at all and decided that she liked the morning calls. That he still cared enough to call every day, on the dot.
She knew it wasn’t to check up on her, though. She knew it was much bigger than that.
With him it always was.
One week turned into two and two weeks turned into three and at the beginning of week four, the calls stopped completely.
Her body felt like a bucket of ice was poured directly down her spinal column from nine-fifteen until at least noon by which point she realized that if something was seriously wrong with him that she would know. She would feel it in her body.
That that part of her soul would die and she would have to really become the girl she was pretending to be.
On the last night of her classes before the Christmas holiday, the phone rang again— at nine-fifteen at night. After the second ring, Betty plunged her hand between the mattress and held it in her hand, looking at the D.C. area code that flashed across it.
It rang five times, and then hung up.
She exhaled harshly and flung the phone and herself down onto the bed. She threw her arm over her eyes and fought back the burning sensation as hot and inevitable tears started to stream down her face.
She had missed the call. The call that she had finally vowed to take.
And then it rang again.
She picked it up on ring two.
“Talk to me,” she said breathlessly.
“Not a single hello, BC, I thought you loved me more than that,” he said in a voice that conveyed anger and desperation. “You’re a hard girl to reach,” he continued.
“I didn’t want to be reached,” she said back thickly.
His voice softened. He knew she had been crying. “Open the front door. It’s fucking freezing out here.”
She wished she could say that she froze, but she didn’t. She ran out without grabbing a jacket or changing out of her slippers. Those who were still in the dorm watched her, open-mouthed, as the girl who was so calm, so stoic, so… elusive, ran through the hallways in the least put together way that any of them had ever seen.
She didn’t give a single flying fuck.
As she approached the heavy, glass front door, she saw the tall dark figure that she would recognize anywhere, head tucked into a black peacoat and a dark grey beanie perched on his head.
She slowed down as to not seem desperate, but she could tell by the shifting in his feet that he was anxious too.
When she finally opened the front door and met his eyes for the first time in six months, all worry and anger and frustration from the past month of passive phone calls melted and she stared at him.
“Coop, let me the fuck in,” he said harshly. She moved to the side and let him through, staring in awe at the fact that her partner was in the middle of her dorm’s entryway in all of his beautiful glory.
“Hi,” she said quietly.
“That’s all I get?” he asked cheekily. He stepped closer to her and after too many moments of staring, he placed his arms around her waist and hoisted her up. She laughed quietly and wrapped her legs around him, burying her face in his cold neck and breathing in a scent that she could never forget.
“Hi, Jug,” she whispered. He kissed her cheek and put her down. They looked at each other again.
“There’s my girl.”
“What do you mean she needs me?” Betty asked for the fifth time. Jughead was standing in her room, leaning against the wall while she sat on the bed. Her eyes were glazed over and she couldn’t meet his own, even though she could feel that he was trying.
He didn’t say anything for a long time, but when he did, his voice was full of laughter and Betty snapped her head up, eyes finally coming into focus.
“What?” she shrieked and didn’t care that the people in the rooms around her could probably hear her screaming at the mysterious man who entered the dorm late at night, dressed expensively and holding the quiet girl’s hand, dragging her back to her room, knowing that he had never actually been there before.
When they walked in, Ethel was there, looking open-mouthed at the man who had come in, pulling Betty behind him.
“Hi,” he said in a silky voice that Betty knew all too well. It was his, I’m-about-to-get-my-way-and-you-can’t-stop-me Betty, still too overwhelmed by his surprise arrival allowed him to continue. “I’m Lizzy’s friend. We need the room, is that okay with you?”
Ethel was still too stunned by the gorgeous stranger and Betty was too tired to care that he knew where her room was and that he called her Lizzy.
That name felt foreign as it tumbled from his lips.
His… perfect lips.
“Y-yeah,” she stuttered and left the room quickly, muttering a swift, “bye Lizzy, happy holiday,” before exiting.
When the door had shut behind them, Betty turned to him and said, “you didn’t have to do that to the poor girl. We could have left and gone to whatever fancy hotel room you probably booked for this stupid trip you’ve taken.”
“I didn’t book a room,” he said seriously. “We’re turning around and getting on the jet in less than an hour. I told them to keep the seats warm and everything.”
“What? No, we aren’t going anywhere,” she yelped.
“Betty,” he said lowly. “Yes, the fuck we are.”
“You don’t control me,” she shot back. “What, you think you can just show up at my dorm after calling me, aggressively I might add, for a month and decide what we’re doing?”
“Yes,” he said simply and shrugged off his coat. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
She said nothing and sat on the bed with a huff.
“Cheryl needs you,” he said suddenly. She snapped her head up and felt all of the color drain from her face.
“What do you mean she needs me?”
So yes, there they were. Him, laughing at her shocked face and her, trying not to walk across the room and punch him in the throat.
“She’s been trying to reach you for a month, through me, clearly, so I came here to get you because she needs you.”
“Okay well can you at least tell me why?” she asked and stood up. Without really thinking she grabbed her big suitcase and a medium-sized duffel and put them on the bed. Then she grabbed her duffle, tossed it to him, and pointed towards the bathroom. “Anything on the lefthand side is mine. Just dump it in there,” she said defeatedly.
He smirked and walked into the bathroom. She could hear him semi-carefully putting things into the bag. She walked over to her closet and pulled out a pair of black leggings, black hoodie, black beanie, and her black peacoat and laughed slightly at the fact that they would be wearing the same thing as they boarded his jet at Heathrow.
It took them thirty-two minutes to completely pack up all of Betty’s stuff and put them into the two bags, exactly how she had arrived. A YSL bag (that he actually gave her) on one shoulder and a duffel on the other, dragging her suitcase through the airport.
Only when she had arrived she had flown in coach.
Now, as they got ready to leave, she realized she’d be sipping a glass of Dom in a squashy leather seat and trying hard to not stare at the boy across the way.
Man, actually. He was most certainly a man.
He put her duffle bag on top of her suitcase and opened the door for her. She pulled her hat down tight over her ears and stopped short when she saw Ethel standing in the hall right by their room.
“Lizzy!” she yelped, clearly embarrassed that she had been caught listening by the door. “You guys are leaving?” she asked.
“Family matters,” Betty said with a hand wave in his direction.
“Oh, so,” she said softly, “you guys are family?”
Betty looked up at the man who had a cheeky smile on his face and was clearly biting the inside of his cheek.
“Something like that,” Betty grumbled. “Anyway, I won’t be back for a bit. I’ve left my art supplies here so please make sure you lock the room when you leave.” She turned to walk away but stopped and said, “happy holiday, Ethel.”
They walked away before Ethel could respond.
His driver and… butler… was parked in a town car right outside of the dorm, still running and sitting in the driver's seat, a ghost of a smirk across his face.
“Long time no see, Weatherbee,” she said with a smile and kissed his cheek as he took her bags and put them in the trunk of the car. Betty waited for him to open the door for her and tried to not cringe at how fast she lapsed back into the ways of opulence and wealth that she thought she had left six months prior.
She got into the car and he smirked at her from the other seat. And then they were on their way.
“Franklin?” she asked with a curious tone. They had gotten out of the car at Heathrow and Betty allowed herself to be led towards the G-5 that was indeed warm when she stepped in. As much as she was angry with him for pulling her out of school in the middle of the night without any real say for herself, she couldn’t resist poking fun at the two unknown initials at the beginning of his name.
“Like the kids show?” he asked, not looking up from his phone.
“Or the man on the hundred dollar bill,” she replied convincingly.
“Not even close, baby girl,” he said with a smirk and handed her his phone. She scowled at him and tried to ignore the feeling of butterflies that erupted in her stomach at the pet name.
“Was I even close?” she asked and dropped his phone in her lap. “I am really sick and tired of calling you Jughead.”
He laughs at her and leaned across so he could grab his phone out of her lap and push it into her hands again. “I would never tell. I am F.P. Jones III. But to everyone else, I’m Jughead Jones. And to you,” he whispered, “I’m the love of your life.”
“What are you looking at?” she asked, choosing to ignore him completely and the butterflies that were now threatening to beat all the way out of her chest.
“You tell me,” he said.
“I don’t understand,” Betty said quietly, trying to hide the shock she was feeling. “Who could have gained access to these?” Betty asked, staring at the blueprints splayed across his screen.
“I mean you have been wondering why she needs you,” Jughead replied.
“Stole me,” she said without thinking.
“Well, angel,” he said and leaned forward, “that is what we do, isn’t it?”
Every ten years the Smithsonian hosted a fundraising masquerade ball to make its donors feel like royalty and open their pockets even more. Almost half a billion dollars was spent on creating an old-world, old-money feel in the great hall and there was always a decadent exclusive exhibit on display.
It was a thief’s dream.
“You are not robbing the Smithsonian,” Betty said in a loud voice. Jughead didn’t even flinch at her tone and she couldn’t help but look back down, couldn’t help but feel excited.
Couldn’t help but plan.
She looked up and met his eyes and they were twinkling in such a way that she couldn’t help but get a little excited at the idea.
After another ten minutes of zooming in and out on the image on Jughead’s phone, Betty looked up again and sighed.
“When do we start?”
“Oh, baby,” he said smoothly. “We already have.”