Lennon had never been the type to get nervous before the first day of school, but she had never had any reason to be nervous until now. She had spoken to pretty much everyone in her little friend group at some point over the summer except for the one person she had really wanted to talk to. Jughead Jones might have been a loner and a little bit of a weirdo, but, Lennon had a little bit of weird in her too, and that was why they meshed so well together. They had been practically inseparable from a very young age, and although they also hung out with Betty Cooper and Archie Andrews, the two were practically joined at the hip regardless of whether they were with their other two friends or not. They just understood each other in ways that other people didn't, and that was why it honestly hurt Lennon knowing that Jughead was kind of ghosting her all summer. She knew that things weren't going to be the same after everything that had happened the night before she left to spend the summer with her paternal grandparents in England, but she hadn't expected for them to go from talking or hanging out literally every single day since second grade to complete radio silence either. Needless to say, that was why she was nervous about school starting back up. She just didn't know what to expect when she saw him again.
"I can't believe you and Juggie didn't talk once this summer. That's not like you two at all." Betty said, shaking her head in disbelief. "Yea, I thought you two were a weird package deal or something." Kevin chimed in. Lennon shrugged her shoulders as she dropped her lipstick into her purse. She and Kevin had stayed over at Betty's the night before. Normally, she would have spent it having one last action movie marathon with a certain raven-haired boy, but she supposed that things were going to be different this year. "Yea, well, Archie said he hasn't talked to him much this summer either, so who knows what's going on. Am I little hurt that he chose to ghost me for the last two months? Yes, but did I let it stop me from having a kickass time in the UK? Absolutely not." She said. "You've been home almost a week, and I still feel like I know nothing about what you did the last two months. I want all of the juicy details, Len. All of them!" Kevin said, causing the petite brunette to laugh. "What makes you think that there are juicy details to spill, Kev? I was spending the summer with my grandparents, remember?"
The summer between freshman and sophomore year turned out to be anything but like Archie Andrews had expected. He had planned on spending most of it helping his dad out with his construction business, hanging out with Jughead, and skyping with Lennon whenever he had the chance to do so, but only two of those three things had actually ended up occurring. Maybe it was kind of a dick move to for him to cancel that road trip with Jughead super last minute, but he wasn't exactly complaining about how he had spent the eve of the fourth of July instead. Nor was he complaining about how he had spent that summer in general. In the last two months, Archie felt as though he had truly found himself. It left him torn between two things now, music and football, but if he hadn't spent his summer doing what he was doing, he didn't think he would have reached that crossroads at all. Things were already pretty different this summer, and he had a feeling that they were going to continue down that path now that school was starting back up as well. Despite everything, he was looking forward to seeing his friends that he hadn't seen most of the summer and catching up. He knew Jughead was probably still a little bit pissed at him, but he was hoping to mend their friendship as well. "I'll see you later, boy." He said, scratching Vegas' ears as he walked past the Labrador retriever and slung his backpack over one shoulder. "See you tonight, dad!" He called as he walked out the front door.