I would take Physics myself, as most schools are looking at a science sequence of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics.
My son never took AP Chemistry and managed to do well in his General Chemistry sequence freshman year. First semester General Chemistry at a lot of colleges actually focuses on atomic/molecular structure and has been described as ‘baby quantum physics,’ at least by the professors at my son’s school.
General Chemistry second semester is more of what you see in AP Chemistry, albeit in a more compressed format.