White Rabbit(82)
“Fox always had a thing for me—even back in middle school,” she continues, wrapping her arms around herself. “Our moms are best friends, so he was always around and … I don’t know. Eventually I developed a thing for him, too. Not a crush, but like … a thing. Like we kinda wanted to push each other down the stairs, and we also kinda wanted to make out at the same time.” She shrugs. “But, you know, Fox didn’t want anything unless he couldn’t have it—and there wasn’t anything Fox Whitney couldn’t have. Everything he ever asked for he just got, and he completely took it for granted.
“He was so used to being the best: the best looking, the best athlete, the favorite; and people fell all over themselves to please him, because everybody wanted him to like them—even adults. Even teachers sucked up to Fox.” The corners of her mouth tick upward in a thorny smile. “I was probably the one person he knew who didn’t kiss his ass, and it drove him up a wall.”
“Okay,” I say obligingly, marveling at the fantasy version of Peyton Forsyth that’s being described to me. As if Sebastian and I, and everybody else she’s ever met, haven’t watched her whole clique toady after Fox Whitney every single day since practically kindergarten, as desperate for his approval as the less popular kids.
“Fox’s big problem was girls.” Her tone is authoritative and cold. “I mean, beyond just the fact that he was a lying shit-sack who stuck his dick into anything he could, he had a problem when it came to girls—like a mental problem. Ask yourself something: What’s the one trait all Fox’s girlfriends have had in common?”
I eyeball this question over to Sebastian, because we’re talking about his friends here, and because my apathy regarding Fox Whitney’s love life—prior to finding my sister soaked in his blood, anyway—cannot possibly be overstated. My boyfriend shrugs, and guesses a theme at random. “They’re all hot?”
Peyton rolls her eyes. “They have no self-esteem. They’re just a bunch of thirsty hoes who threw themselves at him. They all knew his reputation for burning through girlfriends; they all knew they’d get tossed out like yesterday’s trash as soon as he got bored; but they begged for it anyway, because being Fox Whitney’s flavor of the month is still better than being nobody.” She looks right at me as she says it, daring me to defend April’s honor. “Fox loved it. All these girls worshiping him? He lived for it. He couldn’t date a girl unless she proved that she would completely debase herself if he told her to—but, of course, once she did, it was over. He’d be done, because he’d have lost all respect for her. I mean, how can you possibly respect someone who doesn’t even respect herself?”
“But you were different?” I predict, hoping to urge the narrative of this Very Special Episode along. Her account drips with the earnest self-importance of a reality show confessional, and it’s taking all my concentration not to roll my eyes.
“I wouldn’t play his game, and it pissed him off. Half of his ‘relationships,’ or whatever you want to call them, were just sad attempts at making me jealous. He seriously believed that, one day, I’d come crawling and begging for him like all his other conquests, because he’d literally never encountered a girl with an actual backbone before.” Peyton gives a complacent shrug. “So, to teach him a lesson, I started dating his best friend. I mean, truth is, Race and I have been together for almost a year now? But my real long-term relationship—maybe my only real relationship—was with Fox.”
“So what changed?” Sebastian interposes quietly, and Peyton’s lips purse.
“Me and Race. When you get down to it, that’s what changed. Maybe I only got with him in the first place in order to make some kind of a point, but…” She shrugs again, uncomfortably. “You know, Race and I actually make sense. We have a lot in common, our families know each other, and we have fun together. Usually.” Peyton shifts, rubbing her forehead. “I think Fox started to realize that I was getting … you know, serious about my boyfriend. That the triangle was finally turning into a real triangle, for once. And he couldn’t deal.
“He started dating April, and he really tried rubbing my nose in it, but I honestly couldn’t be bothered anymore. I ignored him. And when that didn’t work…” She looks down at her feet, her shoes wet from the slippery grass. “One day, totally out of the blue, he was just a complete ass to me at school, and we had our first actual fight in years. Next day, Friday, he comes up to me, tail between his legs, and says, like, ‘I’m sorry I’ve been a dick lately, but there’s something kind of important going on and I need to talk to you about it.’ He wanted me to come over after school. I was supposed to hang out with Race, but I’d never seen Fox so … so actually needy before, so I said yes. I made up some stupid excuse to get out of my plans, and then after cheer, I went to the Whitneys’.”
She keeps her eyes down, words rushing out of her mouth like she’s trying not to taste them. “Turned out Fox wanted to talk about us—our ‘thing.’ And he said all the stuff I’d been wanting to hear for years: how he was pretty sure he loved me, but had been too scared to admit it; how he was crazy jealous of Race; how it scared the shit out of him that I might actually be happy with another guy.” Peyton glances up, tears in her eyes. “His parents despise each other; it’s why he’s so fucked up about relationships. All Mr. and Mrs. Whitney do is fight, but they won’t get divorced because they’d rather be miserable than admit failure. Their marriage is just one big power struggle, and Fox grew up thinking that’s how it was supposed to be—that the point of a relationship is control.”