White Rabbit(83)
“Is this going somewhere?” Sebastian finally asks, evidently as exasperated by Peyton’s dramatizing as I am.
“Yes, asshole,” she snaps ferociously. “He told me he loved me! He told me he wanted to be with me, and he didn’t care about the consequences. He actually fucking cried. So … so I let him take me up to his bedroom, and—”
“And we’ve already heard about the video, so let’s skip ahead,” I suggest quickly.
“I avoided Race Saturday and Sunday, trying to figure out how the hell I was going to tell him we had to end things because Fox and I wanted to be together.” Peyton sounds more subdued now, but something dark embroiders her tone. “Fox texted all weekend, too, saying how he couldn’t wait to see me again, how everything was going to be different. And then I got to school on Monday, and…” Her voice falters, and she looks up at the sky, swallowing. “And the second he saw me, he jammed his tongue down April’s throat and started groping her ass. Right in front of me. And he leered at me over her shoulder, with this shit-eating grin, like he was so fucking proud of himself. He was gloating.”
Unhappily, Sebastian ventures, “You mean—?”
“I mean that he fucking played me,” Peyton snaps so hotly I’m surprised the fog doesn’t burn off around us. “I mean that it was all bullshit—every last word! He’d finally figured out which buttons to press so I’d roll over for him, and that’s all he’d ever cared about. Everything he’d told me was a lie, and he wanted me to know it; he needed me to know that I’d let him turn me into just another meaningless notch on his fucking belt. I’d thought we had this twisted mutual respect, all Cruel Intentions and shit? But no. Fox never respected me. And he wanted to make damn sure I couldn’t respect myself anymore, either.” Viciously, she scrubs the tears from her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Screw you.” Her hostility is reflexive. “Like you actually give a shit.” She drops her defensive posture, though, shoulders slumping wearily. “Anyway, after a week of this crap, Fox comes up to me in the hall again and says, dead serious, ‘My parents are gonna be out late, so why don’t you come over again?’ I might have blacked out for a second, I was so outraged—like, I was this close to frying his balls with my stun gun when he finally tells me about the video. He said…” She squeezes her eyes shut, and her breath catches. “He said … ‘You’re gonna cancel your plans and come over to my house again, Peyton, or I’m gonna make sure Race knows what a fucking slut you are.’ So I had to. I didn’t have a choice.”
More water drips behind me, and the distant sound of a passing train clacks and whispers in the air. Sebastian looks horrified. “Peyton…”
“Save it. The point is, he had something on me. He could have ruined my whole life whenever he wanted to—gotten my boyfriend to dump me, turned my friends against me, my parents—and you can bet your ass he’d have been happy to do it. He knew he could get away with anything, and that without my friends and my … my status, I had nothing. I was nothing.” Peyton sniffles loudly. “He had me on the hook, and for weeks I was just his on-call whore. He made me say things and do things…”
She seals her lips together, like she can’t bear to go on, and my skin crawls just thinking about what she’s described. “You must have hated him.”
“You’re damn right I hated him.” Her answer is prompt and savage. “I wanted him to fucking die, and I’m not sorry at all that he did. I wanted to kill him myself—tonight—when I found out he’d been showing that disgusting video to his disgusting, perverted friends!”
“I don’t blame you.” I mean it, too. We seem to be closing in on the heart of the matter at last, but the picture before me isn’t wholly clear. Is all this the build-up to a murder confession? Peyton had more reasons to loathe Fox than I ever imagined, but pieces of the puzzle remain missing. I still can’t understand what’s going on with Race. Why did he lie for her, and why did he set up this bizarre meeting in the first place?
“I didn’t even get to hit him.” Peyton’s hands knot into fists. “Fox, I mean. April coldcocked me, all hell broke loose, and then I was running out of the house before I even knew what was happening. When Race finished trying to pound Fox into the floor, I was sure he was coming for me next, but he’d barely even look at me. He just got in his car and took off. I was afraid to follow him, but I was terrified not to, so as soon as Lia said she’d made sure April wasn’t gonna call the cops, I went after him.”
“And what happened?”
“I never caught up.” She shakes her head dismally. “He was going too fast—I’m not even sure I ever saw his taillights. I was crying so hard I could barely breathe, though, and somewhere on the way back to town I just … snapped. I just snapped.”
“Peyton…” I step forward, mist threading around my arms, slipping through the ventilated fabric of the lacrosse jersey. “What did you do?”
Her eyes are glassy and wet, her chin trembling, and it takes several tries to force the words out. In a squeaky whisper, though, she finally manages. “I burned down Fox’s house.”