White Rabbit

by Caleb Roehrig

  As individuals, Race Atwood and Peyton Forsyth are both terrible people, and anything less than two thousand dollars in cash wouldn’t entice me to voluntarily share oxygen with either of them; mean, shallow, and self-absorbed in equal measure, they are, in a perverse kind of way, the perfect couple. It’s how they refer to themselves, too. The Perfect Couple.

  The thing is, I’m fairly certain that neither of them has much in the way of original thoughts to share with the world; from the music they like, to the clothes they wear, to the people they accept as equals, their opinions have all been formed and handed to them by Fox—the gravitational center of their social circle. Certainly April’s been guilty of this, too, but from where I stand, currying his favor seems to be a full-time job for Race and Peyton in particular—and they’ve always appeared to think quite highly of themselves for doing it.

  As we cross the stone flooring, the so-called Perfect Couple turns to watch our approach, and I nearly stumble as I walk into a force field of awkward tension as thick as a brick wall. Race and Peyton are seated at opposite ends of the sofa, their faces drawn, their body language as stiff and detached as strangers forced to share a bench at the bus stop.

  “Hey, guys,” Sebastian offers experimentally as we sit down across from them.

  “What the hell’s he doing here?” Race asks inhospitably, scowling at me through the shock of strawberry blond hair that tumbles over his forehead. Evidently, they were not forewarned of our nocturnal door-to-door. A nice surprise.

  “I know you guys were with April tonight,” I begin without preamble, just as happy to dispense with meaningless niceties, “and I’m worried about her.”

  The couple exchanges a quick look, but neither of them answers me right away. They’re both smoking, and the mass of butts crowding the shared ashtray sitting before them on the coffee table suggests that they’ve been at it for some time. Peyton takes a long drag on her cigarette, curiosity and suspicion flickering in her catlike green eyes. “Why?”

  “She was supposed to call me tonight, but she never did, and now she’s not answering her phone.” By this point, the lie comes out as easily as if it were the truth. “When’s the last time you saw her?”

  They exchange another look, and Race gives an uninterested shrug. Once again, Peyton answers for both of them. “None of your fucking business.”

  “Please?” Sebastian intercedes in a far friendlier tone than I personally think is warranted, and the girl rolls her eyes impatiently.

  “When we left Fox’s lake house. We were having a party out there.” She turns back to Race for confirmation, but his gaze is fixed firmly on the coffee table. “It was a few hours ago.”

  Sebastian waits for her to add more, and when she doesn’t, he leads, “Which was…?”

  “I don’t know,” Peyton replies with an aggrieved look, “maybe nine fifteen, nine thirty?” Leaning forward to knock some ash off her cigarette, she then asks antagonistically, “Seriously, Bash, what are you doing with him?”

  Sebastian squirms again, his eyes zigzagging miserably from one person to another as he seeks a refuge that simply isn’t there. “Um, we were both at—”

  “How did she seem?” I interrupt, steering deliberately away from Sebastian’s secret for a second time. The strange, schismatic energy surrounding Peyton and Race—who have left enough space between them on the sofa to land a Black Hawk helicopter—intrigues me. As sure as I am that Peyton really wants to know the answer to her question, it also feels like she’s changing the subject to avoid discussing the party. When neither of them responds to me after a long moment, I ask again. “How was April when you left?”

  More silence, and this time Race shoots a look to Peyton that isn’t returned. My sister’s best friend leans forward to stub out her cigarette, offering a cryptic “Not very happy.”

  Moonlight glows against the pale skin of her face as she shoves her platinum tresses behind one ear and grabs for the pack of Camels sitting on the coffee table, and a wave of déjà vu crashes over me; it’s like Lia all over again as the sudden illumination reveals a dark, ugly bruise on Peyton’s jaw. I almost pounce. “Is that compliments of Fox, too?”

  “What?” Peyton glances up, startled, and then she covers the injury with her hand, shrinking back from the light instinctively. “No. What do you mean?”

  “Fox and Arlo got into a fight and we heard there was some collateral damage,” I explain judiciously, watching Race out of the corner of my eye as he puffs mechanically at his cigarette. “It’s part of the reason I’m worried about April.”

  “She didn’t have anything to do with that,” Peyton states restlessly. Then: “Wait, how did you hear about it?”

  “Lia told us.”

  Peyton shakes her head, lips pursed, annoyed at the lack of discretion. “Then she should have told you that Race, April, and I were all out in the hot tub when that whole thing went down. We don’t even know what it was all about, all right? One minute we’re having a good time, and the next minute those two drunk shitheads are trying to throw each other through a window. By the time we made it up to the porch, it was all over, and Arlo was on his way out the door.”

  “So what happened to your face?” It’s a pretty tactless question—but then, Peyton is a pretty tactless person, in my experience. Like the daughter of Regina George and Voldemort, she’s made a lifelong hobby out of inflicting her point of view on others, no matter how abusive or unsolicited it is. I’ve gone to school with her since kindergarten, and cannot remember the last time she was remotely nice to someone who wasn’t rich and/or popular.

  “Fuck off,” she answers promptly, living up to my low expectations. “Fuck all the way off.” Angling a glare at Sebastian, she shakes her head. “Honestly. What is he doing here? Why is he talking to me?”

  “Peyton.” Sebastian meets her gaze imploringly. “People were throwing punches at this party, and he’s worried about his sister. Just tell him what he wants to know and we can all fuck off, okay?”

  The girl doesn’t exactly signal her agreement, but neither does she hurl the ashtray at my head, so I repeat the question. “How’d you get hurt?”

  She doesn’t answer right away, taking her time lighting another cigarette while her boyfriend turns and stares daggers at her across the sofa. At last, in a sulky and almost accusatory voice, she says, “Ask April.”

  “I’d love to, but she’s not answering her phone.” My delivery is so smooth, I doubt that either of them can sense how pissed off I have suddenly become.

  Peyton shifts, her mouth twitching down at the corners. “She hit me, all right?”

  “Why?”

  “Because she fucking flipped out!” Peyton’s eyes flash, and she skewers me with that look that popular kids always have on hand for guys like me—that hateful who-gave-you-permission-to-exist? glare—and I can tell her tolerance of our exchange is reaching its true terminus. “How is it any of your damn business, by the way? Go out there and talk to her, if you’re so concerned with how she’s doing. Not that I can understand why you even give a shit. April doesn’t even like you.” She’s worked her way onto more familiar ground, now, sneering at me contemptuously. “She thinks you’re a freak. I mean, everybody thinks you’re a freak, but April talks about it all the time. She says you used to stalk her and Hayden.”

  “Is that why the party broke up so early?” Sebastian forces the conversation back on topic. I can’t tell if it’s because he’s afraid I’m going to lose control of myself—which I’m not, thank you, having endured far worse than Peyton’s weak game—or because he’s deduced, correctly, that my usefulness as an interrogator is finis. “Because April took a swing at you?”

  “Yeah,” Peyton confirms shortly. “Fox kicked Arlo out, and then April went psychotic, and it kind of put a damper on things, you know? You asked how April ‘seemed’ the last time I saw her? She seemed like a crazy fucking bitch who was trying to rip my head off my shoulders. So forgive me if I don’t re
ally give a crap what she’s up to or how she’s doing right now.”

  “You guys should’ve called me,” Sebastian admonishes Race blithely. “Jake Fuller was having a thing at his place, and it was totally wild. You could’ve come over there instead.”

  “We sorta weren’t in the party mood anymore.” Race speaks through locked jaws, as if the words hurt coming out.

  My ex-boyfriend gives a vigorous nod, playing dumb to the unfriendly mood that hangs in the air like smog. “So what’d you do?”

  “Came back here.” Race gazes off into the trees, black shapes in the darkness that obscure the view of nearby homes and offer the Atwoods a natural privacy screen. “My parents are with my sister in DC, so we’ve just been sort of chilling.”

  He won’t look at us, and I struggle to tell if this means he’s lying. Frankly, I can’t quite figure out why he’s answered the question at all; if it had come from my mouth, I’d have been lucky to get so much as a middle finger in response. But he isn’t acting as if he finds Sebastian’s interest odd or intrusive. It’s impossible to figure out if this is because he has nothing to hide or because he’s been rehearsing his story, waiting for the chance to provide it.

  On the other end of the sofa, Peyton gives a corroborating nod. “We should’ve just stayed here all night. You didn’t miss anything, trust me. Fox’s party sucked.”

  Her expression is a little too earnest to be entirely genuine, and the silence that follows her remark is choking. Something’s not right, but I can’t put my finger on it, and I can’t challenge their story without tipping my hand. If I bring up the drugs, they’ll go as cold as Lia did—colder, probably—and our conversation will be over; and there’s nothing I can say about the real reason we want them to account for their evening, because to do so would mean revealing everything we’re trying to cover up with this awkward Q&A in the first place. Sebastian saves me from a clumsy attempt at grilling them further by noting casually, “Lia said you guys were the first to leave.”

  “More or less.” Race shrugs. “Lia was still trying to calm April down when I took off. But she and Arlo passed me on the road before I made it to the causeway.”

  “I waited until she gave up, and then I followed after him,” Peyton chimes in cooperatively. “Arlo and Lia couldn’t have stayed behind long, though, because I wasn’t even back on Route 2 when they passed me.” She stabs her cigarette out with a vengeance. “Fucking Arlo was going, like, ninety—almost took off my side mirror. He’s gonna die on that bike.”

  There’s more silence, then, that oppressive sense of awkward discomfort building over the patio like a weather front. I’m all out of benign questions, out of ways to make my curiosity sound appropriate and nonthreatening, and they’ve barely told us anything of value. Desperately, I try, “How did Fox seem when you guys left? Was he still pissed about the thing with Arlo? Was he mad at April?”

  “Fox is mad at anybody who doesn’t kiss his ass,” Race retorts harshly, spitting out the name of his best friend as if it were poisonous, “but April knows how to handle him by now. She’s probably the only person he’s actually afraid of—her and Hayden.” Agitated, Race leans forward and snatches his cigarettes from the table, then slumps back against the cushions to light up. “Fox had his lips so far up Hayden’s ass tonight, he could’ve kissed the roof of the guy’s mouth.”

  Sebastian and I straighten up at the same time, but it’s my ex-boyfriend who follows through with the obvious question. “Hayden was at the party, too?”

  “Only for a minute.” Race’s expression turns abruptly serious, as though he’s afraid he’s just put his foot in his mouth. “Just to … pick something up.”

  He’s clearly talking about drugs—making Hayden one of Fox and Arlo’s customers. It’s a turn of events I should have seen coming … and yet I’m rigid in my seat, anyway, my eyes locked on the surly boy sitting across from me.

  When Race reached for his cigarettes, I caught a split-second glimpse of a dark stain on his right index finger—a dark red stain. His movement was too quick, the light too dim, for me to be certain … but it sure as hell looked a lot like blood.

  8

  Before I can come up with some subtle way of demanding to get a better look at Race’s fingers, Peyton jumps to her feet, instantly breaking the moment apart. “Well, I’m tired, and I’m sick of talking to you guys, so I’m going home.”

  She lingers for a moment, her eyes sweeping from one of us to the other, waiting for someone to challenge her; but I can’t think of any way to make her stay, and her boyfriend barely even spares her a glance. Silently, then, she turns and marches off into the shadows that loom near the gate. Race stands up the second we hear the latch release. “Look. The next time you want to ask stupid questions about Fox’s girlfriend? Just text me. And don’t bring him to my house again.”

  “Listen, man—” Sebastian starts, rising from his seat, but Race cuts him off.

  “I don’t know why you’re hanging out with this freak in the first place, Bash, but you should quit before people get the wrong idea.” He turns to me, then, drawing himself up to his full five foot nine—giving him the one extra inch he needs to glare down at me along the length of his pointy nose. “Next time you’ve got questions, just remember I don’t give a shit, butt-boy.”

  The pejorative is so ridiculous that I wouldn’t be able to take it seriously if he didn’t look like he was ready to punch my face off at the same time. At any rate, I’m more than ready to leave, and Sebastian and I reenact Peyton’s exit forthwith.

  The blond is nowhere to be seen when we return to the front of the house, but I don’t waste any time trying to figure out which way she’s gone. I’m tired of this snipe hunt for facts no one wants to give me. It requires more nerve than I’ve got left to keep acting like I don’t know that Fox is dead and lying in a pool of his own blood right now, and I can feel my karma spoiling the longer I try. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve lived up to my end of the bargain I struck with April, and I’m very much looking forward to washing my hands of the entire ordeal—and then drying them on a giant pile of money. Not to mention the fact that I am also starting to get entirely sick of being jerked around by people I despise.

  When I climb back into the Jeep, I slam the door so hard that the vehicle rocks. The motion stirs April who, lying across the backseat, appears to have rather improbably fallen asleep while we were in the Atwoods’ backyard. Snapping awake in an instant, she sits up and fixes me with an anxious look. “What did he say?”

  I don’t answer right away; I can’t. I’m too busy counting my breaths and fighting back the throbbing red mist that is stealing its way across my brain. It’s Sebastian who informs her, “Actually, it was they. Peyton was with him.”

  “Well, what did they say?” April rephrases, annoyed by the correction. “Did one of them do it?”

  “I don’t know,” I finally manage, speaking through my teeth. “They basically gave us the same story Lia did—Race left first, then Peyton, then Lia and Arlo together.”

  “But obviously one of them is lying,” she insists, and that’s when I finally lose it.

  “They’re all lying!” I explode, twisting around in my seat so I can murder her with my eyes. Rage sputters in my heart like hot grease in a pan. “You’re lying, April! Not a single person has told me the whole truth all night long. I almost got fucking shot for you, and it turns out you’ve been lying to me!”

  “I-I didn’t lie—”

  “Did you just forget to mention that Fox and Peyton hooked up tonight? That you went berserk on them? That you have a pretty damn obvious motive for wanting your boyfriend’s head on a fucking stick?”

  It was a guess—an educated one, but a guess all the same—and I receive my confirmation in the way April’s face goes first white and then crimson. Her mouth flaps open and shut a couple of times, and then she asks, with difficulty, “They told you about it?”

  “They didn’t have to. You left a b
ruise the size of Connecticut on Peyton’s jaw, Race will barely look at her, and Lia already said you and Fox were fighting about something,” I enumerate the evidence. “You should have told me, April. You should have fucking told me!”

  “If I had, you’d’ve just thought I was guilty!” She shouts back thickly. “Crazy, out-of-control April does it again, right? Fox cheats on me, so I stab him a hundred times? You’d’ve had no trouble believing that, because you hate my whole family—you always want to believe that we won’t do anything unless we know it’ll hurt somebody else! Admit it: If I’d told you about all this stuff back at the cottage, you wouldn’t have agreed to help me at all, because you’d’ve just figured I killed him.” Her blue eyes are wet and stormy. “I know how it looks. I didn’t tell you, because I didn’t do it.”

  “Well, let me just take your word for it, now that I know you’ve been hiding stuff from me all night long,” I retort weakly, the wind somewhat taken out of my sails by the fact that she actually has a point. If she’d admitted to me up front that she had such a compelling reason to be furious with Fox, I might easily have just dismissed her tearful claims of innocence as nothing but theater.

  Then again, maybe that’s all they are. Maybe accusing me of being eager to believe the worst in her is just the latest weapon in April’s ever-evolving arsenal of manipulations—preying on my guilt so I’ll second-guess my instincts and ignore my growing doubts. Is she that clever? Am I that gullible? Or am I so caught in my own mental cogwheels that I can no longer see what’s right in front of my face?

  Neither of us says anything more as Sebastian starts up the Jeep, pulls out of the Atwoods’ driveway, and heads along the curving street. Finally, April speaks again, her voice resentful and halting. “It didn’t happen tonight. I mean, them hooking up. It happened a few weeks ago. I guess.” She has her chin tucked down, so I can’t see her expression. “I only found out about it at the party, and, yeah, I went a little nuts. Fox can be a dick—could be a dick—” Her voice hitches and she stops, caught horribly on her mistaken use of the present tense, and when she looks up for a moment her eyes swim. Blinking, though, she forces herself to continue, “But Peyton’s supposed to be my best friend. I was furious. So I kind of … hit her in the face. With a bottle.”