"Behind the Rich Wall: The Podcasts of Peyton Sawyer" by Caley, a.k.a. Cayster and Kid-Loves-Indie
Summary: The Untouchables, or Tree Hill's popular group, have been the most admired, loved, hated, and envied clique to ever exist within the walls of the school. But what happens when Peyton Sawyer unleashes the group's scandals and actual opinion of their peers? Eventual LP. Peyton centric. AU.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own "One Tree Hill" or its characters. I am not profiting from this piece of fanfiction, so please don't sue me.
The Prelude of Preludes:
Many people see what they want to see when they get a glimpse of me in the halls: a beautiful girl with lazy golden curls and enchanting hazel eyes that could catch any heterosexual guy's attention. They then assume that I'm happy, endlessly happy, and haven't a care in the world. I can't help but crack a bitter smile and let out a cynical laugh at their idealistic naivety and blind ignorance. After all, us "popular" kids have everything figured out. Some of us edging in on success's lime light earlier than our humbled peers could've hoped for for themselves. Where could we go wrong? Definitely not at home… or in school… or at the "most talked about" parties… or even on the pier where most of the drunken games led to see which rich prick or brain-dead jock had said "bigger balls" than their next comrade. Wow, envied we should be!
The secrets of Tree Hill's most desired, beloved, drooled-over, idiotically respected and feared people are finally going to be revealed. But I'm not just a quiet witness, I'm the person who's life you'll get a once in a lifetime, no holds barred, non-edited perspective from. My stories, my experiences. Sure I'll throw in a story or rumor in here or there for a clarification purpose, but mainly everything will be as if you were seeing things through my eyes while they're happening. I'll be tapping stories out of the safety behind the "Rich Wall" (much alike the Blue Wall that cops try to stand by). I may be presuming, but I'm sure many people are wondering why I'd do this: Am I seeking sweet vindication? Am I in a confessional, really confessing my sins to a priest? Do I actually have a heart? Well, yes on the latter even though many people would like to beg the differ. How can my story be worth hearing? For the simple enticing reason of me being the girl in one modern Romeo and Juliet twist. Some of you reading this will get it when I emphasize "the" in my description but others who didn't take the time to watch terrible teen movies of the 80s, 90s, and today won't. Therefore, I have to cover my bases so I won't leave anyone behind.
I'm sure everyone at some point in his or her life has liked, been infatuated with, or even as far as quietly but nevertheless utterly loved some person higher on the social totem pole or lower—so much lower that a person could've been too afraid of liking that person because it was expected of them to like someone of their stature... their friends expected it of them. But I'll get to that in a moment. Most of those cases were in high school, well, at least that's how it usually goes (teenagers are way too insecure), liked someone of higher appeal than themselves. But nonetheless, like every rule there's usually a last resort exception seen as the forbidden fruit of all reign and order of the cool… someone higher liked some lower instated person, and that person could only be and was your secret.
Going up on the totem pole in liking someone was more accepted. The nerds, geeks, freaks, loners, druggies, skaters, and lastly the wannabes were expected to like the girl or boy. More often than not, they did. The "social retards" of high school held the most pivotal point of the social ladder: they decided who was untouchable, who was cool, who was--and I laugh at this--seen as somebody rather than just the generic everybody.
For example, if a friend came up to the latest party host(ess) and asked them who came to their party, their friend would most likely say "Everybody"… but then name a specific "Untouchable" who showed up fashionably late, stuck around for a good half-hour out of respect for the free beer rather than the person, and then left hearing people a little out of their wits because of their alcohol indulgence whimpering about how they, the glorious Untouchable, was the life of the party, the hoss (or hottie, for the girls), the person who made it a socially acceptable party now that they showed up. They left with an even greater respect from their lowly peers.
The majority who believed they were nothing compared to the something were wrong: they were the Greeks, in respect to their government, of popularity. They, unbeknownst themselves of course, voted people in and out just by their compliments and flames of hatred toward specific people. So the nerd who tutored their "the girl," no matter how much it grossed the girl out, was seen as an unspoken compliment and sent other "Everybody's" to the polls; ergo, boosting the nerd's girl's popularity a little higher, especially if they were nice to him because everybody liked to see the Untouchables hospitable or okay with the nerd, for it was symbolically saying that an ordinary Everybody was cool or all right.
But when I say that the Everybody's could vote someone out just by their well-known hatred for a specific Untouchable is misleading. Just because the lower hated a certain higher did not demote the higher—the lower had to wait for the other highers to separate themselves from that despised higher, which rarely ever happened. And when I mean rarely, I really mean never happened but once every twenty years. But that twenty year mark did dawn on my class's senior year… though I need to stay on track of explaining rather than shedding at this point in time.
The Untouchable with the bad reputation though could lose cool points with the consensus though. Either by being extremely rude to the geek who helps him or her out in English, slightly bullying the lonely Freshman in the hall, or by playing emotional tricks with the girl or boy who thinks of them as the "the." But even though when an incompetent Untouchable lost all their points, their friends' loyalty to them, especially the honored and loved Untouchables, kept that hostile Untouchable remained exactly that, untouched.
Even though it seems like the Everybody's got the short end of the stick, but karma did come back in their favor. It happens almost as rarely as the Fall of an Untouchable, which is told like a joke through the ranks, it does come in an extreme matter: when an Untouchable decides to break the ranks, the accepted, the rules of every rule imaginable in high school. Though this entire circumstance may seem kind of overemphasized and comical, you have to realize that if an Untouchable did openly like someone not expected, not wanted, not indeed an Untouchable, that Untouchable became a helpless lamb in a lion's den. It's no wonder that an Untouchable hardly ever wanted to commit such a "betrayal" or an act of treason because they had everything to lose whereas that certain Whatshisname (or Whatshername if a self-obsessed dick saw past all of his awesomeness, which, I have to add, only happened once in the history of all Falls) had everything to gain.
That's why the mysterious loner with the intense blue eyes was the focal point of a certain hazel-eyed Untouchable ever since Freshman year and she never ever once spoken more than two unforced complete sentences per year out of fear that her fellow equals thought she was too friendly to an Everybody. That's why her nonchalant glances cast his way were always protected somehow, and those ways seem so silly now. One way was to make sure that either a clock or a jock was behind him so that if one of her friends, especially her best friend, and even the loner could shake the idea of her looking at him. That way they could simply believe that she wanted to know what time it was or initiate a total faux-attraction to that jock sitting behind him, who was usually a complete ass. Another way was to have a "deep in thought" look plastered on in his direction. The way to really seal the deal by using this trick was by furrowing her brows and looking pissed off then if one of her friends decided to sneak up on her, or if her wannabes, or handful of her "Ugly Frogs" (that's what the Untouchables decided to call the guys and girls who saw us as their "the girl or guy") peered over at her. This way, they all would be more interested in why she was perplexed and pissed off or what she was thinking about. But even though these tricks seemed pretty safe and witty, she knew she couldn't use them too often. If anything, she used one of the furtive tools a week. Why? Because if she wanted to know the time or talk about a certain guy each time she was looking in the guy's direction, it would seem fishy. Even though many of the vixen and vamped girls of the Untouchables seem to have low GPAs, they have an uncanny way of figuring out attractions and when someone is "in like" with someone else just by the subtlest of body language, voice influxes, and curious glances. It's as if they had hormone radar or at least a good intuition.
Now I know that many of you who can read in between the lines have already figured it out, I'm the girl who likes the guy supposedly "not good enough" for me. It wasn't that he lacked good looks, if anything, he was most likely the hottest guy in school. Now, many of you are wondering what the big deal is—at your school, if the guy is hot, he's probably popular, right? Well, in Tree Hill to be considered hot, you have to have three things.
The first wouldn't even really be yours, but your family's: money. If you had money, you were well on your way to become an Untouchable. How else would they get their alcohol and drugs? The second aspect would be something called the wonderful Letterman jacket. If you lettered, or at least were involved in a hell-raising, bleacher-filling, crowd-cheering sport, you get another notch on your belt. Sorry, the Chess team doesn't count. I know a lot of people bite their nails when watching the game and shout their lungs out, especially in some states, in Tree Hill you were just begging to get the shit knocked out of you. The last, and probably the most arbitrary one, was the fantasy factor. If you don't get my nudge-nudge wink-wink, let me help you out—you had to have at least the majority of the girls or the guys (depending on your sex) of the Everybody's to believe that you were worthy of a good fantasy sex dream. Meaning, if they could A.) be stuck in an elevator with you for seven minutes, they'd jump at the chance, B.) buy you at the annual Boy Toy auction or had the opportunity to buy a date or night with you, they would spend their life's savings, or lastly and the most telling of all C.) sell their soul to the Devil himself if they could have you in a utility closet all to themselves and you be willing and waiting, they'd go looking for Lucifer himself to get it. If you got all three or at least had two of the three qualities (preferably the first and last), you were made an Untouchable.
There was no formality to become one, it just happened. People would gawk at you if you passed them in the hall. The Untouchables of the opposite sex would start flirting with you shamelessly. Teachers let your questionable behavior slip even. You were royalty and now a benevolent tyrant whose every whim would be answered in some way, shape, or form. Now, if you held special favor among the right people, you could possibly get a copy of a certain set of keys that unlocked every single door in the school and your own personal nerd who just happens to have hacked into the system and knows exactly how to bump a grade here or there up without detection from a certain tight-ass teacher who decided to not care if you were an Untouchable or not. "Ethics over money" was probably their personal favorite motto. I bet you're also wondering why the heck an Untouchable would want keys to the building if they had an Everybody doing all of the work over a computer. Well, many Untouchables were sex-addicts. You can let your mind run off and imagine why the keys were so important.
Even though many Ugly Frogs would write me many notes vowing that if I ever needed a hacker that they would be honored if I chose them, I must say—in a very amazed way—that I never took them up on that offer GPA wise. I suppose that's another reason why each time I IMed that willing-hacker that night after asking an Untouchable that used to associate with them in junior high for their screen-name (after I lied about my plans to tease the U.F.) and thanking them for their offer after a pop quiz to make sure that it was indeed me, Peyton Elizabeth Sawyer, whom they were speaking to that my popularity seemed to grow. I suppose going the extra mile, even if it wasn't face to face, to talk to them and give them my gratitude sat really well with the Everybody's. More and more offers seem to pile in my locker after the whispers of what I was doing mulled around the rumor-mill for a day or two. Many of the U.F.'s were serious, others not so much, most of them were probably just a test to see if I would actually IM them. I could smell out the rats—meaning the notes that came from other Untouchables' nerds who were just testing out the waters to see if I was actually breaking the social martial law that was in place since the beginning of Tree Hill High. Somehow, I came out unscathed from the IMing scandal, which came to be a legend slowly but surely after my Freshman year. But the U.F.'s of my class seem to swear that it's not a legend, and show any underclassman who have the "hots" for me the copies of our conversations that they saved onto their hard-drives.
Still, my tyrant-esque title was lifted like a few predecessors before me, Karen Roe for example, because we were seen not as a user or a tease who got enjoyment out of torturing people emotionally and mentally. We didn't laugh if someone tripped in the hall or dropped their books. I suppose we didn't even make disgusted looks when we found out that yet another Everybody liked us. Even though I wanted to be pleased by hearing this, I knew it was a double-edged sword that could be used against me as much it worked for me. My fellow Untouchables would see me as a Miss Goody-Two-Shoes, and we all know that no one wants to live with that title among their equals. So I decided that if I didn't have the bile to hurt others, I would only harm myself. No, I'm not a cutter, a drug-addict, or an emo (though a lot of people like my rebellious nature, so they deemed me "punk" to an extent). My medicine was to party hard. I bet a lot of you are laughing when I say this, but when I mean hard, I mean harder than everyone else—more than the jocks and the "tortured" richies, who just got wasted so they could forget the pressures of making daddy proud someday. I didn't want to, but I did it so that particular clean-cut image of me wouldn't be there any longer. Yes, I wanted to be seen as a nice girl, but I didn't want to be seen as too clean or pure. Let's say that I just let that title stay there, right where it was, and didn't try to change it. Then I wouldn't be good enough for the Untouchables. Why? Every Untouchable had a noticeable weakness or "indulgence" and if I didn't have one like everyone else, I might as well be asking for separation. They'd clean house so fast that I would be an Everybody by the end of the week.
I suppose you can say that I'm just following suit like every Untouchable since the start of it all. I had lose the "just swell" image to still be what I didn't really earn. Like with my best friend, Brooke Davis, her way of edging out of being the Girl Next Door was to be easy. She was pressured into it by her older sister (each new Untouchable got a senior who would help them learn the ropes and rules of being a Somebody) and Brooke's old sister was the most vicious of all the Untouchables. Her name was Becky Stewart, the most beautiful, the most wanted, the most lusted, the most "the'd" girl, but I bet she also had the most STDs as well. Supposedly, Becky was seen as the Girl Next Door during her Freshman year as well, so many thought that Brooke having Becky as an older sister would help her with her current undesirable attribute: she was seen as too touchable to be an Untouchable. The GND is said to be the hardest title to clear your name of because every guy seems to think that the GND is attainable because 1.) he's known her all her life, 2.) she's in a close enough proximity of him, 3.) she's sweet and beautiful, 4.) classic. Guys have been fed that the GND is within grasp, you just have to win her over. Ergo, a big problem for an Untouchable.
I have to say that Brooke was the GND and I was slightly Miss GTS, and I didn't see anything wrong with that, but after getting the taste of elitism and loving it, I did everything and anything to keep it. So did Brooke. So Becky told Brooke exactly what to do: to throw herself at her the guy. He happened to be Becky's ex-boyfriend. Becky knew this of course, but urged that Brooke go along with the plan. So the next exclusive Untouchable party, Brooke did as she was told—she threw herself at him. He didn't think twice, to say the least. The next morning, I found Brooke in the most blank and broken state. She has never spoken about the night, even with me. I guess we have all of our secrets. The next time we were at school, her the guy was telling a few of the Untouchable guys all the intimate details, which embarrassed and hurt Brooke beyond all reckoning, but with Becky by Brooke's side telling her she better love the attention, Brooke did like all of us have done, did as she was told. For the whole year Brooke took further and further steps from her virginity, and every Untouchable knew all about the details because tapes, audios, and photos started to leak out. But unlike the state I found Brooke that one morning after, she lapped the attention and gossip up, just like Becky told her. She became the newest piece of Eye Candy and possibly, this was rumored of course, became the most wanted girl in school, surpassing her own old sister.
I'm going to assume that a few of you are wondering that if she was so easy, wouldn't that defeat the purpose of being an Untouchable? Ironically, no. You see, she only slept around with the richest, the most athletic, and the most fantasized Untouchables. In a very symbolic way, those bedmates and her actions were saying that she wasn't just sleeping way anyone, but the best of the best. A fucking brilliant plan that Brooke is instilling into her younger sister, Cassie Thomas, who, like Brooke, had a GND image and who is starting to practice Becky's planned out steps, which have finally been scribed and bound for a few girls' desensitization and disillusionment every four years.
My older sister was Becky's best and considerably dimmer friend, Danielle Jacobs. She happened to be a Karen Roe fanatic, to say the least, so hearing that I was like the legendary Karen Roe made her want me as her little sister immediately, no questions asked. To show how hardcore Dani (that's what all of the Untouchables called her, but the Everybody's could only call her Danielle) was with Roe-ology, she went as far as dating the star basketball player, much like K-Roe (as she called her) in her time. In a very twisted way, that happened to be Nathan Scott, Dan Scott's son. Dan Scott was the star player of the Ravens Basketball team and boyfriend of Karen Roe herself, which definitely got my older sister off. Nathan was in my grade and was the half-brother of a certain mysterious blue-eyed loner, Lucas Scott, who was also in my grade and none other than Karen Roe's son, despite how the last name might say the contrary. Dani found this out by accident because when she was getting smashed with Nathan one night after he and his father got into a fight, he drunkenly let it slip that Lucas was his half-brother, who's mom was his dad's high school love. Like the crazed-fan of K-Roe she is, Dani did the math and came out with a telling conclusion. Dani didn't tell anyone this but me for some reason… not even Becky. She mumbled something that Becky would use it against Lucas, and Dani couldn't have that, not if she was a hardcore K-Roe fan. I suppose that's when I started to really notice Lucas…
Yes, he was in my classes but that doesn't mean you really take the time to notice someone who you feel is your inferior (sad to say, but you all know it's true). I knew who he was, but the reason he was considered a loner and a loser was because of the fact that no one really knew too much about him or his family other than his friend, Haley James. So epic tales of following him home to so many ghastly places started to churn the rumor-mill, like all the other outrageous gossip stories that made this school buzz. Lucas didn't say anything to deny any of the stories, but his Tutor-Girl friend, Haley, definitely did. Though right when she was about to spill the beans as to where Lucas actually lived, she stopped herself and it must've took all the energy within her to not actually tell because the fiery look in her eyes definitely told all the bystanders that she wanted to tell everyone just to smite us all. I envied her at that moment because she knew something that I didn't about him, and I wanted to know so badly because it was one more piece of information I could know about him that wouldn't seem too fishy or out of place for me to know. And even then, that still made him overlooked by all of the Untouchables, except for Dani maybe. But his mysteriousness drew me in, in a very mesmerizing way.
Dani was the first to blatantly state what I would've never said out loud even if I was in the confinements of my home with only Brooke, but I suppose Dani never really cared about what the rules said about liking an Everybody: that he was gorgeous. She used to say that "All she was doing was looking, not touching, which is many, many times better than actually touching." So I went along with it, after all, she was my older sister who was showing me the ropes. I guess that's why I stepped on so many Untouchables toes after Becky's and Dani's class graduated, I had an older sister who bent the rules a little and she passed that on down to me.
Anyways, every time Dani and I went out (she always drove because I didn't have my license yet I'm still only fifteen at this point), she would drive down to the River Court so she could catch a glimpse of Lucas who was always there it seemed, but moreover because she wanted to see if K-Roe would be there cheering him on. Every time, she was disappointed but she still took great enjoyment out of it because she thought that Lucas was surely a looker with a great ass. I used to laugh when she said that, and she would look over at me and smile. Sometimes I was afraid that she knew that Lucas was the guy for me because, like I earlier mentioned about certain Untouchables knowing who liked who, Dani was the best. Perhaps that was the reason that she showed me the River Court and drove past it so many times when we were hanging out… because she knew I liked him secretly. Though all the times she said how great or "DDG" (Drop Dead Gorgeous) he looked, I never once agreed openly. I was always paranoid that Becky would pop out from behind a bush with a camera and start squawking about how it was all a test and that I am going to meet my end as an Untouchable. Sometimes I wished that would actually happen—that Dani was scamming me and I would just openly shout it out that Lucas Scott was the guy for me. But Dani was too genuine to do something like that; she strived to be Karen Roe and she knew that K-Roe would never do something so horrible. So I knew I could trust Dani.
Finally, the last time that Dani and I would be "penciled in" to hang out (there were a certain amount of girl nights that an older sister and a younger sister had to meet up a semester), Dani yet again drove by the River Court. Like usual she mentioned how DDG he was and how he had nice abs, I finally just let it all out—I blushed. I know, I know, that sounds incredibly cheesy, but it was the first time I had ever seen him with his shirt off, and I must say that it was he had the best body out of all of the Untouchables. Dani didn't miss a beat because she started laughing animatedly.
"I knew it! I knew it!" She squealed as she started clapping, taking her hands off the wheel. "Oh, Peyton, I just knew it. The way you looked at him when you thought that no one else was watching. Aw, it was the cutest thing ever!"
All the color in my face fled from it, I had been found out. Dani must seen my ghostly appearance, and started to reassure me. "Oh don't worry, Peyton. I won't tell anyone. Hell, I didn't tell anyone that Lucas was K-Roe's son after all—and that secret about K-Roe was so hard to hold in."
My mouth was slightly open, still not really sure that I wouldn't be picked on for my liking. "You promise you won't tell anyone? I really can't believe I did that. It was, it was—"
"Peyton," Dani said slowing down so she would be able to look at me without worrying about the winding roads of Tree Hill at a moderate speed. "Why would I tell anyone? You didn't tell anyone all the times I said the boy was DDG—now that would've gotten me in a rock and a hard place if there ever was one."
"But you're Becky's best friend, nothing would've happened to you." I spat a little miffed at myself for ever letting my hormones get out of check.
Dani laughed a little too bitterly. "Riiight, I'm Becky's best friend. Shit, Becky would disown me quicker than I could say Karen Roe Scott, which it should be in my opinion, but that's besides the point. Becky changed so much when she became an Untouchable. Sure there are qualities about her that will never change, but her compassion, her loyalty, and her trust are shot to hell now." Dani turned the radio all the way down and continued her rant. "Y'know last year, I actually told her that I didn't know if I wanted to be an Untouchable anymore and all she said to me was 'Shut the hell up, I don't want to be known as an Everybody's best friend.' Ha, some best friend."
This new, unheard of information made my mind turn. "Then why do you call her your best friend?"
At this point, Dani just parked the car at an ice cream shack. She unbuckled her seat belt and I could tell that she was thinking of the right words to answer my question. "Let's just say that we're bygones—if she calls me her best friend, l call her mine. If she wants to act like a total bitch, she's going to meet my bitchy side. As soon as she chose to take this shit seriously, I had to let her go. But she knows better than to double-cross me, I have way too much dirt on her and everyone else for that matter."
So that's when I learned that life as an Untouchable wasn't going to be peachy keen. If anything, I signed up for a twenty-four-seven job without even knowing it. I wouldn't be able to go to school scrubbing, I couldn't be seen just talking to anyone for any reason, and I sure as hell wouldn't be able to let my guard down. Dani was opening a whole new chapter for me that seemed to fill in the missing piece of the puzzle: the catch.
But as Dani and I got up out of the car, she looked over at me with a sad expression in her usually lively eyes that I knew that would come. That I would have to forget about the guy.
Later on, she let me in on another secret as she slid her BMW into my driveway and I got out of her car.
"You want to know something?" Dani asked with this allure as my window buzzed down.
She didn't wait for an answer.
"She liked an Ugly Frog back." It rolled off her tongue as if it was ordinary banter—unleashing secrets.
I didn't have to ask her who because I knew that she was talking about Becky. I shut my door and then leaned my elbows against the open window, ducking my head in the car again.
"What?" I asked before I had time to really grasp why she was telling me this.
Dani winked her eye. "Just in case." And she then she started to pull out of the car, and I quickly pulled my head out of her car.
"Just in case," I whispered to myself in amazement.
I didn't know that she was giving me leverage, a bargaining chip-- a silencer. That was the last time I hung out with Dani. It wasn't that she didn't want to hang out with me or that I didn't want to hang out with her, it was because if she was seen hanging out with me more than she had to, Becky would start getting nervous about Dani shooting her mouth off with someone she trusted.
The only piece of advice I got from Dani to get rid of my Miss GTS persona was to "not jump off a bridge." I thought she meant to not jump off the pier like all the other Untouchables when they're involved in the drunken games, so I didn't. That piece of advice seemed to do more for me than expected—she wasn't being specific to that or anything else, but very generic... which in and of itself goes against everything the Untouchables are taught by their older sisters or brothers, that something generic is something worthless. And then I understood why Dani was superficial in front of the others, but real with me. She wanted to piss them off. To say the least, many of the Untouchables were very intelligent and brilliant (even if their GPAs weren't grand—they blamed it on the institutionalization of high schools and the standardized testing that doesn't reach across and help the students anymore), so when I first met Dani, I was kind of put off by the fact that someone very idiotic and flat could be apart of them. But after getting to know her on those drives, I slowly found the reason. To beat everyone else at their own game while being something they're not and hate. Dani really thought that she was apart of the Everybody's while the Everybody's were really the Untouchables. She used the card the other Untouchables were too afraid to use—the Faux-Opossum one, if that makes any sense. To clarify what Faux-Opossum means that she pretended to be something that she's not because she was defying them and the elite knew it, especially Becky because of what Dani confided in her before. And like the good older sister Dani was, she passed it down to me, like I earlier mentioned. She was the most awe-inspiring, brilliant, and freaking amazing of them all. Dani was a genius. And what completely surprised everyone in the school was that she became the Valedictorian of '02. (She lied about her GPA throughout the years.)
When summer came around, I was out and about with Brooke like never before. I finally turned sixteen and, in turn, got my drivers license.
Dani called me up one day and told me to meet her at the pier. When I got there, she was already there and she looked better than ever. It was probably because all of the worries of high school and popularity and fitting in were now thrown to the wind and college awaited her— something new before her.
Unlike all the other times I met up with her, I could sense that this wasn't meant for enjoyment or fun, but a good ol' sit down. She asked me how I was, genuinely interested, and let me in on what her plans were for college since, like her GPA, she kept it a secret throughout the school year.
"Well," Dani started as she leaned her back against the cool metal railing as to not look full on at the sun. "I called you here to give you some more advice."
I kicked a lonely chipped piece of wood off the pier and watched it fall to the depths of the sea. "About my Miss Goody-Two-Shoes problem? You told me to 'not jump off a bridge,' remember? " Smiling at how retarded sounding that was.
"No, something that I should've told you at the beginning of the year," she said with a tone of urgency I knew to take seriously. She didn't say it right away because like her usual Dani-self, she chose her words carefully. After a few long seconds of nothing but the crashing waves and the lulls of seagulls, Dani finally spoke again. "Peyton, I don't want you to turn out like Becky or," she laughed cynically, "me even."
She faced me now with brows furrowed, much like my 'Deep in Thought' face. "The reason I wanted to be your older sister is because you were said to be like Karen Roe."
I started to laugh, "Yeah, I know! You're a total fan of her… you don't have to explain why."
Dani started to shake her head as if I wasn't getting it. "No, no, no. Peyton, that's not it." She looked down at the sea, a little exasperated. "I chose you because I knew that Karen Roe never wavered from who she was... What I'm trying to say is that Karen didn't change simply to fit in or stay true to the most idiotic rules—she did it because she always changed for the better."
I didn't quite get what she was implying. I'm not a big wiz when it comes to ambiguity. "What? She changed because she thought this—whatever it is—was better?"
"No, just listen!" Dani gently said, simmering down a bit. She must've really wanted me to know this because she wasn't giving up on my confused state. "Karen didn't change to get rid of a title that someone threw at her. Actually, she never tried to get rid of it at all. People called her Miss Goody-Two-Shoes all the time, but she knew how to hit them just the right way with a comment to make them back off. Karen was dangerous to all of the Untouchables in some way.
"I'm sure that's throwing you for a loop—if she was dangerous, then why did they not strip her of that persona? I suppose it was more of how they didn't like how she made them feel. K-Roe was good and they weren't. If anything, she was the ideal Untouchable because she was out of everybody's reach, even theirs. Calling her that was there way of feeling some sort of power and dominion over her even if it was something as petty as a name."
I would be lying if I said that that concept didn't hit me like a ton of bricks. Now, at this moment I knew Dani was like a voice of reason to let me in on some very helpful information. She was like my Lester Bangs to my William Miller (Almost Famous people, rent it).
She could see the amazement all over my face and then she flashed me the truest smile I had ever seen dance across her lips yet. Dani knew that her story was giving me a new hope—my wild partying habits could finally go away like the migraines that met me the morning after.
"How do, how—" I started to ask, but she beat me to the punch.
"How do I know this?" Dani smiled again, a very coy smile. "My older sister somehow got her hands on Karen's diary. She didn't really say how it came to be, only that her older sister gave it to her. My god, you haven't read anything until you read that! You think I'm a mastermind, you need to fucking take a glimpse into that journal and you're going to feel as if the morning is dawning on you in a whole new light."
I smiled in a very sober way. "I see why you practice Roe-ology after all."
Then she swung her messenger bag around and started to look through it until she looked up at me with that coy smile in place again. Dani didn't say another word as she slowly slid the tattered, coffee-stained, and I guessed tear-stained notebook out of her bag and handed it to me.
I dumbly shook my head as she shoved it into my hands. "I can't, I mean this is yours—you freaking love her, you should have it."
"What was my job as your older sister? To show you the ropes, and that is what I'm finally doing. I'm fulfilling my duty finally. This diary will help you more than it will me when I'm sitting in my dorm up at Dartmouth." That's when she hugged me. It was the first time she hugged me so I was taken aback.
She held me at arms length as she told me, "You're my only hope for Operation: K-Roe to still be instilled every four years, kid."
Suddenly, I felt all alone. I wasn't going to have Dani helping me anymore. This was her way of taking the training wheels off and letting me shred it up on two wheels, on my own. "I don't know if I'm strong enough. I'm not as smart as you."
Dani started to laugh, "No, you're not," and the look on my face made her laugh even harder, "but you're instinctive."
"What if I don't know what to do—what if I get in this big shitty situation where I can only get out of with a terribly brilliant plan? Huh, what am I going to do then? Read a book almost twenty years old and it will magically give me an answer?" I was freaking out, to say the least.
She shook her head in a very 'it's okay' manner. "If you can't think of something with that gut of yours, then flip through the pages and just read…" Right when I thought that was all she was going to give me as a help key, she continued on. "Also, I took the liberty of writing my number in the cover. If you really need to talk or scheme, you know how to reach me."
My fears were being soothed now. I wasn't just going to be thrown head first into the lions' den on my own—I had Phone a Friend with me.
"All right," Dani breathed out as she smiled over at me in a very proud, but reserved way. "I gotta go, kid."
"Okay," I replied with a painful lump in my throat. Whether I would've guessed it or not, I was going to miss Dani. Yeah, she didn't do me much good when I was getting as drunk as hell when she could've been giving me this notebook all along, but I suppose that's initiation and good espionage all wrapped up in one. All those drives were good memories to me and she slowly began to show me the way: to be me and not some image the others wanted me to be.
As she walked off, Dani stopped a few feet away. "Remember, don't jump off any bridges. You got a noggin, y'know?" She began to turn around and make her way, but stopped as if she just remembered something. "On another note, when you look at yourself in the mirror, make sure that you see someone you're okay with." And on that, Dani left.
That would be the last time I would see Dani face to face.
Well, I've only touched upon the bases and that was only Freshman year, believe it or not. Don't worry! I'm not going to take you through all of my hellish high school years, just Senior year from now on out. Some of the stories will be enjoyable, some will be sad, some will be seductive, and some will be despicable. That's life, and I live in one of the towns where money, booze, drugs, and sex thrive. You want to know the details, stick around for my next podcast.
So this is Peyton Sawyer, and no, I'm not trying to make waves… just tsunamis.
Author's Notes:
Okay. Haha. Right, what to say? Well, this is something I've never done but always wanted to: have a very rebellious/heroic/non-archetypical character and a dark AU story. I'm kind of like a fish out of water, to tell you the truth. I'm not a dramatic person (hopefully my writing says the contrary) and I don't get involved in drama. I am a high school student though, and with that, I hope that this story will seem authentic in at least that area.
I have plans for this story, unlike my few multi-chapter stories. I just wrote what I felt should've been written in those rather than having a game plan, which is careless since I'm a very lazy person without a course of action. So I have the highest hopes for this story and I will definitely enjoy writing it. Obviously I will since I only expected that the prelude/opening chapter to be five pages and it ended up being 12. I just couldn't stop at a specific point without losing some much needed background to help explain Peyton's future actions, tales, and scandals.
If you've read a story of mine before, then you probably know that I'm a hardcore Lucas and Peyton fan. This story is also a LP fic, but you won't get any goods for a few chapters. Of course there will be some brooding on Peyton's part, but that's the diet. So you've been forewarned to sit tight! Lol.
Also, this is an AU story. Meaning, alternate universe… in other words, I have changed a few key events, and you've seen some in the prelude (if you have any questions or concerns, then please don't keep those to yourself, PM me or review me, whichever you prefer) and you'll see some more in the coming chapters.
Okay, I just want to say thanks to those who read this. I'm sure it will only be a handful since it's lengthy. Again, I apologize if the length was unbearable. But still, thank you for sticking it out, but like I said earlier, I couldn't stop myself.
I hope you all decide to look out for this story in the future for updates and the works. I appreciate everything from your reading, to your support, and—if you hold this story with some favor—your reviews! Lol. I would love to hear what you think of this story so far.