POISONOUS AS HONEY

1: Reaction

Tammy Winslow leans on the balustrade of the bridge, her azure eyes apparently rapt with the port nocturnal lights as her long, blonde hair are caressed almost tenderly by the breeze .

She can hear the siren of a foreign ship in distance-it's long and deep sound, like lament.

It repeats itself two, three times.

When she was a child, Tammy remembers, there was no sweet taste she loved better than honey.
Every morning, for breakfast, Cassie left on their kitchen table toasted bread and whole a jar of honey – it was okay, because under her mother's watchful eye, she didn't dare too much.

But if she managed to get her little hands on the precious jar when she was all alone…. Tammy always ended up licking off her fingers more honey than her stomach could afford.

It's funny, because even if she knew since the very beginning how much she could eat of that sweet, dark liquid before feeling sick, but she still wanted more… and nausea inevitably followed.

So each time it occurred, Tammy would put on a brave smile when Cassie came back to home, ashamed to admit she couldn't eat dinner because the sight itself of food disgusted her. And in forcing dinner down her throat, she promised to herself it would be last time.

Today she is no longer a child and honey has lost most of its allure, but she finds out history has a disturbing way of following senseless patterns.

JB Huxley is this year' honey.

From the first time she has seen him, a little voice in her head whispered he was bad news, and nonetheless it was obvious she would give in to him. While he slowly, relentlessly seduced her in serving to him her virginity on a silver plate, a part of her knew it would end as bad as it could get.
Because she was so in love than she was falling too much too fast, already forgetting Joey like the crush he was been and because JB was just… dangerous in his volatile moods and sleazy smirks, with the gentleness he was not ashamed of sparing only for her. Tammy knew he would be capable of breaking her heart and forgetting about it in a week.

Yet she didn't care, because she feared missing something wonderful if she lost him to her self-consciousness.

She wanted JB was her first One- her first lover, since he was her first true love.

She chose him, and it didn't matter she knew him from only few weeks. She has fallen in love with the same innocent abandon of a child, who offered unconditional affection to a new friend the first day of school, for no deeper reason than seeing something worth of love in another person.

JB…has made her to feel daring, feminine and beautiful – was not it worth some risk?

Her first time is not been at all like she expected- it 's been better, a powerful and liberating experience… she thought she had read adoration in his eyes and she would do anything to hold on that. Even running away with him for some unknown destination on one moment's notice.

She cannot bear to think about it now, when there's no JB – there's never been, really- but only Jonathan Randall and his revenge.

While he was inside her, while murmuring how pure, untouched she looked, was he mocking her stupidity?

While JB encouraged her to be sure about what she wanted, has Jonathan laughed in the silence of his mind?

Every time she has confirmed her feelings for him, has he congratulated with himself for how much the truth would destroy her?

All what Tammy understands is that she cannot come back to home. Never again.

JB has offered a perfect dream to her, where she was not an helpless princess but a free and resilient heroine. Where she was beloved, respected for her bravery, her strength. It was all what she ever wanted.
But then the beautiful illusion was shattered with a crude cruelty more painful than unexpected.

Yes, she has known all along he could be cruel: Jonathan has not bothered hiding this from her. Simply, Tammy has trusted his ruthlessness wouldn't be ever turned on her.

What a fool.

She feels soiled now. All her faith in her judgment has vaporized the moment she has looked inside those dark, all-promising eyes and found nothing.

" Did you know? Did you know we were cousins? "

His silence, the shimmer of guilty anticipation in his gaze before bleakness swallowed that as well answered her better than anything he might have said.
But his expression was empty, indifferent. He was looking at her like if she was an object, not a person. Like if she wasn't any more significant than a stalk of celery.
Before the undeniable evidence of her error, she could attack him only with her fists.

"Do you want hate me? Go ahead! I'll hate you back twice as hard! "

Her assault might have forced him to truly see her, but Tammy wasn't shocked to discover the hot surging of his hatred didn't necessarily hurt her less than the cool bite of his indifference.

I wish you were dead.

Silly words uttered in anger. It wasn't nothing more than the fury of a child tricked into becoming a woman. He was supposed to give back something equally precious in turn for her innocence, but he has stolen it instead.

How she wanted to hate him, even enough to kill him!

But you cannot truly hate someone for not loving you back, even if your love isn't but a forgery.

She is the one who wants to be dead.

The dark waters call to her, inviting and silent.

She is afraid of dying, but ultimately she is more afraid of going on like this. Of seeing her family again.

The shame is too much…. How could she stand in front of her mom, Aunt Reva, Uncle Josh? Her other cousins?

They would look at her and see the signs of what she did, reading in her eyes all what she has felt when she laid underneath her cousin' s pliant body.

Something so dirty, ill-intentioned and just plain wrong has felt so right, so great…if Tammy closes her eyelids, the Jonathan's triumphant face grins to her.

She has tried scrubbing him off her skin, yet more she insisted on it, more the ghost of his hands haunted her.

Tammy stares the water below and wonders if drowning would be so much worse than facing another day of feeling so dirty, idiotic, useless… filthy, from inside out.

If she cannot summon enough energy for hating him, she will hate herself .

If she can't trust her heart, if she can't hold on her family, what else is left?

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