Not an Addict by K's Choice.
Honey found herself on the stone steps in front of her house, holding her head as she held a joint to her lips with trembling fingers. She still had traces of blood caked onto her split knuckles and it made her stomach roll with revulsion, but she couldn't scrub hard enough to get it all off.
The look of confused hurt on Kip's face when she had fled was flashing through her head like a neon sign. She wished she could redo everything she had done since she woke up. Skip the shower and sneak out of the dorms undetected, screw Gemma's cleanup orders. Cherry would never have suspected anything and she never would have fought her.
The disappointment in Chibs' eyes made it's way to the forefront of her mind. Him crouching over Cherry's bloody, broken nose as Half Sack hauled her away like a criminal. She hated herself in that moment.
A long exhale dragged itself from her still body, sending a small puff of smoke out and blowing her hair slightly. "I'm a fuck up." She mutters miserably, clasping her hands behind her neck and bowing her head, rocking slightly on the edge of the step.
"No more than any of the rest of us." Jax's voice calls out from the sidewalk, making her head raise just enough to see him through the thick, brown curtain of her hair.
"I disagree." You don't know every mistake I've made. Her head drops back down only to be lifted a moment later by a finger beneath her chin.
"You need help, Honey." His voice was uncharacteristically soft and it brought unwilling tears to her eyes.
As she blinks away the offending droplets, she whispers, "I know. But I don't know if I can do it."
"You hold so much inside, I'm surprised your head hasn't exploded yet. Secrets aren't good, Honey. They always come out and make things worse." His arm wraps around her like a warm blanket and she leans into him instinctively.
"No one would gain anything by knowing my secrets, Jax." She swallows hard, forcing herself to take a deep breath despite the tightened, aching force on her chest.
"It isn't about gaining or losing anything. You have to deal with your shit, Honey. You can't just push everything aside and forget it until it has you tossing and turning, crying yourself to sleep." His blue eyes bore into his sister's, his fingers gently rubbing her bicep. "I know you have way more shit on your shoulders than any of us could even imagine. You need to talk to someone."
His fingertips gently move her arm away from where it was clutching her stomach, the material of her dress wrinkled and bunched up from her fist. "There's nothing to talk about. Shit happened, it's over."
"Honey, listen to me." He waited for her eyes to meet his before continuing. "You're my baby sister, I don't want to lose you. The longer you keep this on your mind, the more I feel like you're slipping away."
"I'm sorry." She whispers the words, her head drooping as her hand drops to the step to snuff out her joint.
"Talk to me, sis." He watches her, smoothing her tussled hair away from her face.
"Tara put me on Xanax again." She says after a moment, fidgeting with the hem of her dress.
Jax nods slowly, lighting a cigarette and blowing the smoke out towards the warm sun. "Is it helping?"
"I try not to take it unless I get really bad." She mumbles, then sighs. "It helps though. I just don't want to depend on it to make me okay."
"Good..." He kisses Honey's forehead gently, making her smile softly as his stubbly cheek tickles her. "Come on, we'll go for a ride."
He helps her up off the step and she trails along behind him down the sidewalk, back to his house where he had left his bike.
o-o-o-o-o
"Is what she said true?" Cherry asks quietly from the edge of the bed, her head down as she plays with the dog collar tag on her bracelet. "Were you with her?"
"Cherry...it's a long story." He looks down at his scuffed boots, his fingers hooked into his belt loops.
"Tell me, then." Cherry's eyes meet his as he lifts his head and sighs. I owe her an explanation...
"As soon as she turned 18 and I got patched in, I was going to make her my old lady." He forced himself to swallow as he pushed back the memories of her when she was still happy. "She begged me before we went to Nevada, you know? She told me she didn't care if I slept with anyone else as long as I told her."
"But you didn't sleep with anyone..." Cherry frowns, looking up at the man in front of her in a new light. "Did you?"
"No. But that night in the hospital, she saw us kissing. That was proof enough I guess because she was crying outside the door when I left. I was angry with myself for doing it and I took it out on her, told her she was a child and could never connect to me the way I want. That I fucked her constantly to maintain some semblance of a relationship since I felt like I couldn't talk to her."
Cherry's mouth drops open wider as she shakes her head slowly. "All this time, I thought she was trying to steal you from me...I had it backwards." Her shoulders slump slightly as she sighs. "That poor kid..."
Half Sack stays quiet, his head down as he realizes how much of this situation is his fault. If he had just kept it in his pants earlier, or even left Honey alone last night, maybe she wouldn't have run off to do God knows what. The memory of the vivid blue, fingerprint-shaped bruises on her pale thighs flashed through his mind.
Cherry watches him a moment then murmurs, "Do you still want her?"
"It doesn't matter what I want, I can't have her." He sighs, running his fingers through his hair in aggravation.
Cherry looks down at her hands, twiddling her fingers together as she makes up her mind to do what she should've done from the beginning.
o-o-o-o-o
Jax wound up dropping Honey off at the home of one of her acquaintances, a friend of Justin's. He seemed a little skeptical, but she gave him a soft smile and kissed his cheek, reassuring him that she'd be back before midnight.
The lie rolled so easily off her tongue she nearly believed it herself until she turned and saw the skinny blonde waiting for her on the porch. Leah Matthews was the one who had introduced her to Justin and she knew she could depend on her for a party.
"Hey, Lee. You have some clothes for me?" Honey raises one eyebrow at the older girl and Leah smiles, blowing a small bubble with her gum.
"Of course, c'mon in, Honey Bee." Honey follows Leah into the small, white house as Jax's bike fades off into the distance. "When are you going to hook me up with your brother?"
"As soon as you hook me up with Kurt Cobain." Honey responds sarcastically, rolling her eyes as she belly flops onto Leah's water bed and lets the waves rock her gently.
"Well someone had their bitch-mix for breakfast today." Leah smirks as she combs through her closet and tosses a dress at Honey's still body. "Wouldn't have anything to do with a certain skinny whore, would it?"
"Maybe. How do you know the skinny whore?" Honey asks, then sighs. Cherry had gotten a job at the salon in town where Leah did nails. "Oh. Right. You work at Joy's with her."
"Mmhm." Leah hums in confirmation as she watches Honey strip. "Rumor has it you were fucking her man and she got pissed."
"Where's this rumor from?" Honey rolls her eyes, pulling the black minidress on and turning so Leah can zip it up her back.
"Straight from the whore's mouth." Leah pats Honey's ass teasingly. "I never would've guessed our little Honey Bee liked older men."
"How many people know?" Honey frowns, turning to face her as she fumbles in her bag for the bottle of Xanax. She had a feeling she'd need it before this conversation was over.
"As far as I know, just me. But she was real pissed off last time I saw her." Leah shrugs, then smiles as she sees Honey pop one of the little pills. "Ooh, let me have one of those!"
Before she can protest, the pills are out of Honey's hand and Leah is swallowing two dry. "Those are prescription..."
"I'll give 'em back, J always has some extra." Leah shrugs nonchalantly and grabs the overstuffed makeup bag from her dresser top. "Now let me make you pretty."
o-o-o-o-o
An hour later, Leah pulled up outside of Justin's house and smiled at Honey. "Ready to have some fun tonight?"
"Hell yes." Honey grins as she checks her reflection in the rearview mirror, fluffing her curly hair before getting out and walking up the steps to the door. Leah is close behind her, scoping the party out already.
Honey could see Justin on the makeshift dancefloor, a skinny, dark haired girl grinding her ass against him while he chugged whatever was in his cup. She couldn't stop the eye roll as she walks into the kitchen and grabs a bottle of vodka from the stash under the cabinet. Typical, I don't show up for a few nights and I'm out.
It probably would have hurt if she cared just a little more about the blonde boy, but he had only been an escape. Now she needed a new escape, especially if what Leah said about Cherry was true and she did spill the beans about the Princess and the Prospect. One last night before it all went to shit.
She spent the first few hours dancing, drinking, and having fun before she retured to the kitchen for a break. Most of the party goers had moved outside by this point so the kitchen was mostly empty.
As she pressed her glossy, candy pink lips to the rim of the bottle, she heard a voice to her left. "Elizabeth Teller. Long time no see."
The cocky, ridiculously silky voice sent shivers of terror down her spine as she turned to face the stocky man. Her nightmares flashed through her mind quickly, each one making her cringe as she sees the carefree smirk on his lips. He hadn't changed much, his dark hair was buzzed short now instead of the wild curls he used to have and he had a few days worth of stubble on his jawline.
She swallowed hard, waiting for the panic to set in. It never did. She felt like she was floating, but she didn't know if it was the pills or the alcohol doing it. "You know that isn't my name." Her voice sounded far away, like it came from someone else entirely. It wasn't what she had planned on saying either.
He laughed at her. A deep laugh from his belly that told her just how insignificant he thought she was. "Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot, the biker princess doesn't like her first name, does she?"
Her legs felt sluggish as she tried to turn and walk away only to be pulled against his chest. She could feel his hot breath on her neck as he pulls her away from the kitchen, into one of the guest rooms just down the hallway. She tries to push him away, her arms feeling more like spaghetti than flesh and bone, but she's powerless as he shuts and locks the door behind them. She stares at him, her vision feeling slightly blurry as she thinks to herself, 'this is it. every nightmare I've had since that night, it's going to come true.'
He chuckled once more as he shakes his head at her. "I've waited 4 long years for this, slut." His rough hands shoved her back onto the mattress, making her gasp softly as she tries to sit up only to be shoved back again. The second time, she can't muster the energy to get up again.
His hand traveled up her inner thigh until it brushed the lace of her thong and he smirked, kneeling on the bed between her askew legs. "What's wrong, did the little princess lose her fight?" His hands tugged roughly on her dress, tearing the lace covered polyester easily and tossing it to the floor. Honey lay before him in only her thong, her arms crossed over her stomach as if she were a corpse in a coffin, her eyes staring up at the ceiling as if she were lost in an entirely different universe even as tears streamed down her cheeks, leaving grey smudges as her eyeliner ran.
She could feel him against her. The sound of a zipper being pulled open reached her ears and she sluggishly tried to kick him away, realizing that somewhere along the way she had lost her heels. He grabbed her legs, pinning them beneath his much larger body and muttering something that sounded like, "Not this time, bitch."
He trailed sloppy, wet kisses down the column of her neck, biting down on the soft flesh of her breast before pulling away. With an appraising sneer on his face, he rakes his eyes over her body. "You've really let yourself go."
Honey bit back a small sob, trying once more to move her limbs and failing. She could feel his fingers between her legs, pulling the lace string of her thong aside, then the blunt head of his cock probing her sensitive entrance. She was nowhere near aroused but that didn't stop him from pushing into her in one thrust, eliciting a hoarse cry from her throat as he groans, wrapping his hand around her throat just tight enough to be a threat.
Her vision was growing dark around the edges and if he noticed her breathing becoming shallow, he didn't care enough to stop taking what he had been denied at that party all those years ago. He thrust into her roughly, his hand squeezing her throat as her heart beat thudded in her ears, sounding slow even to her. 'I'm going to die.' The thought was surprisingly clear amongst the swampy mess of emotions and drugs clouding ner senses. 'I am going to die in this bed, with this pervert on top of me, and no one is going to find me until morning.'
Her eyes slipped closed as she felt him finally finish inside her and pull out with one last squeeze to her throat.
"I would've thought you'd be a screamer." He laughed, then she felt his hand lifting her chin. Despite her best attempt to hold her head up, her head lolls to the side and she can hear him mutter, "Oh shit..." She could barely hear him as he fixed his clothes and left quickly, the door slamming shut with a surprisingly loud bang. She blinks once, then twice, surprised at how dark her vision is getting before she glances over at the mattress beside her, her phone lying just out of reach lf her fingertips. It had fallen out of the dress when he had ripped it from her.
'If I could just reach it...I could call someone and get help...' Even as she thought it, she knew there was no way she'd go through with it. Even if someone made it to the bedroom in time to help her, she knew she wouldn't be able to live with herself after tonight. Not after the monster that had haunted her since she was 13 had finally taken what he wanted.
Her eyelids felt heavy, so she let them slide closed. 'Maybe people are right, dying is like falling asleep.'
That was the last thought in her mind before it all went black.
Now before people get even more pissed at me than they already are with this story, this is something I've had planned since the beginning. Speaking from personal experience, I wanted to have Honey hit rock bottom before she truly began to progress. It's something I've experienced in a different situation and that's all I can draw on as basis. I also wanted her to have a back story that actually explained her anxiety and dislike of the club life. This will be explained more in the next chapter, so I hope you'll all continue to read.
Thank you for reading, favoriting, and following, plus remember that reviews are my favorite thing ever so feel free to tell me what you think.