Sweet as Honey (The Seven Sisters) - By Caitlyn Robertson Page 0,43
“Apparently she did that every night when they lived together. Why would she not do it when she was on her own, unless she was waiting for him to come in?”
“Perhaps she forgot,” Alice said, although the excuse sounded weak, even to Honey’s ears.
“I don’t get why she stayed with him so long,” Peter1 said. “If he was a shit, why didn’t she leave him ages ago? That, to me, means she’s a victim—that she got something out of the drama of the relationship. She didn’t want it to end, and when he did bring it to a close, she wanted to punish him for leaving her.”
Honey felt sick and had to take deep breaths to keep the nausea down.
Tom glanced at her. “Let’s move on,” he said, and so they continued around the table.
When it came to Honey, she fixed her gaze on the pitcher of water as she spoke. “Nobody can know what it’s like to suffer from an abusive relationship unless they’ve been there,” she said quietly. “Most don’t start abusive, or you’re right, why would you stay in them? They begin like any other relationships, with promises of love and happiness and forever. And we all want to please our partners. We start off thinking ‘I’m never going to let a man tell me what to wear,’ but then as time goes by, you think ‘He always says I look nice in the pink jumper,’ so you start choosing the pink jumper more and more, because sub-consciously you want his approval.”
She glanced around. The room had fallen quiet, everyone watching her, even Matt, a frown between his eyebrows.
She looked back down and cleared her throat. “Often, the abusive partner—usually the man, although I know it can be the woman too—has a strong personality and some kind of ‘hold’ over the other partner, who may just not be as strong as them. It’s not about being a victim—none of the unfortunate women would ever class themselves as that. But we all want to be loved. And nobody likes a relationship to fail. We all work hard to put things right when they’re going wrong, especially when you’ve been with that person a long time.”
She poured herself another glass of water. Her hand shook, but she was past caring. “Sarah loves James, even now you can see it on her face. And he knows this. He used it to control her, to manipulate her into living her life for him and only him, and then when he tired of her, he dumped her. And now he wants to punish her even more because she tried to stand up for herself. She’s been to hell and back. And I can’t sit here and declare that I believe she should be sent to prison for one second for what she did to that bastard.”
Chapter Eighteen
After her long speech, Honey sat back and let the others talk. Her hands continued to shake and she still felt sick, but a sense of relief had settled on her at finally being able to get her point of view across. Thankfully, for a while the others didn’t press her but talked among themselves, even the obstreperous Matt, who had seemed taken aback by her comments which had obviously been about her own experiences.
At one o’clock, after much discussion, they took another vote. Tom asked who thought Sarah Green was guilty. Ten hands rose and then, slowly, so did Alice’s.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Honey.
“You don’t have to apologise,” Honey said softly, although disappointment tightened her throat until she found it hard to swallow.
“It’s just…I’m not a hundred percent convinced she didn’t do it. I don’t want her to have done it, you know? I feel sorry for her. But that’s not really a good enough reason, and we all have to agree, don’t we?”
Honey said nothing. Alice spoke the truth. But was that a good enough reason to vote guilty? How would she be able to live with herself if she put Sarah Green behind bars for finally taking her revenge on her manipulative, cruel boyfriend?
She put her face in her hands. “I can’t do it. I’m sorry.”
A collective sigh whispered around the table and a couple of people swore under their breath. Tom, however, leaned forward and patted her hand as she dropped it to the table. “It’s all right, love. I understand. We’ll tell the judge we’re eleven to one and we can’t make the twelve.”