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Emily takes this as her cue to step in. She has noticed Lewis does not like to be the center of attention. His forehead is already breaking out in cold sweat. She will not make this any harder then it should be for him. She brought this drama, the least she can do is take the heat off him.
"Look at you, Emily, actually caring about the feelings of another human. Maybe you are not a monster after all." She tells herself in her mind. She meets Tammy's eye and finds her staring at Lewis with a questioning look.
"Uhm, Tam darling. Hate to break it to you but my partner here bears no resemblance to your broke, bald cousin. Incest does not suit you, hunny. Rumours flew around that he just might be your father's son but we are not going to go there, are we?" Emily raises her hand to her mouth, hiding her wide smile but pretending to try to keep a secret she just blurted to the rest of the party.
"Rumours do not faze me, everybody knows the truth!" Tammy almost yells. Emily only laughs, she knows Tammy is slowly beginning to lose her calm, she is counting on it. When Tammy's nerves are pushed to its breaking limit, her cheeks turn bright red and she begins to cry. That us why she is usually referred to by the blogs as Baby Ferrera. Emily knows this because she made her reasearch. No one fancies a video of a woman in her mid twenties bawling her eyes out circulating around social media. It is the ultimate take down, Emily rubs her palms together to ready her mind.
"Darling, the truth could be that you do not have the guts to put yourself out on Tinder and find a willing partner or the truth might be that dear baby Ferrera has a thing for fraternizing with family members. Who knows what the truth could possibly be? Anyone here?" She throws the question out and the crowd begins to murmur.
"Those are not my truths! You evil thing… look at who is talking. Your ex husband severed people's body parts to fund your lifestyle. Who knows, you could still be thriving on blood money for all we know." Tammy made a face at her and expected everyone else to show their support. Everyone went quiet, it felt like she had gone down a few notches below right there. Emily disguised her feeling of victory with a blank face of boredom. She did not want people to think she thought much of this battle of words.
"Oh my God, how could you?" Emily places the back of her palm as though she is about to faint. She has been waiting for this, waiting for her to take the bait and mention the scandal involving Jacob. She puts on her best 'pity me' face and fakes a voice crackling with tears unshed. She is good at this, acting is probably her only talent.
"How cold and heartless could you be, Tammy? Just to make a name for yourself, you would bring up that gory past. Jacob is my past, he killed innocent people and it…" She searches her purse for a handkerchief, when she finds it she dabs at her nose and waves dramatically at her eyes, fixing her eyes at the roof to stop the false tears from falling and ruining her make-up. It is taking everything in Lewis to hold back and not whip out his phone to take a video of this class act.
"It traumatized me completely. I could not sleep for months after that just because I was afraid I would be next. Maybe the families of the deceased, God rest their soul, would come to me in my sleep and dismember me or even worse. My ex husband could take my parts since we had stopped him from his devious scheme. You think it was easy for me? Try living with that fear for a while that just maybe…" Emily rises up and acts as though she wants to move towards Tammy. Instead she picks up the table knife and points at Tammy. Everyone is at alert, cautious of what next she might do.
"Just maybe, someone would walk in on you one night, make you pass out with just a tiny needle and take out an organ without your knowledge. Maybe your lungs!" As she mentions the organ, she points at it with the knife.
"Or one of your kidneys or even worse, your heart. Huh, how would you feel? How would that feel, baby Ferrera?!" Emily yells now as she points at her with the knife and then drops it dramatically in the table. Tammy yelps with the sound of the knife hitting the table. Everyone that was surrounding Tammy begins to back off slowly until she is standing alone in front of Emily's table.
"I uhm… I" She stutters, the shade of her cheeks deepen in colour. Her neck is turning red. Tammy is going to break down anytime soon. Emily begins to make a mental count. One, two, three, four…
"You what? I take therapy sessions twice in a week where I tear open my wounds to a shrink who knows absolutely nothing about me and smells like almonds. You have nothing to say, absolutely no excuse for bringing up such a horrible experience I such lovely occasion as this." Emily speaks with so much force and hides her smirk. She continues her mental counting. Five, six, seven, eight, nine…
A wailing sound tears across the hall. Tammy rushes out of the hall, her tears trailing after her. A dramatic entrance and a more dramatic exit. No one goes after her. Emily settles into her seat with her shoulders raised an inch higher.
"Well, the Oscar for best main actress goes to Miss Emily. Oh my God, a round of applause." Lewis presents an imaginary award to Emily. She smiles and accepts it.
"Uhm what was this award for again? Ohh, thank you so much." She chuckles softly to herself while the crowd disperses.