AUTHOR'S NOTE: While looking through the numerous drafts and unpublished chapters of TMH one night, I realized how cool it was how I never published these and how different the story would be if the characters had taken this route instead of another, and did this thing instead of that. The story would probably change drastically, and while I didn't publish these, I thought it'd be cool for you guys to read the "what-if's" :-) (and to see Eli again - again, he makes his appearance in my other book, The Lifeguard.)
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DELETED CHAPTER: MARIE & HER SORORITY HOUSE
FIRST WRITTEN: APRIL 2014
TIME IN STORY: SOMEWHERE AFTER THEY ALL GET STUCK IN SAFEWAY WITH MARIE THE CASHIER (WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN CHAPTER 25)
NOTE: ERRORS ARE NUMEROUS.
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late tuesday night -- three days to graduation
We had all piled into Uncle Terrence's borrowed pick-up truck, which was harder said than done considering there was only the front row of seats only meant for three. But with Marie and I sandwhiched in the middle, we made for our graceful revenge attack.
Elliot was still confused as to why we would offer to help such a random person, before I reminded him how everyone else before us had willingly helped us. He shut up after that. I would never admit it, but in the two hours I'd been stuck in that Safeway store, I had genuinely missed him. Being stuck like glue for the past four days trekking across the country makes you incredibly attached to someone, whether you like it or not.
I didn't know yet if I liked it or not.
Marie threw out directions to her sorority house, shifting slightly in her cramped seat and not even questioning why in the world she was with three strangers nearing midnight.
"You a take a left two stoplights down, and just keep going until you see the gated entrance to the university," Marie advised Elliot, keeping a tight hold on a mysterious plastic Safeway bag she'd stocked since we left the store. I guessed they were stuff we needed to pull off the prank, but I couldn't imagine what they were. Marie had refused to tell us earlier; she said "it would ruin the whole surprise!"
"Why do hate this... this... er--"
"--Lisa."
"--Lisa, why do you hate her so much?" Elliot asked from the steering wheel. Since there were four of us in the overcrowded truck, I was smushed ungracefully against him, his warmth radiating from his shirt.
"Trust me, if you knew Lisa, you couldn't wait to punch her in the face," Marie groaned.
"Um, I don't think guys are legally allowed to hit girls," Eli noted, a rather surprising thing for Eli to say. But I kept my mouth shut on that one.
"Exactly."
Elliot whistled long and low. "I doubt she's really that bad, but if I do have to punch someone, you just tell me when."
When I craned my neck to peer through the dark at Marie, she'd been staring heavily at Elliot for a while. And I've noticed that from the Safeway mart back, she'd been laughing excessively at whatever Ellito said, regardless of whether or not it was a joke. I tried to ignore the burning sensation in my gut that I couldn't identify, because what else could it have been? It couldn't have been jealousy.
I was in fact, having cold feet about the whole thing. As we drove on into the night, we were approaching a much nicer part of town, with Victorian houses and expensive cars on each corner. If we were to get caught in this prank, I had a feeling we'd be in serious trouble. But then again, that never stopped us from stealing a FedEx truck.
Eli, on the other hand, had nothing to lose. Both boys were thrilled at the prospect of sorority girls, and even though Elliot didn't show it under his cool exterior, I could tell he was looking for some form of fun in the revenge plan.
"Turn here, turn here!" Marie exclaimed. The lurching pick up truck then drove into a long, tree-lined road that was barred at the end with an official looking gate and a menacing guard tower at the front.
"Uh, Marie? How are we supposed to--"
I was cut off when the car approached the guard tower, and a scrawny mustached man poked his head out of the window, clad in an official-looking uniform.
"Student ID card please," he asked Elliot, staring all four of us down. His main accessory was his permanent scowl, complimented by the lines of forehead creases.
"Sup Ralph?" Marie then stuck her head out. She waved a peace sign at him, "Meet my new friends, they're giving me a ride home."
"Marie? What are you doing so late?" Ralph's gaze lessened a bit.
Marie held up her Safeway employee card, "Got caught up in the storm at work, now it's getting pretty late, don'tcha think Ralph?"
It was pretty evident in the way Marie didn't quake in Ralph's menacing stare that the two knew each other fairly well, case in point when Ralph unquestioningly pressed the button to open the large gates.
"Be sure to stay out of trouble this time, Marie," Ralph waved after us.
"This time?" I echoed after the guard, once we were driving safely into the gated community of sorority and frat houses.
Marie shrugged with a sly smile on her porcelain face, "What can I say? I really, really hate Lisa the Prick."
- x -
"This is where you live?"
Eli, Elliot, and I stared up with open mouths at the three story Victorian home, with golden Greek letters scrawled in the mantle above the strikingly pink front foor. The rosebushes that aligned in the front were perfectly pruned, and the whole building reeked of Chanel. It was the complete opposite of what I thought Marie the Cashier would have signed up for. With her tatooed wrists and choppy orange hair, she stuck out like a sore thumb in the House of Perfection.
"Not exactly," Marie shook her head as she clambered out of the car. "My mom used to, though. She still donates a shitload to this institution, and of course, I was just accepted not because of me, but because of her. I'm not really a part of this whole sorority life."
"Well, why not?" I asked her.
Marie twisted her face. "The idea of being 'friendly' with people who can't wait to see me leave is a bit exhausting, dont'cha think?"
Her words stuck in my mind longer than I had wanted them to, and while I was thinking them through, wondering how true they were, Marie had already opened her mysterious Safeway bag with a mischevious grin.
Oh right, I thought, we were here for revenge.
"So how exactly is this gonna go down and where are the girls?" Eli asked.
Marie chuckled softly, before realizing her laugh may have been a bit too loud. "They're probably getting their beauty sleep."
"You mean, they're in there?" Elliot whispered out of curiosity, wide-eyed. "Are you sure we won't caught?"
Marie scoffed, fetching something within the bag, "I don't think so. Pranks against our house are very common."
I gaped at her, "Really?"
"No."
Before I could ask anymore of how high the risk of Ralph catching us were, Marie was holding rolls of tissue paper with a bright grin.
"Seriously? We're gonna TP the entire house? That's like the oldest trick in the book," Eli deadpanned seriously.
"I can't help but agree," Elliot nodded, for the very first time, actually seeing eye to eye with Eli. "It's the most predictable thing ever."
"And it kinda lacks creativity," Eli said. To be honest, I was expecting way more than to just toilet paper the whole sorority house. Marie the Cashier just gave me that vibe.
Marie rolled her eyes, "You obviously don't know the extent of my knowledge, young, close-minded grasshoppers. Now here, you each take a roll."
None of us had time to procrastinate before Marie thrusted the rolls of toilet paper in our hands against our will. Elliot nudged my elbow and pointed to one of the many trees in the yard, his eyes glinting in the soft light of the streetlamps. We exchanged a mischevious look that slowly but surely made my knees go weak. Then, I snapped out of it, fast.
I jerked my gaze to Marie, who was suddenly holding a box of pregnancy tests, the ones with the pee sticks.
"Um...? What are you doing with those?" Eli asked before I even had the chance to wonder why she had pregnancy tests.
Marie's lips curved into a scheming smile, and without answering, she opened the box's lid and reached for a handful of the jumbo box of pee-pee sticks. Then, as if they were confetti, she threw them up in the air with flourish, letting them land all over the spotless yard.
One landed beside my foot, and bending over to pick it up, I almost chucked it away in disgust.
"Gross, they all say they're positive!" I hissed, "Are these used pregnancy tests?"
"No, of course not!" laughed Marie. She had the kind of laugh that almost made me feel insanely stupid. "I got them all at this prank store beside the Safeway Mart. They're made to look like they're positive, but they're all just fakes, so no worries, they're clean."
As she said this, Eli and Elliot exchanged glances as the realization both dawned on them.
"Brilliant," Elliot gasped, at the same time Eli murmured, "Now this is genius."
But I still failed to see the point in them. Other than a really torturous way to dupe a woman.
"You see, it's completely beyond-the-universe forbidden to hook up with the Frat Boys," Marie explained, "so all I have to do is just throw a handful of these all over the yard--" she did so just then, with a flourish of Cinderella's godmother bippidi-boppidi-booing, "and when the dorm advisors check up on their daily rounds tomorrow morning, they'll think someone's been doing the 'nasty' with the Frat Boys on the next block over and they'll totally freak. With a capital 'F'. Someone's bound to be expelled, and every girl knows Lisa Prick's nickname is—"
She glanced at our blank faces. "People call her All the Way Lisa, and of course she's already done the deed with my boyfriend. Ex, now."
"And you guys thought the whole prank was toilet paper," Marie tsk'ed.
"Well, then what is the toilet paper for?"
"A classic touch."
- x -
I don't think I've ever felt this free in my entire life.
Which is ironic, since we were on the verge of being arrested (again) and seriously vandalizing property that belonged to a University. All in the name of true love and for a brilliantly misunderstood cashier.
My toilet paper roll was almost sucked dry, and we had spent the last ten minutes carefully (not really) throwing around random bits of white toilet paper that got stuck into the trees and tangled in the perfectly aesthetic rosebushes.
Elliot and Eli had a silent competition going on to see how high they can throw their toilet paper. Both boys kept on one-up-ing each other when it came to the high branches of the trees, and even though it was not right of me to stare, I couldn't really help but occasionally glance at the both of them. Numerous times, actually.
Both Marie and I teamed up together to rip little pieces of toilet paper and throw them all over the grass, letting the paper fall like snow. I had to admit, it was so easy to get caught up in the whole thing that I had to stifle bouts of giddy laughter. Marie on the other hand, had no problem being herself, that it was amost enviable. She laughed whenever she wanted to, even if it was a bit too loud, and genuinely looked like she was having fun.
We repeated the cycle of throwing a roll of toilet paper up in the air, its white tail fluttering in the breeze and shining in the night, before falling back down to the ground and getting permanently notched in the tree with glory.
It would take loads of time getting all of this out, which sucked... at least for them.
It suddenly occurred to me how much I was grinning, because of how red and painful my cheeks were. Elliot noticed too, and without me noticing, he wrapped a lazy arm around my waist and firmly looked me in the eye.
"We should get going pretty soon," he said. "But I'm glad we did this. It's nice to see you not wanting to pull out your hair so stressed out for a while. Refreshing, really."
I returned his comment with a soft shove, and when he shoved me back, a trail of his infamous laughter fluttered on his lips, making me feel queasy and uneasy. That was the bad thing about liking someone; all self-control is thrown out the window. I kind of regretted shoving him. His arm wasn't around me anymore.
We stood watching as Eli and Marie both ran around the yard, tossing the used pregnancy tests around the yard like confetti.
"Is this wrong?" I blurted out suddenly. "Deliberately getting people in trouble?"
Elliot shrugged. "You're the one who volunteered to take her. I initially thought it wasn't a good idea at all."
"Well, we can't really back out of it now, can we?"
"We can always ditch Marie. And Eli. I'm perfectly fine with that."
"Elliot!"
"Sorry. I was kidding," he shoved me back again, and of course, I had to shove him too.
"Are you really?"
"No."
I had to laugh, but it wasn't a real one. The weight of all the responsibilities was tugging at my gut, so the meager, half-hearted laugh was only to fill the wide expanse of silence between us.
"But you have to admit... it's a good plan, right? I mean, if my somehow future daughter ever did this," I randomly said. "...I would applaud her."
It was his turn to laugh, and Elliot ran a weak hand through his matted hair before yawning.
"We can go, once they're done," I offered a hand and patted the top of his shoulder reassuringly. "Look, I'm sorry for pushing this detour on you."
"Don't worry 'bout it. I feel guilty for wanting to drag you guys too fast just for Samantha. We need a little break once in a while. As long as I don't get that call...I'll be fine," he pulled together a smug, tired smile, and I returned it in with a stiff nod.
In a few seconds, Eli and Marie walked over to us, their arms bulging with empty, naked toilet paper rolls.
Marie was out of breath and glanced at Eli with exhilarated eyes. "Oh my God. Oh my God. This guy's got the best arm I've ever seen!"
"Please," Eli shrugged, "She chucks pregnancy tests like Cam Newton would a football. She's insane."
"I could say the same about you!"
I couldn't help but watch the two of them, going back and forth, breathing heavily and laughing. Eli, actually laughing, his cheeks puffy and red from the brisk late-night chill.
"Wait, shh, shh," Elliot raised both of his hands suddenly. "...Do you guys hear that?"
"What?"
"I don't hear anything."
Elliot waved his hands again to shut us up, and blank expressions coated our faces. I strained to hear, but all I could hear were light switches faintly clicking on in the distance.
"Oh shit," Eli spun around and I followed his gaze up to the sorority house. Currently, out of the four upstairs windows, all of them were brightly lit, the curtains open, and girls' heads popping into the frame. A girl shrieked inside the house, and the front door slammed open.
"Shit!" Marie instantly bolted, dropping everything she had in her hands and sprinting straight for the parked truck.
Everything was moving so fast, I could hear girls pouring out of the house in their nightgowns, Eli somewhat straying back once he saw what they were wearing, and being tapped on the back of the head by Elliot, who was fumbling with getting the keys out of his pockets so shakily that he dropped them twice while running for the car.
"Run!" someone said. I couldn't remember who, but I think it was Marie. She had jumped in the back of the flatbed truck and waving us over.
"Who the hell did this to our house?!" one of the girls screamed shrilly, piercing the midnight darkness.
"Oh my god, are these pregnancy sticks?"
"What the f— they're USED! SOMEONE PEED--"
"Hold up. Everybody shut up! Is that Marie? Marie Beauregard?"
In the haze of sheer, pure panic and me trying to grab my footing and not sliding on the wet grass and the pregnancy sticks dotting the lawn, I saw one girl come out of the door later than the others. She stuck out to me, because she was the only one that was nearly half-naked in her pajamas and with a half-naked guy holding her hand. I'm pretty sure that guy wasn't even supposed to be in their sorority this late.
Instinctively, I looked to Marie. She stopped gesturing for me to keep running - I was the only one left in the yard - and froze at the sight of the boy.
I put two and two together, by the looks of her distraught face, her trembling lips.
"Vienna, hurry the hell up and get in the truck!" Eli called.
Marie's eyes were the size of a blue whale, and she frowned.
"Holy...it is Marie Beauregard," Lisa the Prick drawled. "Of course she's the one who did this! Oh I can't wait to tell the Dean what you've done. You'll be damn sorry!"
Lisa started grabbing her phone, hoping to take a picture of Marie. My fists clenched.
"Vienna," Elliot urged. He was already in the truck, had the key in the ignition and the engine running. All I had to do was get in.
I sighed, before sprinting, but the opposite way, away from the truck. There was probably a crowd of fifteen girls, and I aimed straight for Lisa. I doubt she even saw me coming. I sprinted straight over the pregnancy sticks and grabbed her phone out of her hands.
"Hey!"
I turned the phone on, switched it on to the front-facing camera and flashed a selfie - of me, Lisa, and whoever the hell the guy was that meant a lot to Marie and crushed her heart anyway. I smiled and threw up a peace sign and jammed in their faces at the top.
"Bye, ya'll!" I drawled, before chucking her phone in the rose bushes beside the house. "And by the way, Lisa, try sticking to your own guy for more than a week, and maybe you wouldn't be a target. Food for thought. Good night ladies!"
Before I disappeared into the truck, I grabbed a handful of the pregnancy sticks from the ground and threw them into the air, letting it rain on the girls and one guy.
I felt giddily excited, the adrenaline pumping through my veins and making me grin like a maniac - maybe I was one. Just a little. I rushed to get back to the truck, and may have slipped once or twice, and joined Marie in the back.
"Let's go boys!" I patted the metal before Elliot slammed on the gas and we squealed out of there.
Marie, speechless, had her jaw to the floor. "You just...what did you just do?"
I smiled, "We helped you, of course. And screw him. Screw them all."
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AUTHOR'S NOTE: again, this was deleted for a reason. it didn't fit into the story as I had hoped it would, so now it's a deleted scene :) if you guys like this, I have about 5 drafts just waiting to be dusted off. trust me, I miss elliot, vienna, eli too!
leave your thoughts and as always, thank you for the love xx
P.S. DONT FORGET TO CHECK OUT THE SPIN OFF "BOUNDARIES" <3