Hi!
*Hides in shame because she hasn’t updated for almost eight months*
Yes, okay, I know, I suck at updating my blog. Never say never though because I just did! Wow, shocker I know.
So now that we’re past the whole : “wait, she’s alive and this blog still exists and damn, this new front page looks amazing! (thanks Emma for that, by the way)”, let’s get on with the post.
First of all, you might have heard that I have a new book out. It’s called “the Bucket List” and it’s my favorite story I’ve written so far so maybe go check it out? If you want though, I’m not forcing you.
So what I wanted to do with this post is share a few scenes that got deleted from the edited version of “the Bucket List”. Some are kind of a spoiler though so it would be wiser to read the book first and then come back to this post but to each his own.
If you like this kind of idea, I could do the same thing with I Was A Bitch. There are actually a lot more scenes that got deleted from IWAB, so I’ll probably do a post for some of these too.
Alright, without further ado, here are some exclusive deleted scenes from “the Bucket List”. Enjoy.
Bonus chapter: Katie and Damon’s breakup scene.
Damon’s POV
“I feel like we should break up.”
I looked at Katie. The expression on her face was the most serious I had ever seen. She didn’t look pained, just… at ease after saying it.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered, “I…”
“It’s about Leah, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t try to deny it.
“I’ve seen the way you look at her, Damon, and the way you care about her, it’s… more than just being friends. You love her and you know it. You just don’t want to admit it to yourself because you don’t want to hurt me. But it’s okay. I hate to say it, but you only have a year left and it would probably be best if you lived it with the one person you really love.”
She was right. What she was saying was what I had been thinking all this time, but had never had the guts to say out loud.
“I know you loved me,” she told me, “but your heart has always belonged to Leah, and you know it. Be honest and admit it, Damon.”
I looked through the window at Leah’s house. It was true. Of course I loved her. I had loved her ever since we were thirteen. I had never told her, obviously. We were just best friends, and I didn’t want to risk jeopardizing this by admitting my true feelings to her when I didn’t know whether she felt the same way.
But I loved her. Damn, I loved her.
“I’m sorry, Katie, I should have told you sooner,” I said. “You’re right. I love her. I loved you, too, when we were together, but I just… Leah has always been… the first in my heart. You know what I mean?”
“Yes, honestly, I do. I won’t pretend I’m not sad that I’m not the one you want, but I’m done being selfish and keeping you to myself. You deserve to live the rest of your life happy with the one you love. Because guess what, idiot, she’s in love with you too.”
“I’m not sure about that.”
“God, is your disease making you blind too?”
I couldn’t help but laugh, though my heart was hammering wildly. Did she really love me back? I guess I would have to find out.
I was ready. Finally, after maybe ten years of keeping it a secret, I was ready to tell my best friend I was in love with her. I knew how horrible it was to Katie, but this year, my last year, was mine and I couldn’t waste any time because it wasn’t like I had any to spare.
Katie wished me luck and made me promise I would see her before… well, the due date, let’s say. Then she left. I liked Katie. I had even thought I was in love with her, though when I saw Leah that day I moved in… that had changed everything. All my old feelings had bubbled up in an instant. My heart belonged to her. It always had and it always would.
So tonight I was ready to finally man up and tell her how I felt. I was scared shitless at the mere thought of it, since it could go so many different ways and I was only hoping for the one in which she said she loved me back.
After showering I put on a shirt and the pair of jeans I had been wearing when I had caught Leah staring at my butt (hopefully it would work in my favor). Then I gathered up all my courage and opened the front door.
My hands were sweaty and my heart was beating a thousand miles an hour. What if she slapped me? Leah was weird (and it was one of the many reasons I loved her so much) so anything could happen…
I took a deep breath and started out for Leah’s house, but then froze to the spot as I took in the scene in front of me. Leah was kissing a guy, her hands all up in his hair as he pressed her against the front door.
Yeah… you could say that hadn’t been one of the ways I had seen tonight going. I breathed slowly, trying to keep it together as I watched the girl I was in love with lead her boyfriend inside.
I was too late. She had found someone and she seemed pretty happy about it.
I felt as if my heart was being ripped apart in tiny little pieces. I couldn’t have guessed something could hurt even more than the brain surgery I had had a few months ago, when there was still hope I could be cured. But it did. God, it fucking did.
I really had the worst timing on the face of the Earth.
(Hey, Emily again, just in case you’re confused, this breakup scene happens at about the same time Leah leads Sam in her house before their sort of one night stand. Oh and author confession: I basically only created Sam’s character for this. I needed Leah and Damon to get together a tiny bit later so first Leah was blocked by Damon and Katie and then it was Damon who couldn’t admit his feelings because of Sam. I think the question of timing in life is so important too so I wanted to play with it a little in the book as well.)
Bonus extract: Go camping.
“Ugh, remind me why we have to do this again?” I whined before letting my bag drop on the ground with a loud thump.
Damon smiled and put down his before wrapping me in his arms.
“Because it’ll be fun. I’ve only gone camping once and I want to do it again.”
“I know, it was with me and I hated it!!” I reminded him.
Damon laughed at the memory and I couldn’t help but smile too. We had gone camping together when we where eleven. Both of our families wanted to try it out and we didn’t have any say in it so we packed our little bags and next thing we knew, we were in the forest. At least we had each other. Seth was being a nightmare already, running around everywhere, not obeying… He was just being a kid I guess.
Damon, Seth and I would share a tent together but obviously, my brother wasn’t going to help us so my mom set the tent up with us. Night time was the most terrifying part. We would hear weird noises that we couldn’t associate to any animal we knew, then feel bugs crawling on us even though, most of the time there was nothing. Most of the time, yes, because we actually found a spider and another weird red bug on our arm in the middle of the night.
“Come on, help me set up the tent.” Damon brought me back to the present, before locking his lips with mine.
“It’s really because I love you.”
“I know. And I love you too. Now, where are the instructions?”
We spent a whole hour trying to figure it out. After so much time of hard labor, we were finally allowed to rest. Or so we thought. A freaking giant spider was living its life, walking in the middle of our tent without care. I screamed, obviously, which made Damon laugh. He took a big leaf and swiped the spider on it before putting it in the grass.
“Since when are you such a nature lover that you don’t even kill spiders?” I frowned when he threw out the leaf.
“Do you want to sleep on a dead spider’s corps tonight? Cause I wouldn’t have swiped that out.” Damon smiled, proud of being a smart-ass.
“Good point.”
(I never got around to finishing that scene so it’s cut a little short, sorry about that.)
Attempt at a Damon POV for Chapter 26
(This is right before Chapter 28: Days in the dark, in which Damon decides to leave and sort of breaks up with Leah)
When five of my best friends died in the car crash five years ago, it was hard. When I had to lose Leah too around the same time, it was even harder. When the doctors told me I was sick, it got harder. When I had to suffer dozens and dozens of needles and treatments and medications that didn’t work, it was hard. When I learnt I was dying, well that wasn’t even hard, I think I knew I would from the moment the doctors tried the fifth treatment in only six months. But that was hard too.
But nothing, I repeat nothing, was as hard as walking away from Leah and seeing her heart break in a million of pieces right there. I knew what I was doing to her, I knew it would surely hurt her more than anything had ever hurt her but I had to do it. I couldn’t stand to see the pain in her eyes, the worry, the pity sometimes… It was driving me crazy.
I loved this woman. I had loved her from the moment I had become friends with her. At first, I had loved her as a friend, this stubborn girl with the pink dress and the long hair, and then we had decided we were best friends. And then, I knew we couldn’t be just that anymore. When I looked at her, I knew that I loved her, but it was different from before. I didn’t say anything though and kept it all to myself.
And then I moved in the house next to hers. Call me crazy or lunatic but I choose to believe it was fate. It was meant to be. We were meant to be. But I couldn’t stand to be the reason she was in pain anymore.
So I left to go see my parents, then came back and I knew I had to go. I knew it would hurt her but I also knew that it was only going to get worse now and she would feel awful about it. And then I would see it in her eyes, the pain, the fear, the worry and it would crush me. Call me selfish, I don’t care. I wouldn’t say I knew what was best for her, I didn’t, really, I just knew that, right now, this was not what she deserved to be put through and I was the cause of all her fears and worries and tears and that was not fine by me.
I love her, oh man do I love her, but I couldn’t let her see me in pain anymore, I knew she suffered as well. She could find anyone: she was beautiful, talented, passionate, caring, funny… She could date anybody she wanted but she had chosen me and it wasn’t fair that she had to suffer the consequences of it.
(I never got around to finishing that either because I figured a Damon POV wasn’t necessary. But at least you got a few lines into his head, that’s better than nothing!).
So these were some of the scenes that got deleted from “the Bucket List”. I actually also removed an entire epilogue because it seemed pretty pointless. But that epilogue is so horribly written (it dates back a few years) that I don’t want to publish it on here either.
I hope you enjoyed those little scenes. Let me know if you’d like to see the same thing with I Was A Bitch!
Have an awesome summer and hopefully I’ll see you earlier than eight months from now.
xx
Emily
To get the Bucket List on Amazon (in ebook or paperback), click here.