notes | this is one of the first years where i have been fully on ffn (except for the occasional hiatus or two) so i decided that rather than deleting stories or parts of stories that i was never going to use, i would compile them - hope you guys like this, (:
b/c this is unbeta-d and this is the sort of writing that i wouldn't submit normally, hopefully it doesn't burn your eyes, (:
all the pretty girls
deleted scenes - 2013
i. better late than never
It starts with a movie -
At an old-fashioned cinema, nonetheless; Claire Lyons fingers a box of gummy worms and stares up at the vintage screen in front of her, where some of the most famous lines in all of television history are being spoken. It seems almost as if she's in a dreamlike trance, with the lights dimmed and a familiar tune, a waltz for the romantic scenes, enters her ears, and she can't help but feel slightly excited and a little disappointed as Nate takes Eva back so easily, almost as if there's no effort in the matter, and life isn't really like that, but she brushes those thoughts out of her mind.
It's not the time and the place to be thinking about how depressing her life's turned out to be (because, quite frankly, Claire's happy with everything happening to her right now), and Claire focuses her attention back on the cinematic movie. Nate extends his hand, and his black leather jacket falls snugly onto Eva's delicate shoulders, and as they grasp hands, they entangle themselves in a tight embrace, promising to never break the other's hearts again, and Claire lets out a delighted sigh, wondering how everything could be so wonderful.
Dylan, next to her, sighs at the muscled arms of Nate (who, in reality, is played by Derrick Harrington, yes, the Derrick Harrington) and fawns over him slightly, leaning back in the seat. "Gosh, Claire, do you think that Derrick Harrington is that sweet in real life?"
"Of course, Dyl," she replies, knowing that they've had this discussion several times before, but it still doesn't make it repetitive - it's just the type of friendship that they've grown to have, obsessing over the same teen idols and the same favorite flavor of ice cream - and smiles to herself, almost zoning out, "There couldn't be any other way for something like that to happen - he can't be acting, he just can't." After all, Claire thinks that nobody could be that good at acting. Beside her, Cam Fisher groans, rolling his eyes.
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ii. i thought about the world without you
It starts off with this really bad breakup — Massie has convinced herself that it's the only normal reason to start to go to therapy, even though everybody tells her secretly that there's no normal in the world of therapy. After days and days of endless crying, her mother had signed up for therapy at this godforsaken, dingy school in the middle of nowhere in which she was forced to take three trains and two buses, each consisting of three hours in the early morning, and somehow after she stayed awake through all of that, help would be provided.
They made it sound as though she had a problem; but, she didn't. Nobody seemed to believe her, though. By the time she ends up in front of the dingy building, she rings the doorbell of what seems to be an abandoned cat shelter. "Come in, dearie!" A warmhearted voice floats from a higher floor, and as she walks on, Massie can't help but notice the ominous cobwebs that line holes in the walls, or the similarity between this woman's voice and her own grandmother.
She thinks about everything has happened - from the deaths to the sorrow to the bookstore -
(Claire is the first to go.
It's a Friday night, and like all other Friday nights, there's a sleepover at the Block's cabana, and five girls are giggling and squealing in all of their matchmaking glory. Five glass bowls perch on the dining table, forgotten, though most are half empty, mixed into a combination of celery sticks, gummies, trail mix, and other delectable food options which stick to the sides of the bowl in midsummer heat.
"So, what happened to James?" Alicia asks, slyly, twirling a strand of dark brown hair, a twinkle in her cold chocolate eyes.
Massie frowns, "I think that you would know what happened with James, Leesh," she says in a casual voice, trying to mask the pain beneath.)
Claire had been the first one to die - it was expected, after all (her being the weakest link, the most vulnerable, and the newest addition to their group). Nevertheless, it didn't send the message that it was meant to send - killing the strongest member, that would have sent a message.
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iii. little talks
It all starts off with never being good enough.
It seems to be that way for a while - blonde ringlets fall down jungle gyms, ruddy knees stained with grass stains and dirt marks (after all, everybody says that she's too ugly to wear anything pretty enough to be ruined), and after a while, Hanna loses herself in the mixture of excitement that creates a remarkable aura of innocence, something that she wishes could last forever, forever and always.
Of course, she knows that forever and always doesn't exist - but everything in her life seems to be something out of a story, woven carefully by nimble fingers before being crushed completely; in third grade, Hanna walks without the lights on, and tumbles down, headfirst, down sixteen feet of what was meant to be basement stairs, and lands on her toe, crushing the bone into powder between her toes - she should have died, or at least fractured a rib or two, the doctors had said.
Everybody think that she's lucky - her mother and father thank the Lord (not that they've been religious people, lately) and everything goes back to normal.
.
Aria tells her, a few days after another therapy session, that Mike's been acting up lately.
Hanna just nods, back, holding her breath as she turns her face from side to side, pretending as though she's trying to figure out if one side of her face is fatter than the other, but everything everything's that happened, she's grown from that - or at least, she likes to think that. Aria knows her better now, almost as if she's an open book, so Hanna doesn't mind voicing her opinion - of course, with the slightest bit of disinterest and tranquility, "Are they going to put him on the meds?"
Aria sighs - it's uncharacteristic of her to ask anybody for help, for her brother of all people, but she's always thought that there was this friendship between Hanna and Mike. At least when they were younger, when everything was simpler.
.
She's spent the rest of middle school and the beginnings of high school to get rid of the old Hanna, perfecting the new girl that she had grown to love - somebody that could become Prom Queen, somebody that could rule over the school, somebody who wouldn't be bullied and forced to resort to bitter porcelain and therapy every time a rude compliment came her away.
She's Hanna Marin and she's beautiful - finally, after all these years; she loves her new life.
She loves the way that storekeepers will stare at her beauty long enough for her to carelessly snatch up those new pairs of Gucci sunglasses, or how as she walks down the hallways of Rosewood and people stop, snapping pictures - she loves the attention, the way that she doesn't have to swallow deeply, walking with her head down as the rest of the school mercilessly taunts her, calling her out on her weight and on her stupidity and everything (but it's not as though just because she's popular, Hanna doesn't have flaws anymore).
Instead this time, she can be in control of herself - she stares down at the toilet, and grimaces. It's the only way. Allison had taught her how to do this - Allison would have wanted her to do this.
iv. fading fairytales
A horde of accumulated graduates disperse in broad daylight, drunkly enunciating their newfound statuses to anybody who will bother to listen, though most of the times, strangers upon the street, with this ecstasy in their footsteps as they wander into the new world. A sleek Mercedes speeds, jerking upon neon speed bumps, sending a crude reminder to the car's passengers that though they are high school graduates, they are still under the jurisdictions of the driving law's strange signs. Four girls sit in the back seats, each retrospectively reminiscing on everything they had just left behind but none of them spend too long upon the dreadful days left behind, as their dancing days are flying into visibility, complete with the shows of traditionally themed fireworks, bouquets of flowers from not-so-secret secret admirers, and of course, the speaking navigational system with the hot British accent.
Turn right and drive for three miles.
Three of the girls were seated in the backseats, while the former of them all seated herself shotgun, humming a Tyrone Wells graduation tunes to distract her from the fact that this could possibly be some of the last moments spent with her best friends. "This is where the chapter ends—" Tears shattered the precise focus of the iridescent violet contacts, specks of amber bleeding through the cover; the brunette reminded herself that she couldn't be having a breakdown until she had said goodbye at the graduation bash, which, Massie checked her watch, would be in no more than fourteen hours.
The stoic-faced blonde, sitting near the window, continues. "—a new one now begins, the time has come for letting go—"
"—the hardest part is when you know, all of this years, when we were here,"
"—are ending, but I'll always remember—burp!"
"Dylan!" the girls chorused, a wave of laughter resounding through the automatically driven Mercedes, and suddenly, as if they were the children of the Sound of Music, they weren't feeling so melancholy anymore. The car jolted, suddenly, and water surrounded - bubbles of a gaseous liquid formed onto the sides, as the girls scrambled towards the top, gasping for the few breaths of air remaining.
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v. it's not a love story
Massie Block, will you go out with me?
She promptly slaps him across the fact, knees him in the groin, flashes an innocent smile and walks away to a group of girls who are wearing identical outfits, in different colors, supposedly showing their rank as though colors have ranks, never looking back, not even for an instant. From the start, Derrick knows that Massie Block is going to be the death of him.
He is still wearing the purple "M" pin when he devises a plan, that partly comes from the pin jabbing into his bare thigh, because all the pain brings memories of heartbreak and immaturity all rushing back —the sharp jab reminds him of her.
After all, she is Massie Block, and she's Westchester's Queen (always has been, always will be), whether she's jetting off to London after the summer break with her newest flavour of boy, wrapped tightly around her manicured fingers, or making new lists of boys for her friends, to break up with it. Josh says that James is apple juice, and Derrick accidentally ends up giving him a sprained ankle, because he just won't admit that he's not perfect for her.
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vi. go forth
She gently retrieves two manicured fingers out of her ruby red lips, face towards the direction of the flimsy stall door, unaware of a mollifying answer. One minute, she replies, though it will never truly be one minute, though. Hurriedly knocking over a few plastic, blood-red cups, Massie smooths down the ruffles of her dress, pulls it slightly higher before adjusting her facial makeup, and walks outside, the epitome of casual chic.
"Hey, Mass," she looks up into the familiar face of her boyfriend, who looks just the least bit sweaty as of he's had a panic attack, then scrunches his nose. "What's that smell?" Cam's looking towards the bathroom stall.
Definitely not a combination of freshly rid puke and quickly applied perfume sprays. "Puke." She immediately regrets the statement as his features contort into acknowledged disappointment. "I-I mean puke? It's the newest Chanel line, duh!"
"Uh, huh."
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vii. summer nights
boom
boomboomboom
.
it's faster than before now and we're falling deepdeepdeep and the world's spinning around our fragile shoulders and everything looks like a tanned kaleidoscope but he catches me, and you hold your breath since he's going to kill you. within a moment you have been released all because you are flower-pretty and thorn-sharp, and sometimes, in the most horrible of situations, people fall in love with you.
he is a boy.
you are a girl.
he is a vampire.
you are a human.
(spinfallspin)
it is first day, and you are walking into a classs and they're a whole lotta people so it just reminds you of the past until you realize that they're all leering at you, laughing manically and you soon learn that there is a reason why children —those who are unlucky enough to be humans— do not go to school until it is deemed safe.
come into the bleeding night is what they chant, as one of the boys asks your name. if they were not about to kill you, you might mistaken that pale-skinned is flirting with you but that is what you dream.
you are dead.
(dreamdiedream)
it is your second life, you soon realize.
you are lying in the same bed of your previous life, complete with the justin bieber sheets and hannah montana pillows that suddenly disgust you, and there's a girl who looks exactly like you, complete with the hideous limp hair and unusually shaped mole —you scream high.
"shut up, claire. i'm not a jonas," your ganger (it's the only reasonable explanation) replies.
running downstairs, you float through the walls until another boy comes up to you and you recognize him as pale-skinned and really hope this is all a dream. he runs towards you and kisses you on the lips, green grape sour. "sorry 'bout this, claire." a knife is thrown towards your chest.
nobody hears your screams.
(slipslideslip)
you wake up, drenching in sweat.
all you are thinking is that that boy is a mountebank, since apparently, god believes that your third life should be spent as a studious indian girl named rachna. you (really, it's not you, it's her) are watching the television, biting your parched lip as anxiety courses through her bored veins, unlike your previously rainbow ones but 'cause she's you, and you're her.
in her head is pranav - sidhu - ryan - gaurav.
in her bed is physics - socials - reading - geography.
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ix. bent strings (nextgen - clique fandom of cleolyonsrhyshotz)
her heart is a toy, for him to break. she really doesn't want this gentle tapping, plucking of the strings, but perhaps a full-out playing with a tightened horsehair bow whipping across the strings, because some boys might be gentle, but she doesn't want gentle.
cleo lyons is one of those real girls.
westchester doesn't really approve, so they send her into a pit, (pushing her all the way in), and without her flowing ebony curtain, her smallish nose and cognac brown eyes, even more glazed than usual emphasize themselves.
they are not strong enough to be her man —cleo is not like those girls who wishes for a new flavour of boy every week, but westchester boys are more like vanilla, and she wants rainbow boys.
.
cleo wants a fire, one that swallows glass and gulps bricks —and it comes.
it is a night, and like all tuesday nights, she is tutoring the twins, or rather they are tutoring her as she sits and mindlessly braids their hair as they educate her upon the principles of calculus. "look, cleo! there's fireworks!"
(they are smart enough to understand calc but cannot differentiate fireworks and fire), and cleo looks into the distance, dragging the kids along with her as she walks through the ashes, and ties their braids tightly together, ignoring their "it hurts!" because they're really all she has now.
.
she wakes up in a different state.
it is not a different state of mind, as she is still feeling as lethargic as before, yet she can tell that there is a constant banging of thuds against the barn door (she's not in kansas, anymore), and opens the window to find glossy charcoal black feathers floating through it all.
"what the hell—"
a boy falls from the sky, into the backyard of the farmhouse, and leaves as promptly as he had come. she sits there all through the night, excited because this should be the point in the fairytale when he comes back for her.
that is what is supposed to happen but her life is not quite the picture-perfect story that she sometimes, and always, wishes that it could have been.
.
"i'm rhys hotz."
"cleo lyons."
(damn it all though, let it be sent to the fiery pits of tartarus for all she cares, but don't forget that she doesn't care, because they're not going to end up perfect, together, just because their couple names sounds like a fucked up car company.)
"come with me?" he taps on the side of his time traveling machine, as if it has untold wonders inside, traveling through all of wonders and horrors.
this is the point in the fairytale where she is to say yes, so she doesn't. "no."
rhys leaves in a few seconds, and she can see through the semi-transparent door that he is laughing, that he is not that vanilla boy she doesn't want, that he is truly rainbow, because only rainbowbwould laugh when he was meant to cry, but it is too late: he is gone, and so is she.
.
he finds her in thirteen years.
rhys had searched the galaxies for her, if the galaxies were his hamlet, but truly his machine is nothing more than child's play. "i love you," he murmurs.
she promptly slaps him. "get lost, you rascal."
"only after you, m'lady." cleo smiles now, 'cause rhys is kinda sweet. "y'know, that machine wasn't real," he comments.
"i know," she replies. "but we can make it real."
.
he leaves her behind. her body and mind and soul are scattered across the universe, shining as if they were the only two that could see it, yet blazing, burning brighter than the sun. he sighs, stepping into the night sky, hands in tattered pockets as rhys screams.
they will burn together.
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x. all of us are done for
Massie has an incorrigible habit of holding onto items longer than she should.
She sits in the middle of an orthodontist's office in the outskirts of Westchester, picking on the edges of her fraying polka dot skirt which has shrunk over the years to a length of midthigh, exposing the layers of cellulite that are surely clumping to the insides of her legs. Massie tilts her head backward, in a vainless effort to resist double chin formation, and purses her lips towards the sky, arching her neck ever so slightly.
By the time the appointment has been complete, she winces in pain and walks home in the snow, alone - the driver has long left, and Massie decides that the additional exercise couldn't be that harm . . .
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notes | happy new year's eve, everybody! leave a review if you'd like, (: