Deleted Scenes from Lying Beneath the Oaks, Part 2

Okay! It's time for more of the deleted scenes from Lying Beneath the Oaks! If you haven't read the novel, get it now in paperback or eBook (links at right). The below scenes are full of SPOILERS, so don't scroll down if you haven't read!

These are snippets from Molly's life as a teenager before she left Michigan. Most of this information made it into the book, but the story flowed better all in one timeline.

Still with me? Just checking -- you're not going to read SPOILERS, are you? No, you wouldn't do that. Perfect. If you've read the book, here they are!


SIXTEEN YEARS AGO
 
I missed the bus on purpose, skulking in the hallways after seventh period. I’d have a long walk home, but I had to try. I needed her.

Demetrius Taylor left the classroom, his swagger sending his pelvis out the door first. He looked me up and down, lingering on my chest. “She catch you, too? Wouldn’t a thought you’d be cheating, brainiac like you.”

I shook my head.

“All right, then. Later.” He slunk down the hall.

Inside the history classroom, Ms. Sinclair sat shuffling papers in a shaft of orange sunlight that lit up the chalk dust in the air that she’d set in motion when she’d cleaned the board.

“What can I do for you, Molly?”

I stared at her, suddenly aware I’d come burdened with too much hope. Ms. Sinclair cared about her students, more than most, but what had given me the idea, even for a second, that I’d matter enough to her for this?

“It’s…it’s things at home. I don’t know if I can stay there.”
She went still, reminding me of a cornered animal. “Are you being abused? I have to report it if you are.”

“N-no.” A lie, but a necessary one, now that I understood this conversation had been over before I came through the door. “It’s just that things are kind of bad. I might need somewhere…somewhere to go.”

At the crumpled look on her face, I knew. She cared. Other teachers barked out directions or read us passages from the textbooks in a monotone. Ms. Sinclair asked about our lives. She probably bored her friends with stories about the unbelievable hurdles her students jumped. She volunteered in soup kitchens and gave money to the United Way.
But she had a one-bedroom apartment and a boyfriend who liked to stay over.

She wouldn’t help me.

Nobody could help me.
 
 
SIXTEEN YEARS AGO
 
Staying in her embrace wasn’t an option. It was so tempting to pretend there was safety somewhere. Better to sit across from her than to let myself fall into the trap of thinking this was anything more than an illusion. A visit, into other people’s normality.

“Do you mind setting the table, honey? I can’t see well enough when it gets this time of day, now. That home health nurse says I’ll have to go into a home, if it gets much worse. I sure do like looking at your beautiful face, though. How come your mama hadn’t brought you by more often?”

“She’s been busy,” I said, keeping my face turned away, not wanting to upset her by admitting her daughter was busy passing out drunk or high and getting more and more vocal about my need to contribute to the household. Tonight I’d been allowed to come on the condition that I’d raid Grandma’s purse. (“She can’t see nothing, the old bat. Piece of cake,” my mother had said.)

For thirty whole minutes, I’d eat KFC with the one person who cared about me. I refused to be jealous of other girls who didn’t appreciate what they had. Just for today.

The punishment I’d take later when I brought nothing home would be worth it.