In the very beginning of The Dating Playbook, readers learn that Taylor has gotten herself into a heap of financial trouble. Unfortunately, many of us can probably sympathize with her. In this scene that never made it into the book, Taylor is suffering through the hard task of choosing personal items to sell in order to earn some extra cash. It gives some insight into Taylor’s journey of personal growth and her effort to become more responsible.

Taylor fought back the bile rising in her throat as she stared at the clothes and jewelry arrayed over her unmade bed. She’d spent the past half hour trying to decide which ones to upload to the app she’d been using to sell some of her things. It was only on the rarest occasion that she treated herself to what one would consider a luxury item. Having to part with any of them was more traumatic than she had anticipated.

Each item held special meaning. The bomber jacket she’d brought back from Germany was her only connection to the group of girlfriends she’d made there. It conjured fond memories of Saturday afternoons spent in the mall near the base, always with a parent or one of their older siblings nearby.

The Manolo Blahnik pumps were her only pair of fancy shoes. Period. Most of her shoes came from the low-end section of DSW’s clearance rack or Target. She’d bought these under duress, after much badgering by her best friend Keva, who insisted that the champagne satin pumps were the only shoes Taylor should even consider wearing to her wedding. In the end, Taylor was happy she’d bought them. She felt powerful in these shoes. As if she could rule the world simply by slipping them on.

She picked up the platinum diamond-stud earrings from Tiffany’s. Most of the time they remained in that signature blue box, mainly because she didn’t go anywhere that warranted wearing two-thousand-dollar earrings. She’d priced similar items on the site and knew she could get anywhere from eight hundred to twelve hundred dollars for the pair.

But she couldn’t do it.

She’d come up with a dozen practical reasons for selling these earrings, but when weighed against the significance of what they meant to her, she just couldn’t bring herself to part with them.

The shoes. She would sell the shoes. She’d last worn them on her date with Craig. She didn’t need any reminders of him.

After uploading several pictures of the satiny pumps to the website, Taylor left her tiny bedroom and walked over to the closet just to the right of her front door. She’d put this off long enough.

She dragged out the tattered cardboard box, cursing as the tear on the side ripped a little more. It was time for her to take inventory of her remaining Taylor’d Conditioning gear.