Sophie could think of a few people who did deserve to be in a place like Monroeville. One of them was the bastard that had landed her here in the first place: Dakota Chotke. She’d wanted to like him, and in the beginning she did, but he was so much older, seemed so much wiser… the fact that an older boy had been paying attention to her did make the much more naive version of her excited that she was that well liked. There had been warnings from friends around her, people who told her to not go to his room alone. There had been plenty of people who were worried for her, but in the end, she hadn’t listened, and she felt so god damn stupid for it. When the dust had settled, Dakota was blind, and she? She was headed to Monroeville after a lot of lies had been told to the police and some money had gone under the table. It had gotten to the point that even her own parents had chosen to believe that she had attacked him unprovoked. She would never forgive him for that.

“Don’t fucking call me Princess.” The anger that ripped through her mixed with her words, and she practically spit them at him. She had nothing to say to his next comment, she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that she might have understood what he was saying, in a way. He might have… done what he did, but she was the one who blinded him. Granted, hers was to protect herself, and she had done what she had set out to do, but she had still blinded him. He spoke again, and she watched out of the corner of her eye as he leaned forward and rested his head against the back of the seat in front of them. “You were having fun. I was getting pulled along for the ride whether I wanted to or not.” She wanted to cry, and the tears were stinging the backs of her eyes. She turned her head, not bothering to remind herself that he couldn’t exactly see her eyes starting to fill, and she looked back at the Southern Gothic facade of Monroeville, wishing for the first time since she had been thrown in there that she could be back inside its walls. At least then she wouldn’t be forced to be sitting next to Dakota.

The fact that Dakota chose to be in Monroeville when she was stuck here without a chance in hell of getting out set her on edge, and she clenched her hands into fists, the bite of her nails momentarily re-grounding her and preventing her from losing the temper that was already starting to boil over. Why anybody would chose to be here was beyond her, but apparently Dakota did, and there was definitely a part of her that hated him more for it. “So you’re interning. Does that mean I’m stuck dealing with you regularly?” That was definitely something that she could have done without. Like, for the rest of her life.

“The Quarter, I think.” Sophie crossed her arms over her chest, still contemplating the merits of shoving him off of his seat and into the aisle. The bus started up, and she watched as the door closed, officially shutting out any chance of her escaping this hellish situation. “Yes we can bring stuff back, yes I have money, and as for what the fuck you’re supposed to do, you’re going to have to ask someone else.” She snapped as she turned her head to look out the window as the bus started moving. This was the first outing that she had actually been on, though she’d heard stories from her friends that had gone. “This is the first one I’ve been on.” She hated that she had admitted it. The last thing that she wanted was to give ammunition to the one person that she would love to toss in solitary and throw away the key.

“Why the hell are you interning at Monroeville anyways? Of all the places you could pick, you want to work at this fucking madhouse?” She rolled her eyes at the thought, but of course Dakota had found a place in her own personal little cage. It wasn’t like the universe hadn’t kicked her in the face before, what was one more time, right?