Loose Change~ Montgomery De La Cruz / Zach Dempsey/Scott Reed

Part 3 Chapter 13a

tw: mentions of rape, mentions of death, mentions of violence

a/n: wrote this chapter with the song 'the new Great Depression' by the moth and the flame in mind for the first scene. That is the song played in the show for the last scene Montgomery was in.

I also really enjoyed listening to the acoustic version of 'I bet in losing dogs' by mitski and 'not ready to say goodbye' by Leah Nobel for this chapter.

Next chapter will be the end of season 3.

The morning was silent.

There was no alarm clock needed for Ophelia to wake up on time, because she did not get any sleep the night before.

She stayed awake in her bed. Alone.

As she climbed out of the bed, and placed her feet onto the floor, she winced.

The wooden floor was so cold. As she stood up, it was like the ground was make of tacks. They stabbed at her, and made her not want to move.

But Ophelia forced herself to. She didn't have the strength to pull her feet up completely, so she dragged them to the bathroom. Each step took tremendous effort.

She didn't bother turning on the bathroom light. The sun that shone throw the bedroom window lighted things up enough for her to know where everything was.

Even in the dark, the thick purple bags under her eyes were obvious in the mirror.

It was a painfully obvious reminder of her sleeping troubles. And her sleeping troubles were a reminder of her grief.

Her grief...

Ophelia shut her eyes tightly, gripping the bathroom sink and putting her weight on it.

"Ophelia...there was an incident..."

She shook her head, forcing the words out of her head.

She snapped her eyes back open. She tried not to look in the mirror as she opened it and grabbed her toothbrush and toothpaste from behind it. She closed it, still glancing away.

Her hands shook as she gently squeezed the bottle of toothpaste onto the brush. When she brought it to her mouth, the minty taste felt too strong all of a sudden. She forced herself to brush it anyway. Ten times. She agreed with herself to do at least ten brush strokes a day.

She spit into the sink, and rinsed out her mouth with the tap water.

Glancing up, she finally caught another glimpse of herself in the mirror. She made contact with her dull, brown eyes.

"Montgomery was taken out of solitary confinement today. He, um, he was brought into the general population."

Ophelia stripped herself of her clothes and stepped into the shower. It had been days since she washed herself. But she felt that she needed to that day.

She turned the water up to be as hot as she could stand it. And then she turned it higher. She wanted the water so warm that all the dirt and sweat that built up over the last few days would wash away quickly.

It burned her. It turned her pale skin red after seconds. The steam calmed her. Because at least when she was ready to get out, the window would be too fogged for her to see herself in the mirror.

Putting her head under the running stream of water, her eyes were forced shut again.

"There was another prisoner. I-I don't think he knew Montgomery, but...he knew what he was charged for."