She had bought them a few days prior, in reaction to receiving her Bromwell 'wait-list' letter. The letter made out that the number of wait-listed applicants was rather long, and the basic gist was that Daria shouldn't keep her hopes up.
So, her first instinct had been to break it off with Tom, as she would be in Boston and he would be in Newtown, and...no. That would have been unacceptable.
Last weekend, on Friday, she had driven to a library three towns over and (after guessing the site admin's password) hacked into Bromwell's registration database and printed off the entire wait list.
On Saturday, she had gone to a town three towns over in the other direction and paid cash for a handgun at a gun show held in the conference room of a seedy little chain motel.
Now, for the hundred and first time, she fingered the sheet of paper and the cold steel of the firearm. Finally, she drifted off to sleep, and dreamt of winter in Newtown with Tom.
Because the best way to a man's heart was through the skulls of over a dozen preppies.
XXXX
I wondered what would happen if Daria were incredibly desperate to attend the same learning institution as Tom, and was also a complete psychopath.
I was going to arm Daria with a knife and have her go through the preppies' sternums (as that would be a more proper "man's heart" metaphor), but I thought it was unrealistic to have Daria engage in close quarters murder and get away with it so many times. Oh well!