the girl in red

xii. a house in nebraska

(a/n: honestly one of my chapters so far.  will forever adore Dimitra and Dima's sibling relationship.  it sparks too much joy in me.  anyways, enjoy the chapter!!)

Tuesday, December 16th, 1975

Lafayette, Indiana

The fan had finally been turned off, replaced with a forgotten heater in the corner of the room.  Magazines were sprawled out on the bed, ripped-out pages lying everywhere that they could.  The moving boxes were still neglected, sitting and collecting dust by the vanity that Dimitra sat at every day, yet she still forgot to look at them.  A Led Zeppelin record spun on the player, wobbling and crackling from its ardent overuse, barely ever being placed back into the record box.  Nails and screws and a hammer were laid out on the ground, put there over an hour ago yet still untouched. 

Instead, Dimitra was focused on the torn-out magazine poster in her hand and the painter's tape she was sticking to the corners.  They were small pieces, just barely enough to hold them up, but using anymore would cost money that she didn't have.  Her wallet was still empty of everything.  The window curtains were pulled open and hooked, letting the fading sunlight flood the room and cover everything in the golden glow that she craved wholeheartedly.  It was soft and warm, starkly contrasting the snow that settled against the dirt and piled on rooftops, reflecting that same golden glow in every which way.  Birds chirped their winter songs, though they were quickly drowned out by Robert Plant as he gently sang Going to California, as well as the deep velvet hums that slipped from Dimitra's lips.

She stepped back from the wall once she'd pressed the paper to the light green, her grin small but there, crinkling her nose and blending her freckles.  She popped her knuckles absentmindedly and rubbed her socked feet against the cold hardwood, turning to stare at the papers spread out on the cream bed cover.  The roll of tape spun around the knuckle of her finger, turning the skin red.  She pursed her lips before walking to the bed and grabbing the next few papers, flicking through them absentmindedly.  Most of them were low-quality images of various bands she'd torn out from magazines Judith had tossed to her when she'd gotten home, while some were actual magazine posters.  There were a few animals or landscapes, too, but most were Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and whatever else she could find.  She put them wherever she could, which was a lot of places.  The room was small but completely bare, the green walls only covered by furniture.  No shelves hung on the wall and no plants sat on the dresser or the vanity.  Her nightstand only had a lamp that only turned on 50 percent of the time and an alarm clock that she had to practically punch to turn off. 

So she decorated with whatever was tossed at her, which wasn't much but enough to liven up the room at least a little bit.  She grabbed the stepstool from by her bed and dragged it with her to the window wall.  She stepped up and let the tape slip back onto her wrist and held the other papers under her chin as she stuck a few of them above the window.  They weren't perfectly straight, but neither was her head, so it worked out fine.  Only a few months ago did she finally realize she stood crooked and her head was always tilted just a bit to the right.

Within minutes, the wall just above the window was lined with torn, old posters of all sorts of things.  Her focus was moved entirely to the cheap shelves on the ground and the nails laid out around them.  The record had halted on the player, the album played out, and she walked over to it.  She knelt and looked over her shoulder, glancing at the small open space to the right of her vanity.  It was shrouded in darkness, the sun nearly completely faded, and she grabbed the shelf in her hand.  She reached up the wall and flicked on the lights, narrowing her eyes against the brilliant fluorescents.  She stood slowly, her knees groaning and creaking as she shook them out.  The door creaked, too, falling open slowly.  Dima's head peered around the corner, his wet hair dangling in front of his forehead and water droplets fell down his bare shoulders.