"I want to go to UW, Dad," Lindy said, her voice quaking. She didn't understand how it had suddenly come to this. One moment she'd been studying her sneakers when she should have been studying her homework, and now was she was on the verge of tears. Don't let him see you cry, she commanded herself. She had discovered crying didn't work a long time ago. "I want to be a nurse one day."
"Be a nurse after community college. Not quite sure I see you making it to that point, though. The medical field isn't for people like you," Lee said back coolly.
Lindy could barely stand a second more of it. Her father acting as if he knew her best was a lie, the biggest lie out of all the ones he oozed daily. Even her dead mother must have known her better than Lee did, and it had been years since Hannah had left them.
"I'm going upstairs," Lindy announced tightly, knowing it would do no good to defend herself. Defending herself meant an even bigger dispute, and a dispute meant her potentially getting kicked out of the house. She definitely didn't want to be in the house as long as her father was there, but living under Lee's roof did equate to food and a warm bed, so she tried to remain passive.
As Lindy slung her school bag over shoulder and bounded up the stairs, she envisioned herself at UW, far, far away in Seattle where her father could not commandeer her for a single moment longer. It wasn't that she had an issue with community college -- any college was fine to her. She enjoyed learning and cared a fair amount about her education, and wherever she could simply gain knowledge was the place for her. The real issue was getting as far away as possible from Lee and his totalitarian household. The only real way to do so was to pack her shit up and leave Aberdeen, once and for all.
Sure, she would miss Trae desperately, but he could handle their father better than anyone else. He always knew what to say in order to keep Lee in line, and Lindy figured it was because Trae had a whole lot of their mother in him. He even had her smile, soft and gentle, just like she had been.
Trae had been the one who'd suggested she go out of state for school, but they both knew there was no way in hell it would be affordable. If Lee didn't want to pay for Lindy to go to a school that was just two hours away, there was no chance he'd pay double that price for a hefty out of state tuition.
Lindy sighed at the thought, passing Trae's room and pausing when she heard the the low sound of drum playing. She cracked a smile, twisting the door knob open and poking her head in.
"You're breaking a huge rule right now. Just thought I'd let you know before Stalin makes his way upstairs," Lindy joked.
Trae looked up from his drum set, (which he had 'illegally' smuggled into the house -- Lee had thrown an absolute fit, but had caved when Trae had threatened to move out. For some reason, that had really scared Lee. Lindy found this quite funny, solely because if she were to make such a threat, Lee would have gladly held the door open for her) smiling coyly at his little sister.
"He won't bother me. He's holding onto a prayer that this music thing works out and I bring home the big bucks, because its become clear as hell that nothing else is going to work for me," Trae explained, raking back his overgrown curls with his fingers and resting his elbows on his knees.
"I have total faith in you. You're going to be the next Ringo Starr," Lindy smiled. Her and Trae had obsessed over The Beatles like crazy in their early youth. Ringo had always been Trae's favorite.
"Ringo's got nothing on me," Trae quipped, flipping one drumstick in the air and catching it perfectly in his fist. Lindy giggled, shaking her head and closing the bedroom door as she made her way down the hall. Trae had experimented with all sorts of instruments -- electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, keyboard, you name it. He'd finally found his true talent in the drums, practicing nearly every day. Lindy thought he sounded amazing. Lee thought he sounded like ruckus.
Upon committing to the drums, Trae had given Lindy his old acoustic as a hand-me-down. In her times of lonely boredom, she'd practiced playing, eventually teaching herself to play "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" by Bob Dylan without much trouble. Despite not being an expert on playing, she loved doing so, plucking absentmindedly at the strings and marveling at the sound they made.
After all, Lindy's room was indeed a shrine to music. Each wall was plastered with one obscure band poster to the next. As long as she could remember, she'd been an outsider, a loner who was looked differently at not only because of her introverted personality, but because of her olive complexion that set her apart from the pale white skin tones of everyone else in Aberdeen.
She flopped on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying to imagine herself in a different life. Weirdly enough, she couldn't picture it. All she saw was the life she lived now. Her best friend was her brother, she spent her free time reading books and discovering new music, and she had to deal with a shitty excuse for a father.
Nice life you got there, her conscious remarked snidely.
Lindy sat up, pulling her knees to her chest. She glanced down, noticing the corner of a record sticking out from beneath her bed. Leaning over, she retrieved it, flipping it over to identify the band. The Sex Pistols. Figured. She'd been fixed on more recent albums, so it was no surprise that one had ended up discarded beneath her bed.
She threw herself back down, sighing and wondering for exactly one millisecond if there were anyone else out there who felt like she did. Someone who was empty yet full, lonely yet content, and totally reliable on intangible things like music to get through life.
Trae fit all of those qualities, but he was her brother. They had gone through it together. Lindy needed evidence that she wasn't the only one who needed an escape so badly that it hindered her breathing and made her chest ache with the weight of a hundred tons.
As she rolled over, curling her body into the tight little ball that had eased her pain ever since her mother died, she guessed that there really was no one else out there.
She could only conclude that she would be alone in her bubble forever, listening to the faint lonesome sound of Trae's drums through the walls and wondering when the next slur of verbal abuse would be hurled her way.
[ I PROMISE KURT IS COMING YOU GUYS, I NEED THESE FILLER CHAPTERS SO YOU GUYS CAN GET TO KNOW MY ANGEL BABY LINDY ]
