1,000 Oceans

Deilia’s POV

Bill led me to a small room that was painted Robin’s egg blue. The carpet was dark blue. There was a double bed that had fresh sheets on it.
“Here you are. It’s not much, but you are welcome to decorate it, since you are staying here for a year.” Bill said. I heard swearing coming from down the hall. A young man, about my age, stumbled into my room carrying two of my five suitcases. The boy looked like Bill in the face, but that was it. He was wearing saggy clothes and had dreadlocks.
“Mein Gott, woman! What is in here? Bricks?” he said sourly.
“No. That suitcase has my clothes and other stuff in it.” I muttered, taking my suitcases away from the sour boy.
“Bist du Tom?” I asked him.
“Ja.” He said.
“Well, I’m Deilia.” I put my hand out for him to shake. Tom took my hand and shook it. His hands were rough.
“You must play guitar…” I said, examining Tom’s hand.
He pulled his hand away. “How’d you know?” Bill had sat himself down on the bed.
“I play too. The calluses on your hands gave it away.” I said, taking a seat next to Bill. Tom followed in suit. We spent a few hours getting to know one another.
“My favorite singer is Nena.” Bill said.
“Really? She’s mine too!” I squealed.
Bill laughed and Tom rolled his eyes. “Fucking fan girls,” he muttered. Bill kicked Tom off the bed and Tom stood up.
“I’m going to go play with your guitar.” He said, exiting the room.
“Oh, Gordon brought my stereo system in.” I said getting up and hooking it in. Bill seized my CD book and began looking through it. He squealed loudly and pulled out my Nena CD and put it in. “99 luftballons” began playing. Bill seized a hairbrush and jumped up on my bed and began singing into the brush. He also started dancing with the music. I laughed and grabbed my comb and joined him on the “stage”. Bill couldn’t stop smiling. I didn’t think that I could stop laughing. Bill wasn’t helping much, either. He kept hitting all the high notes and was doing funny dance moves with the music.
The song ended and Bill and I collapsed onto the bed, laughing our asses off.
“That was so much fun!” Bill exclaimed. “I didn’t think you could sing in German.”
I giggled. “I did horrible. But still, it was fun.”
“You did fine. Better than most Americans could.” He said.
“Well, you were fantastic! You can really sing!” I told him.
“Yeah, I know. I was on ‘Star Search’ when I was thirteen.” He said.
“That’s so cool. Back home, I was almost on ‘Instant Star’.”
“Really? Why didn’t you make it?” Bill asked.
“I missed my call back. My dad died.” I sat up.
“I’m sorry. How’d he die?” he asked.
I didn’t mind talking about my dad’s death. In fact, I was glad he was dead. “He killed himself, or maybe it was accidental, I’m not sure.” I said. “He passed out in the garage with the car running.” I kept a straight face. Bill furrowed his eyebrows, deep in thought. I looked at my hands.
“How long ago did this happen?” he asked.
“Two years ago. I was the one who found him.” I said. Bill squirmed slightly. He changed the subject.
“Do you want to got shopping? I want to go shopping. Do you?” he said.