SEÑORITA

Chapter fifteen

Debbie sat on her bed with her teddy, Mr. Bluebear tight in her arms, dewy-eyed and reminiscing on the fond memories she had with her dad. Like when she sustained an ankle injury from ballet. He was sitting with the other parents at the lobby, when he heard his nine-year-old daughter cry. He rushed into the dance studio and saw Debby laying on the floor, holding unto her ankle and refusing to let Ms. Dana, the ballet instructor see the injury.
“No! don’t touch it…it’s hurting!” Debbie cried.
“Princess, don’t worry daddy is here!” Arthur said as he rushed into the room and knelt by his daughter.
“What happened?” Arthur asked Ms. Dana.
“I really don’t know…she just fell and hurt her ankle.” Ms. Dana replied so anxiously.
“Debbie, let me see.”
“No daddy, it hurts!”
“Trust me, I won’t hurt you.”
Debbie then let go of her ankle. When Arthur saw it, he was so perplexed. It had swollen red. It looked as if it had been strained. Debbie felt pains in her ankle when practising but she refused to stop dancing because she felt that she was lurking behind and she wanted to impress Ms. Dana on the day of reckoning; the day the sheep will be separated from the goats.
“This looks very bad. I’m taking her to the ER right now.” Arthur said as he lifted Debbie from the floor and carried her away to the hospital. It turned out that it was a major injury. Debbie stayed in the hospital for eight weeks and was later discharged. Since then, she never tried ballet again. Although, at times she felt little pain in her ankle, it wasn’t so much pain she couldn’t handle.
        Debbie brast into tears. She couldn’t help but think about her father’s arrest. She knew from the bottom of her heart that her father was as innocent as a child unborn. She just could not imagine her life without her father always scolding her, grounding her, or even letting out his anger on her. Boy, would she miss his stories about when he was in college, being a bad boy but at the same time, keeping his grades up. She was just going to miss him so much. Just as a smile popped up on her face, the scene of when the judge condemned her father popped into her mind.
“Arthur Deraldo Diez, under the New York State, you are hereby sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment with hard labour for peddling and smuggling illicit drugs in and out of The United States of America, forging of legal documents, tempering with the National Drugs and Pharmaceutical (NDP) coffers and interference of the operations of Dave& Andy Pharmaceuticals.” The judge said as she ruled over the case and banged her gavel on its sound block.
Just then, tears flowed like a river from Debbie’s eyes. She couldn’t believe that she has been separated from her father, her only relative for fifteen years. She wiped her tears with her index finger and grabbed her phone.
“I need to talk to someone right now.” She said as she dialled Alex’s number. She called him for a couple more times but to no avail. She threw her phone on the bed and ran her hands through her hair.
“Why’s he avoiding me?” She thought as she squeezed her teddy harder.