72 Hours

Chapter 12 - The Turnaround

The holidays had gone in the blink of an eye. She'd spent Christmas by herself, mostly speaking with Susanna on the phone and remodelling the interior of the house. She'd ordered new furniture and decorations on the Internet, which arrived on the 20. By the time new year's came, her house was unrecognizable. She'd put away all the old furniture on the garage and was getting used to the way her new home was looking.

For new years Monica offered to spend it with her, so she accepted. They had a nice night and she finally met her brother, Nicolás. Like her sister had mentioned, he was weird, but he was nice to her. He worked at the only radio station that functioned on the city. He wasn't at all what she was expecting; he had light brown eyes, different than his sister's, but had the same hair as her.

By the time school started again, Nicolás had joined their after-school hangouts. Both of them had made a decision to show Dalia the whole island and tell her all about the myths and stories that came with it. She was starting to enjoy herself and she had stopped looking over her shoulder on every single corner. She knew almost everyone there and they knew her. Not as Dalia, but as Louanne. And it didn't bother her anymore.

On the middle of January the weather started to get better. It'd rain at night, but the mornings and afternoons were as sunny as they could get, so she started walking to school and back, ditching the bag all together. Three weeks after the semester started, she pitched an idea to the school principal about teaching an extracurricular dance class. The man had said no, because there was no money, but she had insisted, saying it'd be completely free.

"Ok kids, gather around" she said to the 9 kids that singed up. She had hope there'd be more, but she was glad to have the opportunity to just dance again. "I wanted our first lesson to be something we both enjoyed, so I picked ballroom dance" She heard all the kids groan and she immediately started laughing "I am just kidding. We are starting with hip-hop" With that, her first lesson started, and she saw all the kids smile as big as they could.

After only a week, the class had doubled and the makeshift gym of the school was too small to accommodate all of them comfortably for dancing, so she divided them in two groups, much like her classes, the junior and the senior class.

Susanna had been calling her at least three times a week. The usually talked about their jobs, and the Colombian was happy to see her friend so content and relaxed. Dalia barely had time anymore to keep up with the news of her disappearance anymore. She figured they'd moved on, just like she had done. It had been over 7 months, sure, they were still looking for here, but they had run out of places to look.

The last thing she'd heard was about Christopher. She had seen photos of him with the redhead she knew he loved. At first it was just snapshots of them in a café in Paris, but then there were pictures of him all over the Internet. Dalia had talked about it with Susanna, how they were saying he had moved on pretty quickly from her disappearance and was seeing another woman, but the princess knew best.

Susanna had also told her that they had stopped calling her asking about Dalia. On her last call to the Colombian, Isabella had told Susanna that even if she missed Dalia with all her heart, she needed to move on, for the sake of the country. The blonde could see how her leaving had taken a toll on her mother. She had lost a lot of weight and the bags under her eyes were no longer something she could hide.

But Dalia had made peace with that. Even if she still hurt deeply because of it, she was content with where she was. She had found a place where she could call home, even if she still had to hide. She hoped there would come a time when everyone would forget about the missing princess and she could live her life however she pleased.