14 years later…

In a two-bedroom apartment within the Gilroy Tower at 232 East 54th Street, a young girl was frantically rummaging through her desk drawer. When she could not find what she was looking for, she slapped her hands on top of her desk and turned her head towards the door.

“Dad! I can’t find my scrunchie with the blue dragon pattern on it!” The young girl called out from her room. The man in the living room, trying to finish cooking breakfast, sighed and put the spatula in his hand down. He wiped his hand on his black apron and lowered the heat on the stove.

“Dad!” The young girl’s voice once more rang out, causing the man to look down at the coffee table and sigh. He reached down and picked up the black scrunchie that had a blue-scaled dragon embroidered into it and walked down the hall towards the door that was slightly ajar.

“Desaray, you left it in the living room last night.” The man, named Ricky Harris, announced as he knocked on the door.

It was just the two of them. It had been this way for fourteen years now, ever since that fateful day when they entered each other’s lives. Back then, all the adults in the car had died. Ricky had only managed to save one person from the accident. The driver and the father died due to their injuries and the flames. The mother passed in front of his eyes. But the baby that resided inside her stomach was saved due to him doing a c-section right there on the spot. He had no choice. If he did not do it, the baby inside would have died. Luckily things went well, and the little girl came out crying.

The little girl’s tale did not end there. She was checked into the hospital, and when found to be perfectly healthy, two weeks later, she was placed into an orphanage. She had family, but they all refused to take her in for one reason or another.

They all gave different reasons, such as they couldn’t afford it or they already had too many kids. Not one of them seemed to care about the little girl who had been given a chance at life after losing both her parents. Because his boss had found out about it, and since Ricky was the one who had saved the girl, his boss had explained the situation to him.

Ricky could not see the little girl rotting away inside an orphanage. He knew they were underfunded, and most of the kids would go unnoticed there and end up being without anything when they reached eighteen.

People talk. He had heard many stories when he looked into the place she was put into. Since that was the case, he made a decision that would change his life forever. After almost a month of paperwork and background checks—Ricky had gotten custody of the little girl.

Life with a baby was not easy. Luckily he had a supportive family. They helped him with everything he needed when he was at work and taught him how to raise a child. And now fourteen years later, the young girl who was pursing her lips looking at him was now fourteen years of age—her name, Desaray Cambel Harris. Her last name had been Cambel to start, due to Ricky wanting to give her the choice later on what she wanted to do, but, in the end, she had decided to change it when she grew and properly understood things.

Desaray knew Ricky was not related to her by blood. She had learned everything when she was ten years of age. But she did not need to be blood-related to see him as her father. He was a man that raised her from young and took her in. He spoiled her and gave her a family which she might not have had. Her silver blond hair that she had gotten from her mother, and her ice blue eyes that she had gotten from her father, none of it looked like Ricky at all except for two things, her personality and the things she likes, which she picked up from her father, that cared for her all these years.

Of course, she also had her own likes and dislikes as well. But one thing stood out the most out of everything—her love for dragons. You would think a young girl her age would be giggling about some hot boy from a boyband group, but this was not the case for Desaray. She loved dragons. She did not even try to hide it. If someone said she was strange or tried to pick on her, she would put them in their place. This was not a new obsession either. No, she had liked them since she was very young, and even after all this time, this fact had never changed.

And this was all thanks to Ricky, who had brought home a blue crystal dragon he found in a store. He had thought it looked nice and was planning to turn it into a night light for Desaray. She had just recently watched a movie about dragons at the time and seemed to like them, so he had gotten this one which was a cute-looking blue dragon. But before he could even do anything with it, she had snatched it away and brought it to her room.

Since then, little by little, he would buy her more things with blue dragons. He had once tried to change the color to give it variety, but Desaray ended up crying and calling it ugly. In order to appease her at that time, he had no choice but to take her down to the store and find a blue one. But all of this was fond memories for Ricky. He had never regretted adopting Desaray. He couldn’t even imagine a life without her.

Ricky smiled as he handed the scrunchie over, “Breakfast is almost ready, so hurry up.”

“Okay!” Desaray smiled as she held the scrunchie in her hand. She went to turn but stopped before turning around and looking out the door at her father’s retreating back. “Dad! Thank you!”

“You’re welcome.” Ricky smiled as he thought about how well she had grown. He hoped in the future, she would go to college, learn what she wanted to learn, and live a life of happiness. Maybe one day, he would be holding his grandbaby in his arms. He did not know what the future held—but until the time she struck out on her own, no, even after she struck out on her own, he would support her in everything she did.