“I was gone for five minutes! What happened here?”

My younger siblings, Valentina and Betté, sat by the sides of Daddy, who was lying on the floor.

“Look,” Daddy tried to talk in a calm voice, but I could see the tears in his eyes, “I’m fine. I just tripped.”

My eyes gazed to his ankle, which Valentina was already holding ice on. His bone had popped out of place, and it was starting to bruise.

...

Skipping over to the counter with high hopes, I handed them my card.

“You have 270 tickets,” The man said with a smile.

Ugh.. I thought. I thought for sure it’d be more than that!

Seeing the disappointment on my face, he leaned in and whispered, “If you want to get something for 300, that’s cool.”

This completely flew over my head. I got some candy, and as I was heading out the door, it hit ...

His name is Thomas. Gosh, that name made him cringe; definitely wasn’t the best choice for him.

Whenever you hear “Thomas”, it might not be the first guess somebody would make on his name. His stance is awkward, his pants puddle around his feet, his afro droops to his shoulders, and, gosh, there was that one mole under his big, brown eyes that everybody couldn’t stop looking at.

Due to the way h...