Chapter Twenty-One:

| Hollis |

At the tender age of six, Hollis learned what being grateful was all about for the first time in her young life. She’d been playing on the monkey bars in the schoolyard alone after all her classmates had gone home for the day. It was her normal routine, but just until she saw her brother. Dalton being in the third grade wouldn’t get out for another ten minutes, leaving the little girl to her own devices. It’d been storming in Auburn that morning, rendering all the playground equipment slippery and practically unusable, but that didn’t stop Hollis as she struggled to swing herself to the next bar. She’d almost reached the end when Dalton’s shocked little voice calling her name startled the child, and she came crashing down on one of the cold, hard bars; Effectively busting her chin wide open. She’d cried more from shock and fear than of the actual pain, thinking of how mad everyone was going to be at her. Dalton even then wa