Camryn Quinn is finally getting what she wants...sort of. Moving into a dorm and away from her not so supportive father is a good first step, but like everything with him, it comes with strings. She must attend the college of his choosing for at lea...
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Six Months Later
Shea held on longer than any of us expected after her emergency surgery in January. But she never made it out of the hospital, not until those final weeks. Her family took her home and made her comfortable by surrounding her with the people and things she loved the most. I only got to see her two more times before she passed away in April.
It happened one week after Taylor had been drafted into the NFL in the first round by the Chicago Bears. I cried when he called me even though it wasn't a surprise at that point. Even as I sobbed, I don't think the tears were over her now permanent absence in his life, or our story. Many of the tears were because she waited, she waited for Taylor to reach his goal. He was able to do the one thing that she wanted for him more than anything else in the world. Shea waited for Taylor to have everything he's ever dreamed of.
She was too sick to leave, so Taylor didn't attend the draft. Instead she got to watch him in person as he got the call on his cellphone. The league sent a camera crew to their house in Texas to capture the entire thing, and made sure to put emphasis on the entire family wearing their colon cancer support t-shirts, and urging the public to make donations to cancer research. I couldn't be there because of midterms, but I watched through a live stream as Taylor and Shea held each other and cried over the news.
Even after we were able to reconcile in January, Taylor and I have hardly seen each other. Between his mom's illness and training for the combine, my classes and our work schedules it's been hard to have an actual relationship. We've had to rely on Facetime, pictures and videos to keep up with each other's life, but it's worked for us.
I've watched from the sidelines as Taylor trained and got into even better shape than I imagined was possible. The amount of tattoos on his arms increase almost as steadily as the amount of muscle they hold. My favorites are the wren he got on the inside of his wrist, and the portrait of his mom that now lives on the inside of his forearm. It's a constant reminder that we're always with him even if we're not physically there. A picture I added to the timeline came from the Chicago Bears own media page the first day Taylor made it to the facility and signed his contract. The pen looked minuscule in his giant hands, the smile on his face was miles wide.
In the months following our reunion, Taylor has also worked to better understand himself. He and his sister started seeing a counselor together when it was evident that Shea wasn't going to get better. He would call me after every session to tell me new things he had discovered, things that he felt were keeping us apart in the first place. He's not dwelling on the past, but learning from it to not make similar mistakes in the future.
One day he learned that he was subconsciously looking for an escape from his life. He had too many responsibilities on his shoulders and he was watching them all slip away at once. He took Cal's money because he really needed it, and like he told me before, he never planned to actually get to know me. But when we started to talk, I became his escape. I became the positive light in his life and he latched on. He wanted to end it with me but couldn't and he couldn't stop taking the money because his mom was showing signs of improvement. Even if I hadn't already forgiven him, I would have at that moment. The fact that he was putting in the work meant everything. Shea had promised me that Taylor has always had that ability, especially for the people he loves.
