Tom Daley: Mr. Perfect

Chapter 23: Three years later

**** 3 years later ****

You know how you're waiting for something, and it never happens? So eventually you forget about it?

Tom never called me.

I waited for months, and eventually I just forgot that he was supposed to call me. We made no contact whatsoever. No letters. No texts. No calls. Nothing.

I forgot about him. After waiting every day. Crying over the phone, just anticipating the day he'll call me. I moved on.

Then the Olympics came on TV. I heard his voice from the other room. I ran in and saw his face on the TV and just started crying. I couldn't watch the Olympics at all that year. I didn't want to remember him. The boy who broke my heart. It was too much pain to bear.

While I was waiting for Tom, loads of other stuff happened in my life.

Let me tell you about Olivia....

She didn't get better. She got worse. My sister was in the hospital for 3 months.

Her body rejected the new brain, and organs started shutting down left and right.

I never got to know her new personality. She didn't ever remember me. I looked through family photos with her, showing her what she used to be, and how I really was related to her. It didn't spark anything. She looked through them intently, but she never reckognized me as her sister. It frustrated me so bad.

On April 26, 2036, Olivia passed away.

Her brain finally shut down. After most of her body was dead. She couldn't walk, then she couldn't eat, then she couldn't talk, then she couldn't see... And finally, she was gone.

Maybe she was gone three months earlier. Back when they turned her into someone else. Maybe that's when my Olivia actually left us.

The hospital offered my mom the money they promised for her first surgery. You know what my mom did with that money? She didn't use it to pay for the funeral. She didn't sue them (though they actually offered!) She ripped those hundreds up and threw them away.

It was that money that killed her in the first place.

For a few weeks everything was so dark. Both of my parents were crying all the time. Our house was never clean, we never had a home cooked meal. I nearly failed the quarter.

My parents were so strong. They got through it and went back to there normal life, with their beloved daughter Olivia always in their perfectly-functional-and-not-at-all-genetically-engineered hearts.

I wasn't as strong as them. That dark pit I was in grew darker and emptier than I could ever imagine. Nothing was fun anymore. My parents spoiled me. They took me to movies and let me have anything I wanted. But nothing made me happy.

I was treated for depression. Pill after pill, and therapist after therapist. The combination of losing two of my loves was too much. No pill or therapist would bring Olivia or Tom back.

The only thing that got me out of my depression. The thing that kept me going... Was my new boyfriend.

I was alone for a year and a half, worst year and a half of my life, in my empty pit, but then I found someone. He brought light into my life. He made me happy. I felt joy again. I could talk to him about anything. He was my best friend. I loved him when I thought I'd never love anyone again. Without him, I wouldn't be here today.

Now, I'm happy to tell you that he's my husband. I get to wake up to him every morning. I get to kiss him whenever I want, for the rest of my life! We have a baby girl on the way, and both of us are super excited to raise a family! We get to have grandkids and grow old together.

And I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with him.

Because he's the most perfect man I've ever known.

And his name is Kris.

THE END