Fighter (Anthony Rizzo)

The future

Camilla

Anthony shows up to the apartment at 10 am on the dot with coffee and doughnuts.

"Oh my god you're the best boyfriend ever" I say letting him into the apartment. My cap and gown was laid out and a gold tassel hung from it.

"Gold tassel" he asks causing me to smile.

"Valedictorian" I smile and he smiles back.

"I'm seriously so proud of you, you're doing great" he says before kissing my nose.

"Thank you. Now we need to leave, I don't want to be late" I say pulling him out behind me along with the food.

We walk through the doors of the Chicago Children's hospital and all the memories hit me. I kind of miss this place.

"Camilla is that you" a woman says and I turned to see my old nurse. She was a short lady about 60 now and still wearing spongebob scrubs.

"Nancy" I say with my arms opened and she enters them.

"You look great, and your hair" she says picking up a handful of it.

"I know, I've been doing pretty good. I want you to meet my boyfriend Anthony. Tony, this is the nurse who took care of me when I was here, Nancy" I say as they shake hands.

"Nice to meet you" Anthony says.

"Nice to see Cammy here met a nice boy" she says giving me a wink. She takes us around and I see some familiar faces. It's been 10 years since I've been here but it feel like just yesterday I was emitted here. She takes me to my old room and it hasn't changed one bit.

"Oh my god, you guys kept my paintings" I ask as I look around the room. There was a baseball field and a painting of Sammy Sosa running around with the American flag after 9/11. That was the last thing I painted in here. Wrigley field was still across the ceiling, now that was a task to accomplish but my family helped me.

"Oh man, you're really talented" Anthony says running his fingers across the paintings.

"They helped me turn my pain into art here. You know, like a coping mechanism" I explain.

"All the patients had something, but nothing like little Cammy. She's something special" Nancy says as I go to the window and look out it one more time. The view was still breathtaking.

"She sure is something special" Anthony says causing me to turn around. He was no longer looking at the covered walls but at me and I couldn't help but blush.

We continue the tour and I showed him the room I had chemo in and where I would hide to watch a game. I never missed a Kerry Wood start. We end up in the community room where the kids there go crazy for Anthony.

We play with the kids for a while and a little boy comes up to me with the same scar atop his head.

"Hey buddy, what's your name" I ask.

"I'm Charles, I have brain cancer" he replies softly.

"I had that too, look" I say showing my scar and he runs his finger over it before running it over his.

"And you got better?"

"I did. Thanks to the great people here I did. And I know you will too" I say taping his nose. We talk for a little and Anthony shares his story with the boy. Anthony gives him a baseball and I don't think he's ever going to put it down.

We finish up walking around and I make arrangements to have some of the kids come out to the ball park and for some of the guys to visit here. I thank Nancy for everything then we go out for lunch.