Page 34 of Serenity

ChapterFourteen

Dillon

Holy fuck.A part of me wanted to rewind the clock to the start of this conversation and tell them I didn’t need to know anything else. That they’d earned my trust throughout my entire life, and that was good enough for me. I hadn’t stopped to consider they might’ve been right about me not being able to handle the complete truth. But damn, they might’ve been fucking right. I finally got why they kept thisfromme.

“Oh my God.” Faith held me even tighter as I started toshake.

“It was an impossible decision, and we weren’t handling it well at all. It’s something that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.” My mom was crying into my dad’s chest while he talked. “It took them a little while to convince us that our choice was to either lose both of you or save one. That there was no outcome that would result in both of you living. Declan was already gone. And then they brought in a transplant doctor to talk to us about what would happen if wesaidyes.”

“We finally said yes,” my mom sniffled, lifting her head and smiling softly at Faith. “Part of the reason why we were able to make that impossible decision was the young patient he’d told us about. The one who had no options. Ours was horrible, but at least we had one. They had nothing. Not even a family to mourn them when they were gone. But then we realized we might be able to save them too if they were a match with Declan, and it helped make the situation the tiniest bit less unbearable. So we made a direct donation of one of his kidneystothem.”

“To me,” Faithwhispered.

“We didn’t know it at the time, but yes. Without him telling us about you, I’m not sure we would’ve had the strength to make the decision, even though the heart transplant is the only reason our baby boy is still alivetoday.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. To any of it really. I’d thought I was stunned before, knowing they’d lied to me about when Declan had died. But if they hadn’t lied, I would’ve asked questions that had answers which would’ve devastated me back then. I wasn’t certain they weren’t going to destroy me now. But I had Faith by my side, and she’d lived through hell. The least I could do was the same.Somehow.

“With how complicated the situation was, the hospital sent down a psychiatrist for a consult. He agreed with our concerns about how you’d handle knowing about the transplant and the circumstances leading up to it. He suggested we consider withholding the truth from you for therapeutic reasons. He made a convincing enough case that the doctors agreed to go along with it. After you were home and physically recovered from the surgery, we started to have doubts. We talked about telling you the truth, but then you started to spiral out of control. So we put off telling you, and after that, the timing never seemed right.” My dad heaved a deep sigh. He looked how I felt; like sharing the story had put him through the wringer. “Now you knoweverything.”

“Can you ever forgive us for lying to you for so long?” my momasked.

I was still too stunned to speak. Faith elbowed me in the side, and she was jerking her head in my parents’ direction when I looked down at her. I thought about what she’d said to me yesterday. About forgiving me even though she wasn’t past the pain I’d caused her because shelovedme.

I loved my parents, and they loved me. Of that I had no doubts. At the moment, everything else was up in the air between us except that. “Yes, I’ll be able toforgiveyou.”

Eventually.

“Oh, thank God,” shesobbed.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Iwarned.

“Your mom and I understand that this is going to be difficult for you. We’ve had five years to come to terms with the decision we were forced to make, but for you it’s like it just happened. We understand that. We’ll try to keep that in mind and give you whatever you need to find a way to make peace with this. We understand that nothing worth having comes easy.” My breath caught at my dad’s favorite saying, since it had an all new meaningforme.

“I think that’s a lesson we’vealllearned the hard way,” Faithmurmured.

“One we wish we could’ve protectedyoufrom.”

I tried to smile at my mom, but I just couldn’t get my lips to cooperate. They twitched slightly, but it must’ve been enough for her because she smiled softly backatme.

“What do you need from us now?” my dadasked.

I shook my head because I didn’t know. I had no idea how I was going to move past all this. How I was going to come to terms with the fact that my parents had removed Declan’s life support so they could save me. “Time.” It was the only answer I could thinktogive.

“Okay, we’ll do our best to give you some space,” my dadagreed.

“Just please let us know that you’re okay from time to time? So I don’t drive myself crazy worrying about you and take your fatherwithme.”

“I’ll take good care of him,” Faith promised. “And I’ll let you know how he’s doing, as long as that’s okaywithhim.”

I nodded jerkily, relieved that she’d take care of that for me. I didn’t want my parents to suffer, but I wasn’t sure how long it’d be before things got even close to back to normalforus.

“Thankyou.”

I rose to my feet, grateful when my dad pulled my mom back down after she stood to give me a hug and kiss. I was barely holding on by a thread, and I was pretty sure that would’ve made me lose it. It was bad enough that I handed my key fob over to Faith as we walked outside, and she went to the driver’s side without asking any questions even though I knew she hated driving my SUV. We rode in silence back to our place, my hand clenching her thigh the whole time. And when we walked inside, I led her to the bedroom, crawled onto the mattress, and wrapped myself around her. Then I held on tight and took slow, deep breaths in an attempt to calmmyselfdown.

It must have worked, or my physical and emotional exhaustion just finally caught up with me, because I fell asleep. When I woke up, hours had passed and the sun had already set. I tried to hold as still as I could because Faith was still asleep beside me, but she must have sensed I was awake because she turned in my hold and blinked upatme.

“Did our nap help at all? Because it definitely did for me. I’m feeling at least a thousand times better than I was thismorning.”

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