Page 10 of Serenity
ChapterFour
Dillon
Faith had gonefrom smiling up at me to staring up at me with tears in her eyes—right when I mentioned having children. We’d never talked about it before, and I felt like kicking my own ass for bringing it up on the night things had finally felt like they were getting back to normal with us. I tugged her hand down. “Shit. I’msorry,I—”
“No. God, no,” she cried. “You’re not the one who needs to apologize, Dillon.Iam.”
She looked completely devastated, and it freaked me the fuck out. I couldn’t imagine anything she might have done that would warrant such a severe reaction. “Whatfor?”
“Just hold on a second. I need to show something to you for this to all makesense.”
Not knowing what to think, I dropped down onto one of the patio chairs and waited for her to come back outside. She was only gone for a minute or two before she came back with an envelope crumpled in her fist. “I’m not sure how to tell you. Even if I could, I’m not sure I could even get the words out. But if you read this, you’llunderstand.”
Her hand trembled as she handed the envelope to me. I glanced down and was surprised to see it was addressed to my parents and the address in the corner was for the transplant center at the hospital. “What is this? Some kind of charity thing for myparents?”
It could have been something like that since they donated to a lot of hospital causes. They got thank you letters and invitations to events all the time. But with Faith’s reaction to whatever was inside, I knew that wasn’t what it was. The way she shook her head and looked at me with red-rimmed eyes only confirmed it. I flipped the flap of the envelope open and pulled out two sheets of paper. One was type-written and on hospital letterhead. The other was lined paper with what looked like Faith’s handwritingonit.
“Read the one from them first,” shewhispered.
I looked up and the tears were spilling down her cheeks. Dropping my hand holding the letters into my lap, I focused on her. “I don’t know what these say, but you have to know it doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, it’s not going to change my feelings for you, Faith. I love you. Today. Tomorrow.Always.”
Her head dropped low, and her shoulders shook. “Please, Dillon. You’re killing me here. Just read theletters.”
I took a deep breath before unfolding the letter from the hospital first. Then I quickly scanned the note Faith had written and the connection between the two hit me. It had only taken a couple of minutes before I began to question everything I thought I knew about my brother’sdeath.
“This isn’t possible,” I mumbled, not understanding how Declan’s name could be listed on the letter from the hospital. “He died in the crash, and that was a month before your transplant. There’s no way you could’ve gotten a kidney from him. Not with that much time in between. There has to have been some kind ofmistake.”
I read the letters again, convinced that it couldn’t be true. If what I was reading was right, then my parents had been lying to me ever since I woke up frommycoma.
“As much as I wish differently, there wasn’t a mistake. After I had agreed to move in with you and finished my last final exam, I decided to let go of some of the emotional baggage I’ve been carrying for years. You’ve made me so happy—changed me for the better. I wanted to give thanks to the family who lost a loved one and offered me a second chance. The transplant center couldn’t give me the name, but they offered to forward a letter from me to my donor’s family. Thatletter.”
My hands were shaking as I stared down at the note she’d sent to her donor family. It was crazy to think her love for me had inspired her to write it. The way she’d talked about how hopeless she’d felt back then. How well her life had turned out since the transplant. That she’d fallen in lovewithme.
It would’ve been fucking amazing to read this if it hadn’t been accompanied by the letter from the transplant center. The one that explained what they were forwarding and why. If it wasn’t a mistake, that letter was black and white proof that Declan was her kidney donor. “My parents didn’t say anything about donating Declan’s organs, but I can see them doing something like that. It would be just like them to try to help people during the worst time of our lives. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a mistake of some kind. Maybe they messed up and forwarded your note to the wrongfamily.”
“That’s what I was hoping, too.” Tears streamed down her cheeks as she shook her head. “But I called and asked the receptionist to double-check if it was mailed to the wrong family in error. She’s the one who sent it. She couldn’t confirm the name of the family it was supposed to go to, but she was able to tell me there wasn’t amistake.”
“Fuck,” I groaned. “This is reallyhappening.”
“Itis.”
It wasn’t just the contents of the letter that I didn’t understand. It was how Faith got it, too. “If they mailed this to my parents, how the hell did you end up with it? Do they know? Did they give it to you and not even tell meaboutit?”
I never would’ve thought they’d do something like that, but I also never expected they’d lie to me about whenDeclandied.
“No, your parents haven’t seen the letters.” She took a shuddering breath before continuing. “I saw it when your mom asked me to grab the mail one day, and I just panicked. The coincidence was too much. The envelope was from the same transplant center where I’d gotten my operation and came so soon after I sent them myletter.”
“So you just took it?” I asked, shocked by heranswer.
“I know it sounds crazy, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. I grabbed it and took off, stopping not too far from their house to read it. It wasn’t until I got home that I even thought about how wrong what I’d justdonewas.”
“This is so fucked up,” I muttered. “That was a huge violation of my parents’ privacy. It could have been something else, something not connected to you. And it’s also a crime, Faith. You can’t just go around stealing otherpeople’smail.”
“I know,” shewhispered.
“Fuck!” I swore. My mind was reeling. There was so much wrong with this shit storm, and I was busy obsessing over something stupid like her stealing a piece of mail instead of focusing on the worst of it—what’d been inside the envelope in the firstplace.
My gaze dropped to her side, right to where I knew her shirt hid the scar from her surgery. “You have Declan’s kidneyinsideyou.”
