The nurse smiles through my rapid questions and must feel the anxiety wafting off me. “I’ll call him. Just wait here. He’ll be just a few moments.” She picks up the phone and dials for Doctor Gladstone.
I take a step back, and my fingers pull against my hair. “I’m here twenty minutes later like he wants, and he can’t be here waiting for me? Now, I have to continue to wait for him? What the hell?” I vent to Finley and start to pace. “It’s bad, Finley. I feel it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. I feel it. He’s going to tell me it’s too late or something. Dillon is going to die. There’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
“You need to stop.” Finley blinks her big green eyes at me, her lashes long and black from mascara. It’s all she’s wearing, but it makes her eyes pop. Her hands cup either side of my neck, and her thumbs rub across my jugular veins. It’s calming. “You have to stop panicking. I know you’re new at this, but you have to get it together, okay? Dillon needs you. You will feel better if you take control of your panic. I’m with you. Your friends are with you. You aren’t alone, okay? I love you.” She ends her speech with the three words I need to hear the most. They bring me strength, a strength that’s different than what has got me through the last eight years.
Over the last eight years, I haven’t had strength at all. I haven’t had anything to fight for, to live for; I think I was a bit careless. I reach for my side where that scrap metal pierced my body. I remember wanting to die, wishing it would have pierced my heart instead. Living gets fucking hard when you’re going at it alone.
I graze the faded yellow bruise along her jaw and realize everything I’ve been needing to live for, the long wait, the agonizing pain of betrayal, it all led to here.
Her.
Dillon.
My reasons for holding on a bit longer because I was ready to call it quits.
“I love you too. Thank you.” I kiss her forehead, and the swing of the double doors in the background have me turning around. Doctor Gladstone is flipping through a medical chart, something he always has in his hand, and I’ll bet anything it’s Dillon’s chart.
“Mr. Campbell, everyone,” Doctor Gladstone greets, unfolding his glasses from his pocket and placing them on the bridge of his nose. “I think we need to speak in private,” he says.
“No. This is his family. Whatever you have to say to me, you can say in front of them.”
He exhales and gives everyone a lookover. “We tested everyone’s sample. No one matches for his bone marrow transplant. I put him on the list yesterday, just in case. So all we have to do is wait.”
The floor falls out from under me, and I can hardly breathe. “What the hell are you talking about? You said I’d be a good match because I’m his dad. You said… what the fuck do you mean? Out of all of us, none of us is a match? That’s what you’re saying? So how long does it take to find a match?”
“Unfortunately, yes. We just wait now.”
“We just … wait. He could die? That’s what you’re saying?”
“I’ll say he has a good three months of quality life, after that, he will need care—”
I raise my fist and punch the doctor in the face, tears brimming my eyes. “Fuck you, Doc. I’m not letting my kid die. I’ll get that bone marrow transplant. I don’t care where I have to go and where I have to take him. I’m not going to give up on him like you’re giving up on him.”
The doctor’s lip is bleeding, and a nurse with security runs over, but he stops them with a wave of his hand. “It’s okay. We’re fine here.”
Jaxon and Owen are holding me back from tearing this motherfucker apart.
“There’s one person we haven’t tried yet, and there is a good chance they will be a match.”
“Who?” I ask. “Who and I’ll deliver them to you.”
“His mother. Where is she?”
“You have got to be kidding me,” I mutter under my breath. I can never be rid of that bitch, can I? “She isn’t an option.”
“She’s the only option you have right now. A donor could be available tomorrow or in six weeks. We just have to wait.”
“I was never very good at waiting.” I push by him and hurry through the double doors and rush to Dillon’s room. He’s alone right now, and if he is awake, he’s probably scared. How the hell am I going to get Kendall here? She wants Dillon back, but maybe I can reach out to her and say we can come to an agreement if she donates her marrow.
Sliding to a stop in front of his door, I swing it open and see him asleep. He’s covered in white sheets and a blue cotton blanket. The heart monitor beeps steadily, and his color has returned to his cheeks. At least, there’s that.
“Dillon,” I breathe his name in relief and glance to the right to see the dent in the wall from the chair I tossed. I walk around the bed, and my hand slides against the gray rail that keeps him from rolling and falling off. His hand is warm as I grab it, and I sit down, bringing it to my forehead. I lean against him and think. He was the most unexpected thing I could ever imagine, but he saved my life when he showed up.
No one knew how close I was to calling it quits.
No one.
I kept the pain locked inside and tried to survive every day.
“I’ll get you your transplant, okay, buddy? You saved me. It’s my turn to save you. I will. We are going to have a long life together, you and me. There’s so much I want to teach you. We need to go to the beach. I want to teach you how to fish. You need to go to school, and you can come home and tell me about your first girlfriend. You need to learn how to change a tire, and you need to know how to treat a lady. You have to be around for your prom because while dancing sucks, it’s a fun night. Life is all about fun, and you haven’t had a lot of that, which is bullshit since you’re only eight-years-old. I want to give you that, Dillon. It’s my job to give you that, so I promise”—a tear drips down my face—“I swear, I’m going to give you that, and I don’t care what I have to do or who I have to take it from. You deserve to grow up. You deserve to feel love. I hope you don’t experience heartbreak, kid, but it’s a part of life. I’ll be there, though, and before you know it, you’ll be falling in love again. You have to experience your first love. You have so much else to see, so much to do, so many people you need to meet. So much love left for you to experience.” None of this is fair. “I want to see you get married one day, and I know you say girls are gross, but, son, I’m telling you, they aren’t. Without a woman, a man isn’t much except two hands and a hard head. They teach us how to love; they soften us where it counts.” I lay my hand flat over his heart and feel the tiny thump under my palm. “Or kids. Kids do the trick too, but you aren’t allowed to have kids until—you know what? That’s a conversation for another time.”
“Hey.” Finley’s voice breaks my rambling thoughts of fear. I’ve almost listed all the things I’m afraid I won’t get to see him do. I’m begging him to do the impossible. I’m begging him to beat a disease that’s stronger than anything on this planet.