Being With You (The Redemption Series) (21 page)

The vicious cycle was churning through his brain when there was a soft knock on the door to the room. Dr. Sheridan opened the door, and Peyton walked in to the room. She was crying already, and it broke Tristan’s heart to see his girl so torn up over his piece-of-shit life.

“Tristan, what’s wrong?”

He looked to the doctor and back at Peyton and realized she had no idea what was going on. Dr. Sheridan wasn’t allowed to discuss his medical situation with her, but she worked there and he knew that she should hear all this. And he would have to tell her.

Tristan waited until Dr. Sheridan left the room and paced as he told Peyton what he’d just learned. She didn’t say much, just wrung her hands together in her lap and gave him a smile on occasion.

Finally, he finished and sunk into the chair the doctor was just sitting in and hung his head.

“In other words, Peyton, I’m fucked…” Tristan barely finished saying it before the tears started to flow down his face.

“Oh, sweetheart…no.” Peyton flew to the floor between his legs and clutched his middle. “There are a lot of variables here, Tristan. People can manage this disease quite well, and I know you are completely capable of doing that. Plus, you just told me you don’t even know what happened to your father. Maybe you should try finding him, or any other possible members of your family. There is a chance that Morgan could be a match for you, too, you know.”

Tristan snorted. “That fucker wouldn’t give me a glass of water if it would save me from dying a horrific death.”

“Well, then, we try to find your father. It’s won’t hurt anything.” Peyton sat up far enough to give him a kiss on his nose and then went back to hugging him tightly around the chest.

“I can’t, Peyton. I can’t,” Tristan choked on a sob. “If I go looking for him now, what if seeing him is too much for me to bear? What if it’s the final nail in my coffin and it snaps me into pieces that won’t go back together again?”

“Tristan, baby, it won’t be too much for you…I know it. This time is different, I can feel it. You’re stronger than before, you don’t turn away from your problems, you face them head on. Don’t let this stop you.”

Tristan cupped his hands together around Peyton’s back and leaned his head down to rest on the top of hers. He took the time to think about what she’d just said and then ventured into the prospect of actually seeing his father again. Seeing the man who left him behind with an abusive mother and a semi-coherent grandmother to raise him, while he just walked away. What would he say?
Hey, asshole, you owe me for the fucked up way I grew up. So, if you’d be willing to give me a kidney when I need one, all is forgiven?

There were two more questions that kept rolling through Tristan’s brain, and he couldn’t shake them, no matter how hard he tried. They were repeating over and over in his brain, and were making him slowly fall apart on the inside.

What the fuck did he do to deserve all this? When was his pain ever gonna go away?

To be continued….

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