The cashier’s head snapped up. He stared at me, his mouth opening and closing like he couldn’t find the words.
“TOM?” he finally whispered, his face going pale.
“How did you—” he continued, but before he could finish, his eyes rolled back, and he clutched his chest.
“CALL 911!” his coworker screamed.
Chaos erupted around me, but all I could see was my brother collapsing to the floor.
I rode with Dylan in the ambulance, my hands gripping the edges of the stretcher as the paramedics worked to stabilize him.
“Hang in there,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “I’m not losing you again.”
Lily followed in our rental car. At the hospital, I paced the hallway outside the emergency room, replaying our brief interaction over and over.
How had it come to this?
Finally, a doctor emerged. “He’s stable for now,” he said. “It looks like he had a mild heart attack, but he’s going to be okay.”
Relief flooded through me.
When I stepped into Dylan’s room, he looked smaller than I remembered.
“You’re alive,” I said, exhaling sharply. “Good. Now explain to me why you abandoned me.”
He flinched.
“Tom, I—”
“Don’t,” I snapped, my voice rising with decades of suppressed anger. “You made a ‘promise.’ A promise that meant EVERYTHING to a four-year-old boy who had just lost his entire world!”
Dylan’s hands shook as he tried to speak. “I was young.
Scared. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“The right thing?” I laughed bitterly. “Leaving your baby brother in an orphanage was the right thing?
I waited for you, Dylan. EVERY SINGLE DAY. I believed in you.
Why did you betray me? WHY?”
“I sold the house,” he said quietly, his eyes fixed on the blanket. “I thought I could start over in Miami with my girlfriend.
But the money ran out fast, and she left me. I’ve been working dead-end jobs ever since.”
His words hit me like a punch to the gut. “So you left me to rot in that orphanage because you wanted a fresh start?”
“Tom, I was 18,” he said, his voice cracking.
“I didn’t know how to take care of myself, let alone you.”
I shook my head, the anger and pain I’d buried for decades bubbling to the surface. “I needed you, Dylan. You were all I had left, and you LEFT ME.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, tears streaming down his face.
“I’ve regretted it every single day of my life.”
I completely lost it then and there. “Your sorry won’t mend my heart, Dylan. Goodbye.”
I turned and walked out, his broken sobs echoing in my ears.
In the hallway, a doctor stopped me.
“Sir, we did a more detailed examination. Your brother has cancer. He needs surgery immediately, but it’s expensive.
I thought you should know.”
The words were like ice water, jolting me out of my fury. But instead of going back, I walked straight out of the hospital. I didn’t stop until I was back in our hotel room.
Lily took one look at me and knew something was wrong.
“What happened?” she asked gently.
“He abandoned me,” I said, my voice flat. “And now he needs me to save him. He’s dying, Lily.
He has cancer.”
She placed a hand on mine. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said. But even as the words left my mouth, I knew they weren’t true.
For days, I wrestled with my conscience.
Dylan had betrayed me in the worst way, but could I live with myself if I turned my back on him now?
Finally, I made my decision.
When I walked back into Dylan’s hospital room, he looked up in surprise. “Tom?”
I pulled up a chair and sat down. “I’ll pay for the surgery,” I said.
“Because I’m not like you, Dylan. I can’t leave you in trouble, no matter what you did to me.”
His eyes, bloodshot and weary, locked onto mine. “Why?” he whispered, his voice cracking.
“After everything I put you through, why would you help me?”
“Because abandoning someone isn’t a one-time act,” I said, my voice cold and measured. “It’s a wound that keeps reopening. Every time I thought I’d healed, the memory of being left behind would slice through me again.”
He broke down, tears streaming down his face.
“I’m sorry,” he choked out. “For everything. For abandoning you.
For failing you.”
“Sorry?” I leaned closer, my anger barely contained. “Sorry doesn’t erase 23 years of loneliness. Sorry doesn’t give me back the childhood I lost.
Sorry doesn’t replace the birthdays without a family, the Christmases without a brother.”
I let out a shaky breath as I tossed wads of money onto his bed. “I forgive you, Dylan. But forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting.
Take this and save yourself. This is the least I can do for the brother I… never had. We’re done.
Our paths diverge here. GOODBYE.”
He nodded, too overcome with emotion to speak, his trembling hands gripping the hospital bed’s railing. I rose and walked out of the room, the weight on my chest feeling a little lighter.
I’d done the right thing.
I couldn’t change the past, but I wouldn’t let it define my future.
Dylan and I never saw each other again. But there were no more regrets.
Do you have any opinions on this?
Source: amomama
