Page 166 of Promise Me Not

Curling in a ball, I lie before his headstone, one hand pressed to the day he left me and the other clutching the photo of the little guy he gave me before he went.

The tears don’t stop, the guilt doesn’t lessen, but the pain…it slowly fades.

We’re together, even if we’re worlds apart.

“Payton.”

My lips twitch, his voice one of my favorite sounds to hear.

“Payton, look at me.”

Slowly, my eyes open, and I smile instantly.

“Hi.” He smiles back.

“Hi.”

“It’s been a while.”

I nod, reaching out, and a sob breaks free when I can feel him. The smoothness of his cheeks, the softness of his hands when they lock around mine. “You’re here.”

“I’m wherever you need me to be.”

“But you weren’t,” I argue. “Deaton, you were gone, and I needed you.”

“No,” he whispers softly. “You needed him.”

An avalanche of emotion falls over me, burying me in grief. “I’m so sorry,” I say.

Deaton smiles, that easy, gentle smile he was known for, and then he shocks me when he says, “I’m not.”

“Deaton…” My heart stops, his name but a stuttered breath.

“My son, our son, deserves someone else to love him like you do, and if it can’t be me, it has to be him.”

“How can you be okay with that?”

“Payton,” he murmurs, holding my gaze with his steady, unwavering one. “No one will love that little boy more than us, and Mason? He is part of us now.”

“If that’s true, that means your little boy will grow up and call someone else daddy.”

“Not someone else.” Deaton’s thumb grazes along my cheek. “Him.”

“That’s not fair to you.”

He takes the picture in my hand, lifting it between us. He doesn’t speak until my eyes fall to meet my baby boy’s. “I helped make him. He helped bring him into this world.” My gaze comes back to his. “That seems pretty equal to me.”

I break down again, sobbing and falling into him, wishing I could feel the warmth of his arms around me.

“Don’t cry,” he whispers. “I’m okay here. In your memory. Just think of me sometimes, and I’ll never be gone.”

“Don’t go.”

“It’s time to wake up now. He’s scared. And he needs you.”

His support is unwavering, and finally, I nod.

“Goodbye, Payton…”

---