Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 131821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
I could have cost him his dream because I was too afraid to face the fact that he had become the man in mine.
No more hiding, Payton. No more holding back.
Taking one last steady breath, I push the door open.
I step from the car, each rise and fall of my foot heavier than the last until there are no more to take.
The first thing I see when I lift my eyes is his name, carved into the stone. The second is the small picture placed beneath it. It’s our little boy, smiling wide with dimples identical to his dad’s. The tears come hard and fast, and I fall to my knees, burying my face in my hands.
“I’m so sorry, Deaton,” I cry. “I’m sorry you’re gone and that I haven’t come. I’m sorry I took off in the first place, and I’m sorry you died not knowing if our baby was going to be raised by strangers or by his mom. I’m sorry for being part of the reason you were on the road that day at all and…damn it.” I swallow, taking a moment to gather myself. “I don’t have anything good to say,” I admit in a whisper. “All I can think about are all the things I need to apologize for. Unfortunately, the list feels never-ending, and most of it I’m not so sure you’ll want to hear, but I…think I have to tell you anyway.”
I look to the sky, his headstone far too agonizing to address.
“I stopped talking to you after I stopped dreaming about you. I didn’t know what to say. How could I whisper words I wanted you to hear when another man’s face replaced yours in my mind? But I did try to get you back, I promise. I looked at photos and read old letters and messages. I replayed so many days, and I did it for weeks, right before I went to sleep, and still…my dreams would come, and the new set of brown eyes stared back at me. I didn’t know how to stop it, and I thought maybe if I quit him, he would go away and you would come back.”
I press my fingers to my mouth, pinching the skin there. “But there was no quitting him, and it only got worse after that. It didn’t take long for me to realize why. I…” I squeeze my eyes closed, unable to face this head-on but forcing the words from my lips. “I’d already lost you, Deaton, but I hadn’t lost him yet. He was still here, and I was hanging on with all I had. That meant the place I thought I saved just for you became his, and I didn’t even know it was happening until it already had. I was sick with guilt and scared to death because I knew there was no way I could go through that again.” Not with him.
“So I kept reaching for you, holding on to your memory in fear not only of losing it but of losing myself if my world fell apart all over again. I hardly made it through after you died, Deaton, and even though things have changed, you have to know how much I missed you.”
Gasping, I look up, pressing my palms to his name and dropping my head against it.
“I can’t believe your body is under here. It’s so crazy you’re really gone. Like gone, gone. Forever.” My shoulders shake, my sobs uncontrollable. “I don’t want you to hate me. Please don’t hate me. I didn’t mean to fall in love with him. I didn’t mean to let you go.”
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.”