Promise Me Not

by Meagan Brandy

To those living with the weight of regret, you are not alone. For there is no life without lessons and no love without loss. Be kind to yourself as the clouds shall clear. This one is for you.

If there is one thing that hasn’t changed, it’s his eyes. The honey-brown irises are as rich as ever, the perfect mix of dark and light, vivid yet grave. A flawless illustration of his character. Mason Johnson is as fierce as he is tender. He’s yin and yang.

I’m talking that gravity-defying, soul-defining, epic love story shit. She has that. I want that. Fuck.

A frustrated groan leaves me, and I glance toward Noah, but he isn’t looking at me anymore. A slow smile is spreading across his face, a faraway look taking over, and I don’t have to turn to know who stepped out onto the deck. “Sister,” I call out to test my theory. “Brother.”

“Don’t tell anyone, but I’m scared, little man,” he whispers. “Your mama’s avoiding me, and I have no idea what to do about it.” He goes quiet for a moment, and I struggle to breathe, staring at my son’s hand as it opens, his tiny fingers wrapping around Mason’s thumb. Mason’s lips spread into a wide grin, a soft, quiet chuckle slipping free. “This your way of telling me you won’t let me go?” A knot forms in my throat, and I lock my hand around my neck. Suddenly, Mason’s face falls, and he bends, his forehead now resting on the edge of the crib. “Please don’t let me go.”

He’s right. I am avoiding him, and he did come here three times this summer. According to the messages I left on read, the only reason he came…was for me. My eyes fall to Deaton, who plays happily in the warm water, and I know that’s not right. Mason didn’t come home for me. He came for us.

“Hey, Mason!” Deaton calls not five seconds after we break from the others. We glance back, and Deaton’s eyes lock with mine. “You got my family in your hands.”

I used to think I was a model of self-control. I’m not. I’m a mess of self-sustaining tendencies and destroying everything I touch. I’m a damn plague.

“You called…him?” He speaks the words so low, I almost miss them. With a slight shake of his head, he stumbles back a step. “Mase.” He looks away.

He shuffles farther away, and acid bubbles burst in my gut. When his cleats meet the sand, he starts to run. I jerk forward, a barbed wire wrapping around and puncturing my lungs. Panic sets in, and I launch myself toward the stairs “Mason!” I scream. But he doesn’t answer. He’s gone now, too. I fall to my ass and cry until I pass out. Just like I did on this very same night exactly one year ago today.

Mason came just in case I needed him. Chase came because I asked him to.

They’re tears you shed when there’s someone there to hold you through the pain. I want to hold you… I blink at the thought, my back going ramrod straight as the realization slaps me in the face. I want to be the one to hold her. Oh. Shit.

“I knew it was you,”

“Nice to know I’m predictable,”

“Not predictable.” She speaks low, her eyes coming back to mine. “Just…Mason,”

He was dead, and I lived a whole life in one year’s time. I carried a baby to full term. I got my GED. I started an internship at the job of my dreams, and I made it to my eighteenth birthday with a little less weight on my shoulders. I created a home in the home my brother and found family offered me. I took their hands, and I held on for dear life. Instead of sinking under at the thought of Deaton, I trained my brain to swim, to tread the endless waters of grief until I found a way to breathe easier. I untied the rope around my wrists and broke the surface of my woe whirlpool. I had a little boy to bring into this world, to protect and cherish, and a fractured girl wouldn’t be strong enough. He deserved more.

Maybe Mason and I aren’t meant to be, and there’s someone else out there who can give him what I can’t and better. The mere thought is as devastating as the others. Maybe I’m an idiot, and the story of us is not that serious.

They look so peaceful. So…precious. They look like father and son.

Is she sad? Mad? Worried? I don’t know, but if I know her like I think I do, she’s a bit of all three. But why? I’m the one dying over here. It’s my chest she’s cracking open and my heavy beating heart she’s tearing out, one tug at a time. And for what? Or is it for who? No. It can’t be. But what if it is?

“You know what’s not fair?” I rasp, my head rolling to the opposite side, lids too heavy to keep open. “What you said and what you’re doing. You’re killing me.” I breathe, forcing my lids to open and meet the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen. “I’m fucking dying here, baby.”

This girl could stick a knife in me, marry my best friend, and disappear for a decade, and so long as she came back for me in the end, it would. Not. Matter.

There are tears in her eyes again, but there’s also more. Something deeper. Something almost…raw. It thumps against my chest walls, a sensation too profound to put into words yet too delicate to understand. It’s heavy and light at the same time. A weightless force, drawing me to her. Calling me to her.

her mouth the North Star to my broken compass, leading me fucking home.

Then there she was with big blue eyes and the softest fucking touch I’ve ever felt. She sat beside me and smiled, and everything else fell away because it was a real smile. One without all the pain I’ve watched her carry the last several months.

There’s no more maybe. No more I might. All that’s left is I am. Because I am completely fucking gone on this girl. I don’t know how it happened, and I don’t care when. All I know is she snuck up on me, and I’m not mad about it.

But I guess that’s the thing about finding that one person who was meant to be yours. There’s no such thing as too close. No such thing as too much. No such thing as letting go.

“No tears for me, Pretty Little…but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like that you care so much. In fact, knowing that you do does something to me.”

This man, he’s been my rock. My friend. My savior. My new favorite person. He’s not just Mason. He’s my Mason.

“But I want it to be mine and only mine.” Not his. That’s what he doesn’t say. He wants this, this surreal, gravity-defying connection that’s tethering us, but he wants it to be real. Ours.

“I love her, Deaton. I love her with everything I am, and I’m so fucking fucked because I know now what I missed then. That no matter what I do and no matter how much time passes, she’ll never truly love me back, because at the end of the day, I’m not you. You left, but she didn’t let you go. She’s holding on with all she’s got, and I can’t even hate you for it. I want to, but I can’t. If she loved you this much, you must have been one hell of a guy, because she’s…an anomaly.” My anomaly. She’s my everything.

“What if I hurt you?” she asks quietly. “I’ll forgive you.” “Promise me,” she whispers. “Promise me, Mason.” “I promise you, baby.”

“You know, my mom has never even tried to call. Not that I want her to, but he’s just so precious, you know? I’ll never understand how anyone could ignore that there’s a small piece of them out there they’ve never met.” “That’s because he’s not a piece of her.” His deep brown eyes meet mine. “He’s you, Payton, and maybe he’ll be a bit of me one day, too.”

“But it’s true, Pretty Little. I feel it. When it comes to you, to both of you, I am selfish. I want all your time. All your tears. All your smiles. I want all of you, always, and I don’t want to share. I’m a good five seconds from going over there and killing my sister’s mood ’cause I want to show Little D the fish and the ducks, and I want to hold his little hands while he pretends like he’s walking on his own across the bridge. Because I’m selfish. Because I know what I want.” His eyes hold mine, his thumb running along my cheek. “I want you. Any way you’ll let me. Always.”

I’m not allowed to be selfish. I have a child to think about. His future to consider. To be the best mom I can, to protect him from another potential loss, I can’t be selfish. I have to be selfless.

“I will wait forever for just the chance you’ll love me back.”

The death of Deaton left a hole in my heart, but that hole has been filled. It overflows now, liquid warmth pouring through my every vein and covering me in a blanket of belonging I’ve never experienced before.

“You can’t go, Payton.” “I have to.” “You can’t. If it were just you, I…I don’t know, maybe I would take you back, but it’s not. You can’t do this to him, and I don’t believe you really want to.”

“I’m gonna fix you a bubble bath, baby.” His head lifts, and he kisses me hard on the lips, hissing as he tears away, his forehead pressing to mine. “And you’re not getting out until you’ve come at least twice.”

“Tonight, I’m going to love you,” he promises. “Tomorrow, I’m going to ruin you, and the day after that?” His voice drops ten octaves, and he tugs my lower lip between his teeth. “Baby, the day after that…I’m going to punish you a little.”

“I want to memorize your every moan, learn all the little things you like, and discover new ones.”

“You want me to fuck you every way there is to fuck, and then you want to invent new ones. Ain’t that right?”

“No matter what. No matter where. With your daddy is where we want to be.”

“We promise. I promise. I love you, Mason, and I’m never going to run from that again.”