The Unkept Promise Novel Novels & Stories

“No.” “Why?” “Because you said Switzerland or never. And I don’t make promises I don’t keep.” “You make promises you don’t keep all the time. You promised Ember honesty and you kept 2016 from her for months. You promised Nathaniel your trust and you slashed his face open this morning. You promised me a lifetime and you let me walk away without fighting for it.” She turns to face me and her eyes are bright with something sharper than pain. “The only promise you’ve never broken is the one you made to yourself — that you’d rather run than stay. That you’d rather destroy something beautiful than risk watching it destroy you first.”

"Promise me you will not let him win. Promise me." I had promised. Of course I had promised. What else do you say to your dying brother, holding his hand in a room that smelled like antiseptic and quiet grief, except yes, I promise, whatever you need, I will not let this be the end of the story. I had not known, in that moment, what the promise would actually cost. I had not known it would take four years, a journal hidden in a storage unit, a marriage I would deliberately insert myself into the wreckage of, a contract, a fake engagement that had stopped being fake somewhere along the way without my fully noticing when.

"I'm here to light candles and pray for Grandpa and Grandma, not you. So, you have no say in this." Just then, someone tugged at Uncle Liam's arm, while others started whispering among themselves. "Why is this young man so stubborn?" "Hurry up and apologize to your uncle!" "We're all family here. Why are you kicking up such a huge fuss? It's embarrassing!" I placed the bouquet of flowers in my hands in front of the grave and bowed before Grandpa's portrait. "When Grandpa was alive, he told me that the children of the Graham family must stand tall and live with integrity. In the last five years, I haven't stolen, cheated, or taken advantage of anyone. I didn't leave because I was ungrateful;

"Who knows whether you can still give my son children? How about this? As for the 80,000 we agreed to give as wedding money, we will pay it after you marry into our family and give birth to a son." I looked quietly at her sharp, cruel face. Suddenly, I remembered the winter before, when she had slipped, broken her leg, and needed a rare mountain herb to recover. I had climbed the cliffs in a snowstorm and searched for an entire day and night before I finally found it. Back then, she had held my frostbitten hands with tears in her eyes. "Julia, when you marry into our family, I will treat you like my own daughter." I had believed her.

He gazed at the girl who had turned him down time and again, looking at him with eyes that seemed to plead for something more. A wild sense of triumph surged through him. However, the regret came crashing down soon after. Janet held him close, whispering that she would not blame him for anything. However, Alfred could not shake the guilt. He had promised his life to me, but ended up hurting his childhood love. That explained the fury in his eyes when he caught me picking on Janet. He never imagined I would catch him in the act with Janet, that my suspicions were not just misunderstandings. I had witnessed his betrayal firsthand.

She is still a kid, so she definitely does not know anything about life. "Daddy always gets us something whenever he promises us... Uncle Max always does whatever he promised us to do, and the ones he never promised us, he never did them. So, I think promise is a strong thing that validates things," She shrugs, and I slowly nod my head. "So, do you mean your daddy never goes back on his words?" I ask her for some reason I do not understand. "Yes... He has never gone back on his words," She replies to me, and I nod my head. I don't know why I'm suddenly scared, but something keeps telling me that something is wrong somewhere, although I can't picture what exactly it is.

I embraced my new life and left the wreckage of the past behind. … Clement and I traveled to Finholm to see the northern lights. While I was mesmerized by the shimmering sky, he leaned over and pecked my cheek. Perhaps it was the aurora's glow, but when he looked at me, his eyes were dazzling and faintly blue, drawing me in. … When we returned from our honeymoon, the head of a kickboxing club, whom I hadn't seen in forever, reached out to me. She told me the international tournament I had given up on was about to start again, and she didn't want my talent to go to waste.

"I promise." They stayed for another hour, talking about things that should have been discussed years ago. William told them about the years after the collapse—the drinking, the shame, the slow process of rebuilding a life from nothing. He told them about the private investigator he'd hired to watch over Ella, the photographs he'd collected, the letters he'd written and never sent.

She'd kept quiet out of respect for their families' history, but in the end, Miranda had chosen Ada as the one to stand at her side. Even Steven's buddy at the hospital yesterday knew about Ada. The only idiot in the dark was her, strung along by Steven's empty promises. A bitter laugh slipped out. If Steven had really wanted a kid, she could've accepted that and walked away. But after what happened in the study last night, her chest still burned. She almost wished she could just slap him across the face. Almost—but not quite enough. She wanted him to regret it forever. Steven strolled downstairs, looking fresh, like he'd slept easy. When his eyes caught Ada's, she ducked her head, all shy.

"I-I didn't mean it. I just want to finish your promise on the bucket list sooner, so our lost baby in heaven knows his dad loved us." Regretting his outburst, Richard pushed down his irritation and hugged her. "Sorry, that was my fault. You're right; let's go now." After her miscarriage, he'd promised to fulfill her bucket list as compensation. Once it was done, he could focus on Kimberly. Lotta brightened, pulling out a pre-printed document. "I saw this lovely house in the suburbs. Buy it for me?" His mind was preoccupied with Kimberly, and he signed without reading it.