Page 59 of The Golden Hour

“Because that’s all I felt like to you, Mason,” Honey says, her voice deadly calm.

He’s seen Honey snap and raise her voice before.

This is scarier. This stillness that feels like resolve. It feels like a point of no return.

“A place to grow your baby while you are off saving the world,” Honey says. “A maid to clean up the house and wash your scrubs and cook your dinners for you. Not a wife, or a pregnant mother, or even a person.”

Mason kneels beside her bed, not wanting to loom over her anymore. He places both his hands over his heart, maybe to convey how truly sorry he feels, and maybe because he is trying to hold it inside of his chest.

“Honey, I am so sorry that I made you feel that way,” Mason chokes. “I promise that was not my intention. I was just so focused on work and finishing my residency. I was selfish. I was so damn selfish and blinded by my own ambition.”

Honey stares at him for a long moment and sighs.

“I’m not blind, Mason,” Honey says, her tone disappointed and hurt. “School, residency, making enough to pay off your student loans—I saw how stressed you were, so I tried to make everything easier for you. I wanted to help you however I could, and I like to think that I did…”

Mason opened his mouth to tell her how grateful he was, because she truly did make things easier, but she cuts him off.

“But I also needed you to help me.”

Honey’s face scrunches up, sadness and anger warring in her expression. Her brows pull tight together, her eyes shimmering with tears, her lips trembling but her jaw set.

“I was alone,” Honey snaps quietly, keeping her voice down so as not to disturb Daisy. It still hits Mason like a roar, and all the air exits his lungs in one breath. “I was constantly sick—I had to plug my nose anytime I made food because I kept throwing up from the smell.”

Horror grips Mason as he meets Honey’s furious eyes.

“Honey…” Mason rasps, shaking his head as the images of his wife torturing herself just to cook for him, to make sure he ate during a long shift. He thinks of how he would shovel the food into his mouth, not even tasting it, seeing it more as fuel than as a love letter from his wife. It was a literal manifestation of how much she cares for him, of what she would do for him. “I didn’t know⁠⁠—”

“How could you know?” Honey hisses. “You were never around. And when I was sick in front of you, you told me to keep it down.”

Mason opens his mouth before snapping it closed. There’s nothing. There’s nothing to say to that.

“I needed help, but I also just wanted your support,” Honey says. “I wanted you to be excited about the pregnancy, but every time I tried to talk to you, you were running off to work or changing the subject and talking about work.”

Mason’s throat is too tight to speak; he has to clear it and swallow hard.

“You just changed,” Honey says. “You were so excited when we found out that I was pregnant. You wanted to have a baby, and you said you would be busy, but you would be there. But you weren’t. You weren’t there for a single minute, and when you were physically present, your head was still stuck in this hospital.”

Mason can’t breathe, can barely think. Honey closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, releasing it before she meets his eyes again. They’re shining.

“So, I need to know,” Honey says. “What did this place give you that I didn’t?”

Mason feels his heartbreak at the sadness, the genuine confusion, the longing, the rage in her eyes.

“This place gave me a high, Honey,” Mason answers honestly. “It fed the sick part of me. The egotistical part of me that was praised near constantly and thrown headfirst into a rush like no other.”

“You chose that over me,” Honey says, practically shrinking in front of him with the misery of being less important than a high for an adrenaline junkie. “You chose that over us.”

“I…” Mason clears his throat, then forces himself to hold her gaze and answer honestly. “I did.”

Honey flinches slightly, and he has to force himself to keep going. He owes her this.

“I chose that over you. Because when I was home, things were calm and peaceful, and I had just spent twelve hours getting hit after hit of dopamine. So my brain was coming down every time I was home, and I didn’t understand why calm suddenly felt like nothing. I didn’t understand that I was punishing you because peace didn’t feel like a rush.”

Honey’s face crumples.

“You didn’t like being home with me?”

“No, it’s not that, Honey,” Mason says quickly, shaking his head.