Page 71 of The Golden Hour

“Right. This fucking hospital is,” Melissa hisses, angry. “Mason, I⁠⁠—”

Melissa cuts herself off, closes her eyes, and breathes deep, like she is physically pushing the urge to snap and snarl down her own throat. It would be deserved, but he knows that Melissa will not want to wake up and stress Honey or Daisy.

“I know you wouldn’t cheat on Honey,” she admits, rather reluctantly. “I’ve known you since you were fourteen. You’ve always looked at Honey like she hung the moon herself just for you.”

Mason’s throat tightens at her words.

It just reminds him of how much he’s taken Honey for granted. How they used to be, how they are now.

“We haven’t been happily married for months… or at least I haven’t…”

The words have not left him.

They have been carving through his chest all night.

When something has been a part of you for so long, and is so necessary it feels like one of your limbs, how often do you look at it and feel grateful for its existence? How often does someone wake up and think about the difficulties they would face without that essential piece of themselves? Realistically, you should every fucking day.

But Mason didn’t.

Mason became complacent.

Complacency turned into entitlement.

Entitlement turned into neglect.

Neglect turned him cruel.

And Honey was the one paying for every stage of it.

“You have to understand that we are all very confused about your behavior,” Melissa continues. “We would have called you out on it, but you were never around. Now you’re around. Good. Great. But things aren’t moving on your timeline anymore, Mason. You’re a father. Daisy and Honey’s healing are the priority now. So handle this. Now.”

“Trust me,” Mason grits out, anger growing in his chest. “I am. I’m going to HR now. I was just waiting on you.”

Melissa stares at him for a long moment.

“Finally.”

“Finally,” Mason agrees, glancing back toward the room. “Stay with my girls. I’m going to handle this.”

Mason makes a detour on the way to HR.

There’s an empty wing of this hospital that’s still under very slow construction due to budget cuts. Some doctors come here when they need to escape the chaos for a second of solace.

When he first started at St. Mary’s, he would come here to call Honey on every break, needing to hear her voice after tough losses. He needed her soft “hello, handsome.” He needed her sleepy giggle if he caught her too late or too early, needed her to tell him about something ordinary and sweet and small to ground him back to earth.

And she always would. Telling him about some fight the two-year-olds got into at her daycare, and the passion the toddlers felt when defending their toys made him laugh, and grounded him back to earth. Life goes on. There is still joy in the world. There is a reason to laugh and to live.

And Honey’s voice was like a fucking antidote to anguish.

Somewhere along the way, he stopped calling. Somewhere along the way, his ego grew louder than her voice. Somewhere along the way, he started compartmentalizing so cleanly that he stopped seeing patients as people and started seeing them as saves and losses. Successful outcomes and unsuccessful ones. Vehicles to receive praise or criticism.

A coping mechanism from all the blood and death and gore he has seen, maybe. Understandable? Probably. Valid and healthy? Absolutely not. These are still people who are placing their lives in his hands.

Honey had been someone placing her life in his hands.

And he failed her.

Quickly, he makes his way down the bare hallway, feeling the early summer heat leak through the boarded-up windows. He walks and walks until he can no longer hear the hum of the hospital, its patients, its staff, and machines. He walks until he’s at the chained double doors at the end of the wing.