Chapter 7: After the Choke, After the Cake

When the dust settled, two things remained:
1. Joe was gone.
2. Something in Honey had changed.

But this wasn’t a clean break. It was more like waking up in a house after a storm — everything still standing, but nothing in its place.

Josh wasn’t angry anymore. He wasn’t even heartbroken. He was numb.

He had given this woman nearly a decade of his life. He had stood by her through illness, poverty, silence, children, and shame. He had loved her not for her beauty, but for her becoming — who she was and who she could still be.

And now, for the first time, he felt… spent. Not unloved. Not rejected. Just used up.

Honey didn’t disappear. Not entirely. But the messages changed. Fewer words. Less warmth. More hesitation.

She told him:
“Life is easier now, Josh. Thank you for that.”

And it broke him. Because it was true.

Her life was easier. Josh had sacrificed to make it so —
And now that she was breathing easier, she no longer needed to hold him close.

It wasn’t cruelty. It was something colder: emotional convenience.

At night, Josh lay awake, staring at the ceiling.

He had survived his own crash.
Been hospitalized.
Diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor.
Dropped 60 pounds.
Scheduled for surgery after surgery.
Buried under medications, MRIs, and syncope spells.

And through it all, the only thing he ever wanted — was her.

Not just physically. Her presence. Her voice. Her belief that he mattered.

But Honey was retreating in a way he couldn’t stop.

She wasn’t cruel. She wasn’t mean. She was simply quiet.

Quiet in the way women get when they don’t want to confront what they’ve done.
Quiet like someone packing a bag in the middle of the night, hoping not to wake the person who built the house.

Still, there were moments…

She called him “Stevie” again once.
She referred to herself as his wife — not legally, but emotionally.
She told someone, when they questioned his bluntness:
“He’s not easy to get along with… but he always ends up being right in the long run.”

These were cracks in the wall.
Brief glimpses of the girl he met in 2015 —
The one who didn’t need someone flashy, just someone who saw her.

But it was too late to pretend things hadn’t broken.

There was grief now. Even in her eyes.
The kind of grief that comes not from a clean goodbye, but from realizing you may have loved the right person… but at the wrong time.

Josh wrote to her anyway. Every few days.
Not begging. Not pushing. Just… staying.

Even now, with brain cancer spreading, with fatigue closing in, he chose to remain present.

Because that’s what real love does.
It stays.
Even when it knows it might not be chosen in return.