Face Your Fears

Chapter 20

I was woken by loud banging noises coming from the kitchen at some ungodly hour in the morning.

I muttered obscenities under my breath as I sat up, running my hands through my hair. I wasn't angry about being up so early. I was angry that I had been yanked from a thankfully dreamless sleep, for the first time in what felt like years. I actually felt rested for once.

Blowing out a sigh, I glanced over at the other side of the bed, and wasn't surprised to find the sheets empty.

"Miele, what're you doing? It's three thirty in the morning."

Hadley kept her attention fixed on the cookie tray in front of her as she dropped blobs of dough onto the aluminum foil, not glancing up as I walked into the kitchen. "I'm baking."

"I can see that." I leaned up against the counter beside her, crossing my arms. "Can't sleep?"

She blew out a sigh, shaking her head. "Feels like the baby is practicing for the goddamn Olympics right now."

I fought back a snort of laughter. "That's definitely my kid."

Hadley stopped dropping dough onto the cookie tray and looked up at me, her lips turning down in a frown.

"What?"

"Are you..." She dropped her spoon in the bowl full of dough and wiped her hands on a dish towel. "I mean...are you feeling better?" 

"Feeling better?" I repeated slowly. "What do you mean?" 

I didn't know if I was feeling better. In all honesty, I didn't even know how I was feeling lately. Lately, I was just...there. I hadn't figured out yet if this was a good or bad thing.

To an extent, blocking your emotions was an asset, or at least I always thought it was. But right now, was it such a good thing? That was another thing I didn't know.

"I don't know," Hadley said, shrugging. "You just seem like you have a...different attitude. It's...hard to explain."

"Really?" I said slowly. "I hadn't noticed."

She shot me a grin. "Therapy is helping?"

Oh, I wasn't so sure about that. My last two appointments with Agnes Schaffer had been highly awkward to say the least. She'd tried to weasel more out of me about my childhood, wanting to know how the family dynamics had been at home, among a countless things of other. I was embarrassed to admit that some things I had let slip, but the majority of the thoughts swarming around in my mind were kept safe from Agnes Schaffer. 

If I had been acting differently, I had hardly noticed.

I returned her shrug. "God only knows."

"Uh-huh."

She rolled her eyes, still grinning, and went back to plopping more cookie dough blobs onto the tray. 

I watched her work for a few minutes. She hummed under her breath as she dug into the cookie dough. The light filtering down from the kithen bulbs made her dark brown hair look shiny, and made her skin look as smooth as cream.

How had I not noticed just how unbelievably beautiful my wife really was?

"Archer, why are you staring at me like that? It's creepy."

"What? Oh." I quickly looked away from her and stared up at the ceiling. "Sorry."

Jesus, how long had I been staring at her? 

"What, uh...were you thinking about?" she asked casually as she pulled open the oven door and slid in a tray of cookies. 

"The first time we kissed."