Hurt Makes It Beautiful | Art

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[attr="class","cbody"]Generally speaking, she was a bit of an early riser. That didn’t necessarily mean that she was up before the sun rose. But since she had kicked Art out of the house, Titania had been getting up earlier than usual. She tried to blame that on anything but the reason she knew to be the truth. She did not sleep as well in their bed when he was not in it. She had shared a bed with him for twenty years. Getting used to sleeping alone was not an easy thing to do. It made her sleep a bit more restless, and that usually resulted in her not even trying to go back to sleep when she first woke up in the morning. There was little point in it. Instead, she just got up and got an earlier start of the day than she was used to.
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But this morning, she found herself slowly waking, feeling more rested than she had in almost ten months. For a moment, she couldn’t remember why that was, but everything came back to her in a flash. Everything that had happened the night before. Her date with Marcus watching the orchestra, and every little inappropriate thing that had happened in the darkness of that theater. Coming home to Art sitting at their kitchen table, him having sent her sitter home, and having been there for Merlin knew how long. And everything that had happened after that.
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She had not expected to give into him. At the beginning of their conversation, she had been ready to throw something at him. She hadn’t even cared what. If there was something in throwing distance, she had considered it as a possibility. But he had teased and gotten closer, and it had got a little easier to miss him as the argument went on. Eventually, anger had turned to sadness and disappointment, and it had left her feeling surprisingly empty. He had wanted to be there for her, just for tonight. And despite knowing that she should say no and once again try to kick him out, she had needed him. It wasn’t that she had wanted him, and she had. It had gotten far past that, and she had truly needed him last night.
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If their argument had led to him leaving, she knew that feeling of emptiness would only continue. She had needed to feel something, had needed his hands on her, and she had given in. It was different than what would have happened if their anger had continued to heat up their conversation. She knew that would have ended up with her dress pulled open and a far less appropriate shag in the kitchen. Instead, he had carried her up here.
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She had missed him. Dear Merlin, she had missed him. As much as she didn’t want to admit to even herself, let alone him, she had. Letting him back in last night had helped her in more ways than she could count. But she also knew that it made things complicated now that it was morning. Now she had to figure out what that meant, because nothing had changed. Everything was at the exact same place that it had been in September. He had still unleashed a biological weapon, he had still put their entire family in danger in more ways than one. Titania was still not sure that he understood that, or that he even felt bad for anything that he had done. She still wasn’t sure that she could be with a man that could do something like that without the slightest bit of remorse.
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It was something that she needed to think about. That she needed to figure out. As the thought came to her, she snuck a peek at the side of the bed that used to be Art’s, though she didn’t really need to look. She could tell that the bed was otherwise empty the second she’d woken up—she had gotten used to what an empty bed felt like the past nine months. Had he left already? She supposed there was a good chance of it—last night might have ended… with him being with her, with them being together, and it might have been next to perfect. She had not expected any less. He had always known her body better than anyone and nine months was a long time to go without her husband’s touch. But that did not change the reality of this situation.
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He could have woken up and gotten in back in his head that she was dating someone else. He might have decided to leave without talking to her. It was definitely a possibility. Maybe he didn’t want to deal with that in the light of day. There was no way to know. She didn’t know if she was disappointed or relieved at him being gone. She thought that she was somehow both.
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Sighing, she dropped her head back down on the pillow. She should probably just get up at this point, but it was probably still early enough to try to go back to sleep.
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