POV Adrian
The parking garage spins around me as I stumble toward the Bentley, my legs threatening to give out with each step.
The concrete pillars blur together, and I have to grab the side mirror to steady myself before collapsing into the driver's seat.
My hands wrap around the steering wheel, gripping until the leather creaks, until my knuckles turn white and ache, but they won't stop shaking.
I close my eyes, and they're there immediately—two perfect faces burned into my retinas like afterimages of the sun.
My daughter's eyes, dark and intense, exactly like mine. The way she'd scrunched her tiny face when the nurse adjusted her blanket, that same expression I've seen in childhood photos my mother keeps.
My son with Elena's delicate nose, her perfectly shaped mouth, the way his fingers had curled into small fists like he was already fighting the world.
The math I'd been so certain about, the timeline I'd obsessed over, it all crumbles like ash in my mouth. These are my children. Mine.
My chest tightens, each breath coming shorter than the last. The car suddenly feels too small, the walls closing in.
I fumble with the window button, needing air, but even with it down, I can't seem to fill my lungs properly. My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my throat, in my temples, behind my eyes.
"Get it together," I mutter to myself, starting the engine with still-trembling hands. "Just drive."
The drive through the city is aimless, automatic. Red lights, green lights, they all blend together.
I take turns without thinking, muscle memory guiding me while my mind replays every moment—Elena's face when she showed me the ultrasound, the hope dying in her eyes when, the way she'd set her ring on my desk with such quiet finality.
At 2 AM, the office building looms before me, all dark glass and shadows. Of course I ended up here. Where else would I go? The house is a mausoleum of our marriage, and I can't face those empty rooms tonight.
The executive floor echoes with my footsteps, tomb-silent and cold.
In my office, I pour three fingers of whiskey, then four, my hands still trembling so badly the bottle clinks against the crystal. The first swallow burns, the second numbs, the third does nothing at all.
My phone buzzes insistently on the desk—Vivian's name lighting up the screen for the fifth time tonight.
The sight of her name, those seven letters that represent every lie she fed me, every doubt she planted, sends rage coursing through my veins like poison.
I pick up the phone and hurl it against the wall with all my strength. The satisfying crack of shattering glass, the way it explodes into pieces—it's not enough, but it's something.
"Mr. Blackwood?" The night security guard's voice crackles through the intercom. "Everything alright up there? Heard a noise."
"Fine, Marcus," I manage to say, my voice surprisingly steady. "Just dropped something. Have maintenance clean it up in the morning, would you?"
"Of course, sir. Have a good night."
A good night. The words are almost laughable.
I slump into my desk chair, the leather creaking under my weight, and pull open the bottom drawer.
There, hidden beneath contracts and quarterly reports like a guilty secret, is the ultrasound photo Elena dropped that night eight months ago. I've kept it, though I could never admit why, even to myself.
Now I smooth it out on my desk, studying it properly for the first time.
Two heartbeats. Two tiny forms that look like seahorses floating in space. The timestamp in the corner—she was four weeks pregnant. The math works perfectly if I'd just had the courage to see it.
"Twins," I whisper to the empty office. "She tried to tell me we were having twins."
The whiskey burns as I take another swallow, but it can't wash away the truth.
I told the mother of my children to abort them.
When she needed me most, when she came to share the miracle we'd prayed for during five years of fertility treatments, I accused her of betraying me.
I let her walk out into the cold night, pregnant and alone, because my ego couldn't handle even the possibility that something was wrong with me.
I think about Vivian, how carefully she'd orchestrated everything. The way she'd mention seeing Elena at that new café downtown when Elena had actually been at a doctor's appointment.
Each comment so innocent on the surface, but planted at just the right moment to make me doubt, to make me question.
"She played you like a violin," I tell myself, "and you let her because it was easier than facing the truth. That maybe you were the broken one. That Elena was suffering because of you."
My fist connects with the desk before I realize I'm going to punch it. Pain shoots through my knuckles, but it's nothing compared to the ache in my chest.
Those babies, my babies, will grow up without me. They'll never know that their father wanted them desperately, just not enough to overcome his own cowardice.
They'll call another man 'daddy' someday, and I'll be nothing but a signature on support checks, a name on legal documents.
I pull up Elena's contact on my computer, my phone now scattered in pieces across the floor. Her number stares back at me, but what would I say?
"I'm sorry I destroyed us?" I practice the words aloud. "I'm sorry I was too much of a coward to face reality? I'm sorry I chose to believe lies rather than trust the woman I married?"
None of it sounds right. None of it could possibly fix what I've broken.
The whiskey bottle is half empty now, but I'm more sober than I've been in months. The truth has a way of cutting through everything else, leaving you raw and exposed.
In the ultrasound photo, those two little forms seem to pulse with possibility, with the future I threw away. I trace them with my finger, these children I'll never really know.
"Your mother loved you from the moment she knew you existed," I tell the image. "And your father? Your father was too much of a coward to believe you were real."
The office feels colder now, emptier. I'm surrounded by everything I thought mattered. The mahogany desk, the view of the city, the degrees and awards on the walls, and none of it means anything.
I chose this over them. I chose my pride, my image, my fear over the woman who loved me and the children we created together.
And now I sit here at 2 AM, a successful man with a shattered phone and a broken family, holding an ultrasound photo like it's a lifeline to a past I can never reclaim.
The twins are real, they're mine, and I was too much of a coward to face the truth when it mattered most.