Adrian’s POV
Late at night, alone in my study, I can't sleep. Haven't been able to for hours. The apartment is finally quiet—Amelia asleep for once, Sophie presumably collapsed in our bed from exhaustion.
But my mind won't stop spinning, won't let me rest.
I open old digital photo albums from before Sophie. The files are organized meticulously—by year, by event, by significance. Academic conferences where I was keynote speaker, standing at podiums in front of hundreds of attentive faces.
Book launch parties for my published research, champagne and intellectual conversation flowing freely. Dinners with respected colleagues, everyone in tailored suits discussing theory and methodology like it mattered, like any of it actually meant something.
Images of Professor Lewis—that version of me who commanded lecture halls with carefully constructed authority. Who received awards and accolades. Who built a reputation on precision and control. A life defined by achievement, respect, autonomy.
Everything measured and deliberate. Everything exactly as I designed it.
I compare that Adrian to this one.
Unemployed and scandal-tainted. Trapped in a house with a screaming baby I don't know how to love and a partner who flinches when I touch her.
That Adrian was feared and admired and autonomous—could walk into any room and own it, could shape young minds with words alone, could control narratives and outcomes with surgical precision.
This Adrian changes diapers at 3 AM and can't figure out why his daughter won't stop crying. This Adrian has lost everything that made him who he was, and gained nothing but exhaustion and failure in return.
The impossible question surfaces in my mind, unbidden and terrible.
If I could go back, knowing everything—the scandal that destroyed my career, losing my position and reputation.
Sophie's eyes now versus how she looked at me in that first lecture, the sleepless nights, this suffocating domesticity, the constant feeling of drowning in responsibilities I never wanted.
Would I choose not to meet her? Would I return to that quiet, controlled, solitary life?
I sit with the question, let it settle into my bones. Wait for the automatic answer—of course not, how could I regret Sophie, regret Amelia, regret the family we've built despite everything.
But the automatic answer doesn't come.
Instead, I realize with creeping horror that I don't know. I genuinely don't know what I would choose if given the chance to rewrite history.
Part of me—a shameful, secret part I've never admitted aloud, barely admit to myself even now—misses the simplicity. The silence, and the order. The version of myself that wielded power instead of being rendered powerless by an eight-pound infant who screams whenever I hold her.
I miss being Professor Lewis. Miss the intellectual stimulation, the respect, the feeling of mattering in a way that extended beyond these four walls. Miss having time to think, to read, to exist as something other than a failing father and inadequate partner.
The admission feels like betrayal. Like the worst thing I could possibly think. What kind of man regrets his own child? What kind of father wishes he could erase his daughter from existence and return to comfortable solitude?
A monster. My father's son.
I hear Sophie's soft voice downstairs, barely audible through the study door. Then Bellamy's low response. He stayed late after the paparazzi incident to check security measures, to ensure there were no gaps in our protection.
The conversation continues. I can't make out words, just the rhythm of it—easy, comfortable, natural.
Then Sophie laughs. Weak, tired, but genuine. The sound cuts through me like a blade because I recognize it—that's how she used to laugh with me. Before the pregnancy, before the scandal, when we were still new and dangerous and consuming each other with reckless abandon.
She hasn't laughed like that with me in months, maybe longer.
Jealousy coils in my chest, ugly and consuming. Not the clean anger I'm used to wielding like a weapon, but something darker. Poisonous. The thought strikes with devastating clarity: Sophie loves Amelia more than she loves me now.
The baby has replaced me in her priorities, her attention, her heart. Every moment of her day revolves around Amelia's needs while I've become background noise, furniture she navigates around.
Or maybe—worse—she's already starting to love Bellamy more than both of us.
Bellamy who knows how to soothe our daughter when I can't. Bellamy who makes her feel safe when I only make her flinch. Bellamy, who was there when she needed protection and I was across town fighting invisible battles.
Another laugh from downstairs, soft footsteps. The apartment settling into the night.
I can't stand it. Can't sit here listening to her find comfort in someone else while I drown alone.
I open my laptop, desperate for answers that don't exist. Type "postpartum depression" into the search bar. The results talk about mothers—symptoms, treatments, support systems.
Nothing about fathers who feel nothing. I try "when does maternal bonding happen," hoping to find some timeline that explains when I'm supposed to start loving my daughter. The articles are cheerful, optimistic, and useless.
"Fathers who resent their children." The search feels dangerous, accusatory. The results are clinical studies and forum posts from men admitting what I can't say aloud. I scan through them quickly, looking for myself in their confessions.
My fingers hover over the keyboard. Type slowly: "how to love a baby you didn't want."
I stare at the search bar, at those words that reveal too much, admit too much. My finger moves toward the backspace key, deleting each letter with deliberate shame.
Can't leave that in my search history. Can't risk Sophie seeing it somehow, confirming what she already suspects—that I'm fundamentally broken, incapable of the most basic human emotion.
I try instead: "adjusting to fatherhood."
The results are cheerful articles about bonding and patience and "it gets easier." Listicles with titles like "10 Tips for New Dads" and "The First Year: What to Expect."
Everything written in that aggressively optimistic tone that assumes love is automatic, that connection is inevitable, that time will solve what feels permanently shattered.
Nothing addresses the darkness I feel, the resentment that builds every time Amelia cries. The suffocation that closes in tighter each day, the growing certainty that I've made an irreversible mistake and destroyed not just my life but Sophie's in the process.
I click through tabs compulsively, searching for something that acknowledges what I'm experiencing. Mental health forums where men admit they don't bond immediately.
Parenting advice columns that address anger and frustration. Studies on postpartum struggles in fathers—apparently it exists, this thing I'm experiencing, but the articles frame it as temporary, treatable, something that passes with intervention.
Mine doesn't feel temporary, it feels permanent. Like discovering a fundamental flaw in my design.
Then I find an article titled "When Good Men Leave: Why Some Fathers Walk Away."
My cursor hovers over the close button. I should close it. Should delete my browsing history and go to bed and pretend I never searched for this, never entertained thoughts this dark.
But I don't click it. Instead, I start reading.
The article discusses men who left their families—not monsters, not abusers, but ordinary men who simply couldn't handle fatherhood. Who loved their partners but couldn't love their children.
Who tried and failed and eventually walked away because staying felt like drowning. The interviews are anonymous, confessional, disturbingly relatable.
One man describes standing over his infant son's crib and feeling nothing. Waiting for paternal love to arrive like everyone promised it would. Waiting months, then years. Eventually realizing it never would.
Another talks about the resentment—how every cry felt like an accusation, every sleepless night like punishment for a mistake he couldn't undo. How he started staying late at work, finding excuses to avoid going home, slowly extracting himself from a life that felt like suffocation.
I read their words and see myself, see my future if I don't figure out how to fix what's broken inside me.
The cursor still hovers over the close button.
I still don't click it.