Adrian’s POV
The email arrives at 10 AM while I'm reviewing files in my study, trying to maintain some semblance of professional identity.
Subject: Adjunct Faculty Position - Introduction to Literature
I open it, expecting another rejection. Instead:
Dear Dr. Lewis,
We are pleased to offer you a position as Adjunct Faculty in our English Department, teaching Introduction to Literature courses for the upcoming fall semester...
I read it three times before the words fully register. A job. An actual teaching position.
The details unfold as I scan further. Small community college three states away. Introductory courses—freshman level, the kind I used to assign to graduate students.
Salary that's a fraction of what I earned at my previous university. No benefits. No path to tenure. Contract renewable semester by semester at their discretion.
It's beneath my credentials, beneath my reputation—or what's left of it. But it's something.
A chance to return to academia. To stand in front of a classroom again. To be Professor Lewis instead of just the disgraced man living in self-imposed exile with a girlfriend who won't speak to him and a daughter he can't love.
I lean back in my chair, close my eyes, and let myself imagine it.
Walking into a lecture hall. My notes are prepared with meticulous care. Students settling into seats, pulling out notebooks, waiting for me to begin. The familiar rhythm of introduction, thesis, supporting arguments. The engagement when I pose a question that challenges their assumptions. The intellectual stimulation I've been starving for since the scandal ended everything.
They might not know my history. Three states away, small community college—maybe the news never reached them. Maybe I could just be Dr. Lewis who teaches literature.
Not the professor who got his student pregnant. Not the scandal. Just... me. The person I built myself into before Sophie walked into my lecture hall and destroyed everything.
The fantasy is seductive—resurrection, redemption. A return to the identity I understand instead of this suffocating domesticity that makes me want to claw my way out of my own skin.
But accepting would mean leaving Sophie and Amelia behind. Or asking them to uproot their entire lives for my career resurrection.
Moving three states away from Sophie's family—from Derek and Emma who've become her support system, from the few connections we have left.
Starting over in a place where no one knows us. Or worse—where people will eventually learn. Where the whispers will start again.
And Sophie. God, Sophie would never agree to this. Can barely stand to be in the same room with me right now, let alone move across the country for a job that pays barely above minimum wage.
I stare at the email. My finger hovers over the reply button.
I don't respond. Not yet. Just save it to drafts and close the laptop.
***
The pediatrician appointment is at two. Sophie had some commitment she couldn't reschedule—something with my Mom, I think, or maybe just a desperate escape from the apartment.
I don't ask. Haven't earned the right to ask about her schedule when I can barely manage basic conversation.
So I'm alone with Amelia for the first time in public since the paparazzi incident.
The waiting room is full. Parents with their children—toddlers playing with worn toys in the corner, infants sleeping in carriers, one screaming baby being bounced by an exhausted-looking mother.
I settle into a chair against the wall, Amelia's carrier balanced on my knees. She's awake, staring up at the fluorescent lights with that unfocused attention infants have. I watch her instead of the other parents. Safer that way.
"Adrian Lewis."
My head snaps up. A woman across the room is staring at me, phone already in her hand. Mid-thirties, well-dressed, expression caught between shock and disgust.
Shit.
"I knew it." Her voice carries deliberately, loud enough for everyone to hear. "That's the professor who got his student pregnant."
The room goes quiet. All eyes turn toward me.
"That's him!.." someone else whispers. "I saw the news coverage."
Phones appear. Multiple phones, all angling toward me and Amelia. Recording, documenting, creating evidence of Professor Lewis in the wild with his scandal baby.
I stand immediately, carrier gripped tight. "Excuse me."
"We're not done with the appointment…"
"Reschedule." I move toward the exit, trying to shield Amelia's face from the cameras without making it obvious that's what I'm doing.
The woman who recognized me stands, blocking my path. "You should be ashamed. Preying on young women like that. Using your position to—"
"Move." My voice comes out harder than intended.
"What kind of man seduces his own student? Gets her pregnant? Ruins her entire life?" She's not backing down, righteous fury making her brave. "And now you're just walking around like you did nothing wrong?"
Other parents murmur agreement. Someone mentions calling security. A man near the door pulls out his phone, probably posting to social media in real time.
I push past her, shoulder connecting with hers harder than necessary. She stumbles backward into a chair.
"Did you see that? He assaulted me!" Her voice rises to a shriek. "Everyone saw! He pushed me!"
"I didn't—" I stop myself. Arguing will only make this worse. I keep moving toward the exit.
She follows me. Actually follows me out of the waiting room, down the hallway, through the automatic doors into the parking lot. Other parents trail behind, phones recording everything.
"Predator!" she shouts at my back. "You're a predator who exploited a young woman and faced no real consequences! Where's the justice? Where's the accountability?"
I'm at my car now, fumbling with keys, trying to get Amelia's carrier secured in the base with hands that won't stop shaking. The baby senses something's wrong—her face scrunches, mouth opening for a cry.
"No, no, no…" I whisper. "Please don't. Not now."
But she does. Starts wailing, confused by the tension, frightened by raised voices and her father's obvious distress.
"Look at him!" The woman gestures at me from ten feet away, phone still recording. "Can't even calm his own daughter. Probably doesn't even know how to be a father. Just wanted to ruin that poor girl's life and now he's stuck with the consequences."
Other parents watch from the building entrance. Recording. Judging. Someone's child asks why that man is being yelled at. The parent's response is too quiet to hear but I can imagine: Because he did something very bad.
I get Amelia secured finally, slam the car door harder than necessary. Drive out of the parking lot with my daughter screaming in the backseat and strangers filming my license plate.
The drive home is silent except for Amelia's wails. I try everything one-handed while navigating traffic—reaching back to offer the pacifier she spits out immediately, making soothing sounds that do nothing, gripping the steering wheel so tight my knuckles go white.
By the time I pull into our building's garage, my shirt is soaked with sweat. Amelia is purple-faced with crying. I've failed at the most basic task—taking my daughter to a doctor's appointment—and created another viral moment for the internet to dissect.
I sit in the car for a long moment after killing the engine, just listening to Amelia scream.
The realization settles like lead in my chest, heavy and permanent:
There's no escaping what I've done. No job three states away will erase the scandal. No amount of time will let people forget.
Someone will always recognize me. Will always pull out their phone. Will always make sure everyone knows: That's the professor who got his student pregnant.
And Amelia—innocent, helpless Amelia who's screaming in her car seat right now—will carry her parents' sin for the rest of her life.
The whispers will follow her to elementary school. Other parents will recognize her last name, remember the scandal, decide their children shouldn't play with "that baby."
Teachers will know before she walks into their classroom. College applications will be Googled, admissions officers will find the old articles. Job interviews will be preceded by background checks that reveal her father's disgrace.
She'll always be "that baby." The product of a scandal she had no part in creating. The living evidence of her father's moral failure.
I did this to her.
Before she was even born, I destroyed her future along with mine.