Sophie’s POV
Amelia's crying wakes me at six AM.
I reach automatically for Adrian's side of the bed. My hand finds cold sheets, empty space. Not unusual lately. He's been sleeping in his study for almost a week now, avoiding me like I'm contagious.
I drag myself upright, every muscle protesting. Another night of broken sleep. Another morning of solo parenting while Adrian hides behind closed doors.
Amelia's cries intensify. I shuffle toward the nursery, then redirect to the kitchen. Need to prepare her bottle first or she'll just scream louder when I pick her up hungry.
The kitchen is dim, early morning light barely filtering through the windows. I move on autopilot toward the cabinet where we keep the formula.
Then I see it—a piece of paper on the counter, folded once and positioned carefully next to the coffee maker.
My hand reaches for it before my brain registers what it might be. Some part of me already knows, already feels the wrongness in the air.
I unfold it. Adrian's handwriting. The words swim in front of my eyes.
I need time to think. Alone. I'm sorry. - A
I read it once. The meaning doesn't register. Just letters arranged in a pattern that looks like words but can't possibly say what I think they're saying.
I read it again. Slower this time.
I need time to think. Alone. I'm sorry.
The meaning hits like a physical blow. Like someone drove a fist into my solar plexus, stealing all the air from my lungs.
"Adrian?" My voice comes out small, confused. "Adrian!"
Louder now. Running through the apartment with the note clutched in my hand. Study first—I throw open the door even though I know, already know what I'll find.
Empty. The couch where he's been sleeping still has the indent from his body, the pillow he's been using. But no Adrian.
"ADRIAN!" I'm screaming now, tearing through the apartment like a madwoman.
Bedroom—I burst through the door. Empty. Just our unmade bed, my phone charging on the nightstand, the depression in his pillow that's been there for days.
Guest room—empty except for the furniture we never use.
His closet. I wrench it open with shaking hands.
Half his clothes are missing. The hangers pushed to one side, leaving gaps like missing teeth. His favorite jacket—gone. His good shoes—gone. The duffel bag he uses for travel—
Gone. All of it gone.
"No. No no no no…" The word becomes a chant, becomes the only sound I can make as reality crashes down.
He's not hiding. He's not avoiding me. He's not in his study sleeping off another whiskey binge.
He's gone. Actually gone. Left while I was sleeping. Left a fucking NOTE like this is a breakup in college, not abandoning his three-month-old daughter.
My screaming must penetrate Amelia's nursery because suddenly her cries change pitch. Not the hungry fussing that woke me but genuine distress. Fear. She can hear her mother falling apart and it's frightening her.
I need to go to her. Need to pick her up, soothe her, be the mother she needs.
My legs give out in the hallway.
I collapse to my knees, then fold completely, sitting on the cold hardwood floor with my back against the wall. The note is still clutched in my fist, crumpling further with each sob that tears from my throat.
I can't breathe, literally can't get air into my lungs. My chest heaves but nothing comes in, nothing goes out, just this horrible hollow gasping that sounds like an animal dying.
Amelia's cries escalate. Desperate now. Frightened. Calling for me.
I can't move. Can't make my body obey the simple command to stand up, walk to the nursery, lift my daughter, comfort her.
The enormity of what just happened crushes me flat against the floor.
I'm alone. Completely alone with a three-month-old baby. No partner. No support. No idea what to do next.
Adrian left. Just walked away while I was sleeping. Took his clothes and his laptop and slipped out before dawn like a thief. Didn't even have the courage to say it to my face. Just left a note with eleven words and called it good enough.
I need time to think. Alone. I'm sorry.
Sorry. He's sorry. Like that makes it okay, like apologizing erases the fact that he just abandoned his daughter. That he chose himself over us. That he left me to figure out how to survive this alone.
I can't call Dad and Emma. Can't admit that Adrian abandoned us after I destroyed my entire life for him. Can't face the "I told you so" that won't be spoken but will hang in every pause, every careful word.
They warned me. Not explicitly, but in the way Dad looked at Adrian, in Emma's gentle suggestions about having backup plans.
I can't call Eleanor. She's Adrian's mother, she shouldn't have to clean up the mess her son made. Shouldn't have to choose between her granddaughter and her failure of a son. It's not fair to put her in that position.
I can't call Cleo without confirming what she's probably suspected for months—that my relationship was doomed from the start. That the scandal baby everyone gossiped about is now being raised by a single mother because the father couldn't handle reality.
I'm completely, utterly alone.
Amelia's cries intensify in the background. She's working herself into hysteria, the kind of crying that won't stop easily once it reaches a certain threshold. I know this. I've learned her patterns over three months of constant vigilance.
But I can't move. Can't make myself stand up and walk the ten feet to her nursery. Can't be the mother she needs right now because I'm drowning in the hallway, clutching a note that destroyed everything.
The man I loved—or thought I loved, or convinced myself I loved—just walked away. The man I destroyed my reputation for, sacrificed my education for, scandalized my family for.
The man whose baby I carried while the world called me a whore, while paparazzi hunted me, while my entire future imploded.
He left a note. Nine words. Didn't even have the decency to say it to my face.
And now I'm sitting on the floor of our hallway—my hallway now, I guess, since he's gone—listening to my daughter scream and unable to function enough to comfort her.
What kind of mother am I? What kind of person stays frozen while their baby cries desperately for them?
But moving feels impossible. Standing feels impossible. Existing feels impossible.
The worst part isn't even that he left, it’s that I didn't see it coming.
He was packing a bag in the next room while I was unconscious on the other side of the wall, and some part of me, some part I didn't know existed until this moment, thought we were still close enough that I would have felt it.
That some instinct would have jolted me awake. But it didn't. He moved through our apartment in the dark and I didn't stir.
Adrian me alone to figure out how to explain to Amelia when she's older why her father wasn't there. Why he chose himself over her. Why love wasn't enough to make him stay.
The sobs keep coming, violent and uncontrollable. My whole body shakes with them. The note is damp now, ink probably smearing from my tears and the sweat on my palm.
Amelia's cries have reached that pitch that means she's been crying too long, that her distress has passed the point where easy comfort will work. She'll need to be walked, bounced, maybe taken outside for a change of scenery.
I know this. I know what my daughter needs.
But I can't give it to her. Can't be what she needs right now.
Because I'm breaking apart on the hallway floor, drowning in the realization that the man I destroyed my life for just walked away without a real explanation, leaving me to raise our daughter alone.