Sophie’s POV
The email from Dr. Wu arrived on a Tuesday afternoon while I was feeding Amelia. My phone buzzed, and I almost ignored it—these days, emails were either wedding-related spam or reminders about overdue library books.
But Dr. Wu's name in the subject line made me swipe it open with my free hand.
Dear Sophie,
I'm pleased to inform you that your paper "Reclaiming Agency: Female Madness and Resistance in Victorian Sensation Fiction" has been selected for presentation at the Northeast Graduate Symposium at Yale University...
I stopped reading. Went back to the beginning. Read it again.
Yale. My paper. Selected for presentation.
"Oh my God," I whispered, startling Amelia mid-bottle. "Oh my God!"
The symposium was in two weeks. It required overnight travel—Friday evening through Sunday morning. It was prestigious, career-defining, exactly the kind of opportunity that could open doors to graduate programs I'd only dreamed about.
It was also terrifying.
Could I leave Amelia overnight? Could I stand in front of a room full of academics and present my work, knowing they might have heard about the scandal?
Was I ready to be that visible again, to put myself out there as Dr. Sophie Hale, scholar, and risk being reduced to "the scandal girl" all over again?
I waited until after dinner to tell Adrian. He was loading the dishwasher while I burped Amelia, and I just blurted it out.
"I got selected to present my paper at a symposium. At Yale. In two weeks."
Adrian turned, his face lighting up. "Sophie, congratulations! That's… Wow, that's a huge deal."
"It's overnight," I added quickly. "Friday to Sunday. I'd have to leave Amelia."
"We could make it a family trip," he suggested. "Bring Amelia, book a hotel, explore New Haven. I could watch her while you present."
"I need to do this alone, Adrian," I said, the words coming out more firmly than I'd intended. "To prove I can be Dr. Sophie Hale, scholar, not just your fiancée or Amelia's mother. Does that make sense?"
His smile tightened at the edges. "Of course. We'll figure out childcare. My mother would probably love to have Amelia for the weekend."
"Thank you." I kissed his cheek, trying to ignore the tension I felt radiating from him. "This is really important to me."
"I know," he said, but when he turned back to the dishwasher, his movements were sharper than necessary.
Over the next two weeks, I threw myself into preparation. Every spare moment—during Amelia's naps, after she went to bed, early mornings before she woke—I worked on my presentation.
Revised my argument, practiced my delivery, obsessively checked for typos.
Bellamy noticed during our drives. I'd sit in the passenger seat with my laptop balanced on my knees, muttering through sections of my argument, testing different phrasings.
"You're going to wear yourself out," he commented one afternoon, glancing at me as we waited at a red light.
"I have to get this right," I said, not looking up from the screen. "If I mess this up…"
"You won't mess it up."
"You don't know that."
"I know you've been working on this nonstop for two weeks and that you're brilliant."
I looked up at that, surprised by the certainty in his voice.
The evening before the symposium, Adrian texted that he'd be late—another meeting, another thing that couldn't wait.
I was in the living room, laptop open, papers spread across the coffee table, on the verge of what felt like a complete breakdown.
"This is terrible," I muttered, staring at my opening paragraph for the hundredth time. "This whole thing is terrible. What was I thinking? I'm going to get laughed out of the room."
"May I?" Bellamy's voice made me jump. He'd been checking the perimeter and found me mid-spiral.
"May you what?"
"Read your paper. If you're going to torture yourself about it, at least let someone else tell you if your concerns are valid."
I hesitated, then wordlessly handed him my laptop. Bellamy settled into the armchair across from me and began reading. Really reading—not skimming, but engaging with every paragraph, occasionally scrolling back to reread sections.
I watched his face for reactions, for signs that confirmed my worst fears. But his expression remained thoughtful, focused.
After about fifteen minutes, he looked up. "This is really good, Sophie."
"You're just saying that."
"Your argument about Braddon subverting medical discourse through Lady Audley's characterization is sophisticated. The way you connect it to broader feminist resistance is compelling. And your close reading of the asylum scenes is brilliant."
I blinked. "You understood all that?"
"I read," he said simply. "And I'm not an idiot, despite what you might think."
"I don't think you're an idiot. I just… I didn't know you knew Victorian literature."
"Olivia was a graduate student in English," Bellamy said quietly. "Before she got pregnant with Noah. We used to talk about her research all the time. I picked up more than I realized."
The mention of his late wife created a moment of tender vulnerability between us. Then Bellamy shifted back to my paper, and we spent the next hour discussing it in depth.
He asked pointed questions about my methodology, challenged weak spots in my argument, suggested places where I could strengthen my evidence.
And somewhere in that hour, I forgot about my anxiety. Forgot about being the scandal girl or Adrian's fiancée. I was just Sophie, scholar, discussing ideas with someone who actually understood what I was trying to say.
I was animated in a way I hadn't been in months, gesturing as I explained my thesis, laughing when Bellamy pointed out a particularly convoluted sentence I needed to simplify. Our heads bent together over my laptop, close enough that I could smell his cologne—something woodsy and clean.
I didn't hear Adrian come home. Didn't hear him stop in the doorway. Didn't notice him at all until Bellamy suddenly straightened, creating distance between us.
"Adrian," I said, startled. "I didn't hear you come in. How long have you been standing there?"
"Just walked in." His voice was carefully neutral. His eyes swept over the scene—our proximity, the laptop between us, the papers scattered everywhere. "What are you working on?"
"My symposium paper. Bellamy was helping me revise." I gestured for Adrian to join us. "Actually, you could give me feedback too. I was just explaining my argument about…"
"I'm sure it's fine," Adrian interrupted, moving past us toward the bedroom. "You don't need my input."
The dismissal stung. "Adrian, wait."
But he was already gone, door closing firmly behind him.
Bellamy stood. "I should go check the perimeter. Good luck this weekend, Sophie. You're going to be incredible."
He left before I could thank him properly.
That night, our usual routine felt off. Adrian was distant, distracted, responding to my attempts at conversation with monosyllables. When we finally got into bed, I tried to ask what was wrong.
"Nothing's wrong," he said, but his voice was tight.
"Adrian, clearly something…"
He kissed me, cutting off my words. But the kiss felt different—more claiming than connecting. His hands on my body were possessive in a way that made me tense rather than melt. Like he was marking territory, reminding me who I belonged to.
I let him, but I noticed. Noticed the shift in energy, the way he held me tighter than necessary, the way he seemed to be proving something rather than sharing something.
When it was over, he held me against his chest, his arms wrapped around me like bars. "I love you," he said into my hair.
"I love you too," I responded automatically.
But lying there in the dark, unable to sleep, I couldn't shake the feeling that something had shifted. That Adrian had seen me with Bellamy tonight and felt threatened.
Not by anything that actually happened, but by what it represented—my intellectual life, my independence, a part of me that existed separate from him.
And I didn't know what scared me more: Adrian's possessiveness, or the fact that part of me had enjoyed that hour with Bellamy more than anything I'd experienced with Adrian in weeks.