Adrian’s POV
The hospital room is too quiet.
The only sounds are the rhythmic beeping of monitors and Sophie's shallow breathing—a steady, mechanical soundtrack that should be reassuring but instead feels like a countdown.
I sit in the chair beside her bed, close enough to touch her if I reached out, watching the rise and fall of her chest like it's the only thing keeping me tethered to sanity.
She looks small in the hospital bed, fragile in a way Sophie has never allowed herself to be. The harsh fluorescent lights wash out her skin, making her appear almost translucent, like she might dissolve into the white sheets if I look away for too long.
Her dark hair spreads across the pillow in tangled waves, and I find myself wanting to smooth it back from her face, to trace the line of her jaw, to do something, anything that might bring her back to me.
But I don't move. I just watch her breathe.
Cleo occupies the chair on the other side of the bed, her earlier fury dimmed into something quieter but no less intense.
She hasn't stopped fidgeting since we were allowed into the room—crossing and uncrossing her legs, adjusting her position, picking at a loose thread on her dress.
Ayden stands behind her. His jaw is still tight, but some of the tension has bled out of his posture now that we're here, now that we can see Sophie breathing.
The doctor's words replay in my mind on an endless loop:
“The baby is fine. However, given the severity of Miss Hale’s reaction and the stress her body has endured, she'll need to remain hospitalized indefinitely. Certain complications only reveal themselves over time, and we can't discharge her until every necessary test is complete.”
I should feel relieved. I do feel relief, somewhere beneath the layers of fear and exhaustion and the cold dread that hasn't left my chest since Sophie collapsed in my arms.
Our child is still alive—still growing, still fighting to exist despite everything working against it. But indefinitely.
The word sits heavy in my stomach like a stone. Indefinitely could mean days, weeks, could mean Sophie trapped in this sterile room, hooked up to monitors, while the world outside continues to spin without her.
Cleo has been fidgeting with her phone for the past twenty minutes, her thumb swiping obsessively at the screen. Refreshing, checking something.
Her brow furrows deeper with each pass, and I can see the anxiety building in the set of her shoulders, the way she keeps biting her lower lip.
Then she stops.
"Fuck." The word cuts through the silence like a blade, sharp and sudden. Ayden's hand tightens on her shoulder.
"What is it?" His voice is low, cautious. He's already bracing for bad news—we all are, at this point.
Cleo doesn't answer immediately. She stares at her phone screen, her face cycling through emotions too quickly to track—shock, horror, resignation, fury. When she finally looks up, her eyes find mine first.
"The livestream," she says, and my stomach drops before she even continues. "The one I started on the rooftop. I was trying to expose Lisette, to make sure there was evidence of what she was doing in case…"
She swallows hard. "I never stopped it. It kept recording. Everything. Sophie collapsing, the police arriving—all of it."
"Cleo." Ayden's voice carries a warning, but she's already turning the phone toward us, and I see the numbers climbing on the screen.
Views, thousands of them. Tens of thousands. The counter ticks upward even as I watch, each new number another stranger consuming the worst moment of our lives as entertainment.
"It's gone viral," Cleo says, and her voice cracks on the word. "It's everywhere. People are sharing it, commenting, making reaction videos. I tried to delete it an hour ago, but it's already been copied and reposted dozens of times. I can't—there's no way to stop it now."
I take the phone from her hand. My fingers feel numb as I scroll through the comments section, watching them flood in faster than anyone could possibly read.
Some are sympathetic. ‘Oh my god, is she okay? Praying for her and the baby. That psycho professor needs to be locked up forever. Please update us, we're so worried.’
These are strangers who've never met Sophie, who know nothing about her beyond what they saw in a shaky phone video, but who've nonetheless decided she deserves their compassion.
Others dismiss the entire thing as performance. ‘This is so obviously staged lol. Convenient that someone was filming "secretly" with perfect angles. Clout-chasing at its finest. Fake drama for views, pathetic.’
These people have looked at Sophie unconscious on a rooftop, at the terror on all our faces, and decided it was entertainment designed to deceive them.
But the worst, the ones that make my blood run cold, are the comments from people who know us.
‘Wait, isn't that Professor Lewis? The hot literature guy? I knew there was something creepy about him.’
‘I had him for Modernism last semester. Always wondered why that one girl stayed after class so much. Guess now we know.’
‘This is the professor-student scandal that's been all over campus gossip. Someone finally got receipts. He was definitely grooming her, look how young she is!’
‘I feel bad for her but also... she knew what she was doing. You don't accidentally fuck your professor for months. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.’
‘Former student here. Lewis was always intense but I never thought he'd actually cross that line. Disappointed but not surprised. Men in power are all the same.’
They've already constructed their narratives, built their theories. Decided who's the villain and who's the victim, and they don't agree on either. Some paint Sophie as an innocent girl corrupted by a predatory professor.
Others cast her as a calculating seductress who knew exactly what she was trading for better grades.
A few have landed on the truth, that we're two adults who fell into something neither of us planned, but even those comments are tinged with judgment, with the smug satisfaction of people who get to observe someone else's disaster from a safe distance.
Sophie hasn't even opened her eyes yet, and the world has already decided who she is.
I set the phone face-down on the bedside table. My hand is steadier than it should be, but inside, something is crumbling.
"Adrian." Cleo's voice is small now, stripped of its usual fire. "I'm so sorry. I never meant for this to… I was trying to help. I thought if there was evidence of what Lisette—"
"I know." The words come out flat. I don't have the energy for blame, and even if I did, what good would it do? Cleo was trying to protect Sophie.
The fact that her protection has turned into another weapon aimed at the woman lying unconscious between us is just one more cruelty in a night full of them.
Ayden pulls Cleo closer, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as she leans into him. His eyes meet mine over her head, and I see my own understanding reflected there.
The university knows. The internet knows. Everyone knows. Our relationship, the scandal we've been desperately trying to contain.
It's all out there now, spreading through comment sections and group chats and faculty email chains like a virus with no cure. By morning, Sophie's name will be trending.
By next week, she'll be a cautionary tale, a meme, a punchline in someone else's joke.
I look at her face—still peaceful, still unaware of the storm gathering outside these walls, and I make a silent promise.
Whatever comes next, I will shield her from it. Whatever it costs me, whatever I have to sacrifice or destroy or become.