Please Harder, Professor

Chapter 245

Sophie’s POV

Saturday afternoon, Bellamy suggests we take Noah to the park.

It's one of those perfect Geneva days—blue sky, mild temperature, the kind of weather that makes you forget winter existed. We walk through Old Town toward Parc des Bastions, Noah bouncing between us with endless energy.

"Can we feed the ducks, Papa? Please?"

"We'll see what they have." Bellamy's hand rests on his son's shoulder, protective and gentle.

I walk beside them, hands in pockets, watching them interact. Trying not to think about how normal this looks.

The park is beautiful: ancient trees, manicured lawns, families scattered across the grass. Children playing, couples walking hand in hand, elderly people feeding birds on benches.

We buy bread from a vendor near the pond. Noah tears into it immediately, tossing chunks toward the ducks with wild enthusiasm.

"Not all at once, buddy," Bellamy says, crouching beside him. "Small pieces. Make it last."

"But they're hungry!"

"They'll still be hungry in five minutes. Pace yourself."

I stand back and watch. Noah’s laughing as ducks waddle toward him. Bellamy is patient and calm, teaching his son how to be gentle with the birds.

The sunlight catching in both their dark hair, making them look more alike than ever.

After the bread runs out, Noah spots pigeons near a fountain and takes off running after them. They scatter in an explosion of wings, and Noah's delighted laughter echoes across the park.

Bellamy and I follow at a slower pace, keeping Noah in sight but giving him space to play.

He's been different lately, quieter. More pensive even. I catch him staring into space sometimes, his expression distant and troubled.

"What are you thinking about?" I ask as we walk.

Bellamy is quiet for a long moment. His hands are in his pockets, shoulders slightly hunched. Noah's laughter carries back to us on the breeze.

"Whether I'm becoming my father," he says finally.

I don't know his father's story. He's never mentioned his family beyond Olivia and Noah, never talked about where he came from or who raised him.

I wait, but he doesn't elaborate. Just keeps walking, his jaw tight, eyes fixed on his son ahead of us. I see genuine turmoil in his face. Not the calculated control he usually maintains, but raw, unguarded pain.

"You're not a bad person, Bellamy," I hear myself say.

The words surprise me even as they leave my mouth. Because I'm not sure I believe them. Or maybe I do. Maybe that's the problem.

He looks at me, really looks at me. His eyes searching mine for something—truth, maybe. Or absolution.

"Is there a difference?" His voice is quiet. "Between being a bad person and being a person who did a bad thing?"

"I think so."

I keep my voice level, honest.

"Bad people don't question themselves. They don't lie awake at night wondering if they've become someone they're afraid of. They don't look at their child and worry about the example they're setting."

"I kidnapped you." The words are blunt, matter-of-fact. "I stole you from your daughter and your fiance on your wedding day, away from your life. That's not just 'a bad thing.' That's multiple felonies. That's destroying lives."

"I know."

"And yet you're standing here telling me I'm not a bad person?"

"I'm standing here telling you that bad people don't struggle with what they've done. They don't question their choices. They don't feel guilty."

I pause, watching Noah climb on the fountain's edge. "You do. That doesn't excuse anything, but it means something."

Bellamy is quiet for a long time. We walk in silence, the sounds of the park surrounding us—children playing, birds singing, distant conversations in French and German and English.

"My father," he says eventually, his voice careful, "made choices that hurt everyone around him. He justified them, rationalized them. Convinced himself that what he wanted was more important than what anyone else needed. And he never, not once, questioned whether he was wrong."

"Are you like him?"

"I've made choices that hurt everyone around me." He echoes his father's description deliberately. "I've justified them. Rationalized them. Convinced myself that what I wanted, what I needed, was somehow important enough to destroy other people's lives for."

"But you're questioning it now."

"Now. After I've already done the damage, after I've already ruined everything." His voice is bitter. "Does that make it better? Does questioning my choices after I've already made them somehow absolve me?"

"No," I say honestly. "It doesn't absolve you, but it means you're not him. Your father never questioned, but you are. That difference matters."

"Does it?" He looks at me again. "Does it matter to you that I feel guilty? Does it matter to Amelia that I lie awake regretting my choices? Does it matter to Adrian that I know what I've done is unforgivable?"

"I don't know." And I don't. I don't know if his guilt makes any difference to the people he's hurt. To me, to my daughter growing up without her mother, to Adrian searching desperately for what was stolen from him.

But it makes a difference to me—here, now, at this moment. It makes him human instead of monstrous, broken instead of evil. Someone capable of recognizing his own damage even if he can't undo it.

And that understanding complicates everything.

"Noah asked me when Amelia would join us," Bellamy says quietly. "When we'd all officially be a family together."

My chest tightens. "What did you tell him?"

"That things are complicated. That sometimes things change." He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "I've let my son build a fantasy. Let him imagine a happy ending that can never exist. I've hurt him too, my own child. And for what?"

I don't have an answer. Don't know what to say that wouldn't be either a lie or too brutal.

We watch Noah try to climb on the fountain's rim, his balance precarious.

"Careful, buddy," Bellamy calls out. Noah adjusts, steadies himself, grins back at us.

"I never wanted to be like him," Bellamy says, so quietly I almost don't hear it. "My whole life, I swore I'd be different, I'd be better. I'd never put my own needs above everyone else's well-being."

"And yet here you are."

"And yet here I am." He's still watching Noah. "Becoming exactly what I promised myself I'd never be."

It's the most honest conversation we've had. The most vulnerable he's been since this started. No rationalizations, no justifications—just raw acknowledgment of what he's done and who he's become.

I should hate him more for it, should use this moment of weakness to twist the knife, to remind him of every terrible thing he's done.

Instead, I feel something else. Something complicated and uncomfortable and far too close to sympathy.

"Bad people don't question themselves," I repeat softly. "They don't recognize when they've become what they feared. That recognition is something. Maybe not enough, maybe not redemption, but something."

Bellamy looks at me for a long moment. His expression is unreadable.

"Thank you," he says finally. "For saying that. Even if I don't deserve to hear it."

"You don't." I meet his eyes. "But I said it anyway."

We stand there in the park, watching his son play in the sunshine, both of us trapped in the choices he's made, both of us trying to find a way to survive day by day.

It should feel wrong. But it just feels like the truth.