Please Harder, Professor

Chapter 237

Sophie’s POV

Noah stays with us for the weekend.

Friday evening when Bellamy picks him up, the apartment fills with a five-year-old's energy. Backpack thrown by the door. Shoes kicked off. Immediate demand for a snack.

"Miss Sophie! Miss Sophie!" He runs to me with a paper. "Look what I made in art class!"

It's a painting of a family. Three stick figures—one tall, one medium, one small.

"It's beautiful," I tell him. "Who are these people?"

"That's me." He points to the smallest figure. "And that's Papa. And that's you."

My heart clenches. He's put me in his family portrait. This child who has no idea I'm here against my will.

"I love it," I manage. "We should put it on the refrigerator."

Bellamy watches us with that soft expression. The one that makes him look less like my kidnapper and more like just a father who loves his son.

Saturday morning, Noah has homework.

Math problems. He sits at the kitchen table with his workbook, pencil in hand.

"Miss Sophie, can you help me?" He looks up with earnest eyes. "Papa's good at math but you explain things better."

I sit next to him. "Show me what you're working on."

"If I have seven apples and give away three, how many do I have left?"

Such a simple problem. But as I help him, all I can think about is Amelia.

She's seven months old now. By the time I get home, if I get home, she'll be how old? Will she be working on problems like this while I'm still trapped here? Will she even remember me?

"Miss Sophie?" Noah's voice pulls me back. "Did I do it right?"

I look at his work. He's written "4."

"Perfect," I say, throat tight. "You got it exactly right."

He's a sweet kid, innocent. None of this is his fault. And yet every moment I spend with him is a moment I'm not spending with Amelia.

The resentment wars with genuine affection, and I hate myself for both.

That evening, after Noah is in bed, I find myself on the balcony. It's small but it's outside, real air instead of a recycled atmosphere.

I'm not allowed out here alone, Bellamy keeps the key separate. But tonight he's joined me, two cups of tea in hand.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" he says, handing me a cup.

I take it but don't answer. Bellamy sits in the other chair. We're quiet, just distant sounds of city life floating up.

"He likes you," Bellamy says finally. "Noah. He talks about you all the time. 'Miss Sophie said this' or 'Miss Sophie helped me with that.' You're good with him."

"He's a good kid."

"He is." Bellamy's voice softens with pride and something else. Sadness, maybe. "I worry about him, though. Raising a son without a mother, trying to be enough but always falling short."

Despite myself, I glance at him. His profile in the dim light looks tired. Vulnerable.

"He seems happy," I say carefully.

"Now, maybe. But what about when he's older? When he needs things I can't give him? When he asks questions about Olivia that I don't know how to answer?"

Bellamy stares down at his tea. "I'm terrified I'm failing him. That without her, I'm not enough."

The raw honesty in his voice catches me off guard. This is the grief talking. The fear every single parent must feel—am I doing this right? Am I enough?

I almost sympathize. Almost reach out to offer comfort because I understand that fear intimately. The worry that you're not enough for your child, that you're somehow failing them just by being human.

Then I catch myself.

He took me from my daughter. Separated me from Amelia so he could have this—this domestic fantasy where I help with homework and drink tea on balconies and play the role of mother to his son.

I don't get to comfort him about parenting struggles. I don't get to sympathize with his fear of failing Noah when he's actively causing me to fail Amelia.

"You're doing the best you can," I say finally, the words neutral. Not warm but not cold. "That's all any parent can do."

"Is it enough, though?" He looks at me now. "With Olivia gone, with Noah missing a mother figure—am I doing right by him?"

"Noah is loved. He's safe and he's happy." Each word feels like pulling teeth because they're true even though I resent them. "You're giving him what he needs."

"But what about what I took from him? He doesn't remember Olivia, but he knows he had a mother that gave birth to him. Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing him a disservice by staying alone, by not trying to move forward."

The implication hangs in the air between us. Not trying to move forward. Until now. Until me.

This is why he took me—not just for himself, but for Noah. To give his son a mother figure, to complete the family that grief shattered.

The realization makes my stomach turn.

"Noah will be okay," I say, keeping my voice even. "Whatever happens, he'll be okay. Kids are resilient."

"I hope you're right." Bellamy sighs. "I just want to give him a good life. A normal life. After everything he's been through, he deserves that."

We sit in silence for a while longer. I sip my tea and think about how understanding your captor is its own kind of weapon.

Every conversation like this reveals more. His fears, his motivations, his vulnerabilities. The guilt he carries about Noah growing up without Olivia. The desperation to create a family again.

Even if I'm not sure how to use this information, having it feels important. Knowing what drives him, what he wants, what he's afraid of—it's all data I can store away for when I need it.

But there's something else happening too. Something I don't want to acknowledge.

I'm starting to care about his pain despite myself.

Not enough to forgive what he's done. Not enough to stop planning my escape. But enough that when he talks about his fears for Noah, I feel a twinge of genuine sympathy.

Enough that I have to actively remind myself he's my kidnapper.

This is Stockholm syndrome. I know it is. I've read about it, studied it in psychology classes. The gradual identification with your captor. The empathy that develops through prolonged exposure.

The way isolation and dependence warp your perceptions until you start seeing your captor as human, as someone deserving of understanding.

Knowing what it is doesn't make me immune to it.

"Thank you," Bellamy says quietly. "For today. For helping Noah with his homework. For this." He gestures between us. "For talking to me like I'm a person instead of…"

He doesn't finish. Doesn't say "instead of a monster" or "instead of your kidnapper."

But we both know what he means.

"I should go to bed," I say, standing. "It's late."

He nods, not pressing me to stay. I leave him on the balcony and go to my room. Close the door. Sit on the bed with my head in my hands.

I'm caring about him. About Bellamy. About his pain and his fears and his struggle to be enough for his son.

The recognition terrifies me.

Because if I can care about him—even a little, even against my will—what else might I start to feel? What other boundaries might start to blur?

I pick up the stuffed lamb, hold it close.

"I'm still coming home," I whisper to Amelia, to myself. "I'm still going to escape. This doesn't change that."

But even as I say it, I feel the first cracks in my armor.

Understanding him was supposed to be a weapon.

I didn't expect it to cut both ways.