Please Harder, Professor

Chapter 111

Sophie’s POV

Day five of bed rest, I'm losing my mind. The ceiling has forty-seven cracks, I've counted them three times.

The pattern in the curtains contains exactly two hundred and eighteen flowers—I know because I traced each one with my eyes yesterday when the boredom became unbearable.

The baby kicks at predictable intervals, as if she's as restless as I am, as desperate to escape this prison of pillows and silence.

Adrian left early again.

The distance between us has hardened into something permanent since our confrontation about his past—since I showed him the photographs, the witness lists, the evidence of a life he refuses to fully explain.

We share a bed but not our thoughts. We touch but don't connect.

A knock at my door pulls me from the spiral.

"Lunch." Bellamy enters without waiting for permission, carrying a tray I didn't request. Soup, crackers, a glass of water, a small bowl of fruit arranged with more care than I'd expect from him.

"I'm not hungry."

"Didn't ask." He sets the tray on my bedside table, then studies me with that flat gaze that's become familiar. "You look like hell."

"Thank you. That's exactly what every bedridden pregnant woman wants to hear."

"Would you prefer I lied?"

"I'd prefer you left me alone."

He doesn't leave. Instead, he crosses to the window, adjusting the curtains to let in more light. "Vitamin D. Good for the baby."

"Since when are you a medical expert?"

"Since I spent three months reading every pregnancy book on the market after Olivia…" He stops. The name hangs in the air between us, unexpected and raw. "Eat your soup."

I reach for the spoon, more to fill the silence than from any real hunger. The soup is good—homemade, I think, not from a can. "Did you make this?"

"Don't sound so surprised."

"I didn't know you cooked."

"There's a lot you don't know about me." He settles into the chair beside my bed, uninvited but not unwelcome. "Noah's a picky eater. Had to learn fast or watch my kid survive on crackers and spite."

The mention of his son shifts something in the air. Bellamy's voice changes—softer, warmer, the sharp edges smoothing into something almost gentle.

"How is he?" I ask, genuinely curious. "Noah."

"Growing too fast." A ghost of a smile crosses his face. "He learned a new word last week. 'No.' Says it approximately four hundred times a day."

"Sounds exhausting."

"It is." The smile lingers. "It's also the best thing I've ever heard."

I take another spoonful of soup, watching him over the rim of the bowl.

This version of Bellamy—the father, the man who makes homemade soup and counts his son's new words—feels different from the cold professional who walked into this apartment weeks ago.

"What else?" I press. "What's his favorite food?"

"Bananas. Specifically bananas cut into exactly six pieces—not five, not seven. Six." Bellamy shakes his head. "He's very particular."

"Wonder where he gets that from."

"Hilarious." But he's still almost-smiling. "He won't sleep without this stuffed rabbit—Mr. Carrots, don't ask, the name was his idea. If Mr. Carrots goes missing, the entire house shuts down until we find him."

I laugh despite myself. "That's adorable."

"It's a hostage situation. The rabbit has more power than I do."

The conversation flows easier than I expected. We talk about small things—books I'm reading during my imprisonment, and I'm surprised to discover Bellamy has opinions on literature. Strong ones.

"Hemingway's overrated," he says flatly when I mention The Sun Also Rises.

"That's literary blasphemy."

"It's the truth. All that masculine posturing disguised as minimalism." He shrugs. "Give me Fitzgerald any day. At least he admitted his characters were disasters."

"I didn't take you for a Gatsby fan."

"I'm full of surprises."

We move to music. He listens to old jazz—Coltrane, Davis, Holiday—which makes me laugh.

"What's funny?"

"Nothing. Just... you don't seem like the jazz type."

"What type do I seem like?"

"I don't know. Heavy metal? Aggressive silence?"

"Aggressive silence isn't a genre."

"It should be. You'd be its biggest fan."

He almost laughs. Almost. The sound gets caught somewhere in his throat, transformed into a rough exhale that might be amusement. "Jazz was Olivia's thing. She converted me."

The name lands differently this time. Softer. An invitation rather than a wall.

"Tell me about her," I say quietly. "Not the facts—I know those. Tell me about her. What was she like?"

Bellamy goes still.

For a long moment, I think he won't answer. His gaze drops to his hands, and I watch him wrestle with something internal—the instinct to deflect warring with something deeper.

Then he speaks.

"She laughed too loud." His voice is barely above a whisper. "In restaurants, in movies, everywhere. This huge, uncontainable sound that made people turn and stare. She never cared. Never tried to make herself smaller."

My throat tightens.

"She argued about everything—politics, philosophy, whether pineapple belongs on pizza." A pause. "It doesn't, for the record. She was wrong about that."

"Noted."

"But the arguments... they weren't fights. They were conversations. She made me think. Made me defend positions I'd never questioned." His hands clench, unclench. "She made me feel like I deserved good things. Even when I didn't believe it myself."

My eyes sting. I understand that kind of love. The kind that rewrites you, that transforms the person you thought you were into someone better. The kind that leaves you hollowed out when it's gone, wondering if you'll ever feel whole again.

"She sounds incredible," I whisper.

"She was." Bellamy's gaze lifts to mine, and for a moment, his walls are completely down. "You remind me of her, sometimes. The stubbornness. The fire. The way you refuse to break, no matter what gets thrown at you."

The words hit harder than they should. Something passes between us—unspoken, charged, dangerous. Recognition. Two people shaped by loss, by longing, by the ache of wanting something just out of reach.

I look away first.

Bellamy clears my lunch tray with careful efficiency, avoiding my eyes. At the door, he pauses.

"Sophie."

"Yes?"

"You're stronger than you think." His voice is quiet, certain. "Whatever happens next—you'll survive. I've seen enough broken people to know the difference."

Before I can respond, he's gone. I lie in the silence, staring at the ceiling, my heart heavy with something I refuse to name.

Forty-seven cracks. I start counting again.