a/n: thank you to @tellingF1stories for giving me the inspiration to write all this angst 😍 so if you wanna blame someone for this chapter, blame her 🫶🏼 HAHAHAH
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❝ SOMETHING BAD IS 'BOUT TO HAPPEN TO ME. ❞
_________
CHARLES KEPT IT TO HIMSELF. When his daughter called him by a name that wasn't his, he kept it to himself. He didn't tell Andie. He was too ashamed to admit it. It was a slap in the face. Worse, it was a rude awakening to a reality he had no idea how to fix.
Not even the fact that Cami's first word was actually "mama" and not "Pierre" comforted him.
Because not only was he so absent that his infant daughter learned the name of his best friend before his, he had missed her very first word as well. AndieandPierre. Those were the first two people his own child had come to recognize first in her lifetime.
He was probably an afterthought to the little girl.
Everything was a bitter pill to swallow, the kind that churns your insides and leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.
And it was utterly devastating for him.
But then came the conversation, the one he had desperately needed. It was an even more painful unraveling of truths he had been oblivious to. The postpartum depression that had consumed Andie for months, hidden behind the facade of a strong exterior. He felt like an utter failure for not noticing, for not catching the hints that were so blatantly there. Guilt gnawed at him like a relentless beast, clawing at his conscience with each revelation.
How the hell could he have been so blind?
As Andie spoke, her voice laden with a mixture of vulnerability and strength, Charles saw the layers of her pain, the hidden depths he had been blind to. He watched the woman he loved recount her battles in a war he hadn't even realized was raging.
With every word that spilled from her lips, his guilt deepened. Guilt for not being there, guilt for not being the husband and father she needed him to be. Her honesty laid bare the moments of loneliness, the sleepless nights, the tears shed behind closed doors. She confessed that, at times, even the simple act of getting out of bed felt like an insurmountable task.
But what he didn't expect with all of it was that Andie seemed so... numb. Not a single tear fell from her eyes as she laid out all her cards like that. It was a stark contrast to the bloodshot and watery stare that Charles was holding.
He wanted to reach out, to hold her and apologize for not being there, for not seeing her pain, for not being the support she deserved. But he found himself immobilized by his own remorse, by the knowledge that he had failed her in ways he never thought possible.
