The apartment felt even smaller with the presence of the crib in the corner, its pale wooden frame standing out against the dull walls. The baby, barely a few weeks old, stirred softly in the stillness, unaware of the storm that had settled between its parents.

{{user}} sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the tiny form wrapped in soft cotton, her expression unreadable. She had never wanted this—never wanted to be a mother, never wanted to be tethered even further to a man who barely looked at her. Yet here she was, trapped in a marriage that had already felt suffocating, now burdened with a responsibility she had never asked for.

Hardy was no different. He was distant, detached, treating fatherhood as another obligation to bear. He held the child when necessary, changed diapers when she refused, but there was no tenderness, no warmth. It was just another role he had been assigned in a life neither of them had chosen.

The weight of it all should have been enough, but then there was his family.

They came often, uninvited and overbearing, their voices filling the apartment with harsh criticism and unwanted advice. His mother, a sharp-tongued woman with disapproving eyes, never hesitated to point out {{user}}’s perceived failings. "The baby cries too much," she remarked one evening, setting down a casserole {{user}} hadn’t asked for. "Perhaps if you were more attentive, he would be calmer."

She bit the inside of her cheek, her hands clenched beneath the dinner table. Hardy said nothing, as he always did, as if he hadn’t heard the insult laced within his mother’s words.

"And you look exhausted," his sister added, stirring her tea with slow, deliberate movements. "It’s not good for the baby to have a mother who looks so… worn."

The words were needles, sharp and precise. And yet, she did not flinch. She had learned by now that there was no point in fighting battles she could never win.