Please Harder, Professor

Chapter 87

Sophie’s POV

I spent the night scrolling. Adrian told me to put the phone down, to sleep, to protect myself and the baby from the stress that's already put us in the hospital once.

He said the words gently, then firmly, then with an edge of desperation that almost broke through my numbness.

But I can't stop.

The details are everywhere. Every news site, every gossip blog, every social media platform has picked up the story and run with it like wolves with fresh meat.

Someone from the hospital leaked my medical records—or maybe it was a loose-lipped nurse sharing gossip over coffee, or a janitor who overheard too much while emptying trash cans outside my room.

The specifics don't matter anymore. What matters is the headline, repeated and reworded across a thousand screens: ‘Disgraced Professor's Student Lover Pregnant With His Child.’

The comments are vicious.

‘She's five months along? Do the math—she was definitely fucking him while he was still grading her papers. Classic manipulation.’

‘I bet she trapped him on purpose. Oldest trick in the book. Get pregnant, secure the bag.’

‘How do we even know it's his? She was photographed with that other professor too. Girl gets around.’

‘Someone should calculate the exact dates. If she conceived while enrolled in his class, that's proof of academic misconduct at minimum.’

Someone does calculate the dates. They post a detailed timeline with highlighted sections and arrows, trying to prove I was sleeping with Adrian while still attending his lectures.

Others dig up old photos from my social media—pictures I posted years ago, innocent shots of me at the beach, at parties, in sundresses that suddenly become evidence of my character.

They dissect my body for signs they missed, zooming in on my stomach in photos from three months ago, four months ago, looking for the slight swell that would confirm their theories.

‘Look at this one from September. She's definitely showing.’

‘No way, that's just bloating. But check out how she's angling her body. She knew.’

‘Why did she delete her Instagram? Guilty conscience much?’

I scroll until my eyes burn.

Until the words blur together into a wall of judgment that presses against my chest until I can't breathe. Until the phone battery dies in my hands and I'm left staring at a black screen that reflects my own hollow face back at me.

By morning, I'm empty.

I don't remember moving to the bathroom. I just find myself there—sitting on the cold tile floor, back against the wall, phone dead beside me.

My eyes are swollen, my throat raw from crying I don't remember doing. The first light of dawn creeps through the frosted window, painting everything in shades of gray.

The truth I've been refusing to accept finally breaks through.

I can't go back. Not to campus, not to my old life, not to the person I was before Adrian Lewis walked into that lecture hall and changed everything. The scandal was survivable—embarrassing, painful, but survivable. People would have whispered and stared, but eventually they would have moved on to fresher gossip, newer tragedies.

This isn't survivable.

A pregnant student carrying her professor's baby. I'm not a person anymore. I'm a punchline waiting for a setup. A cautionary tale mothers will tell their daughters.

A case study in what happens when young women make poor choices, when they let themselves be seduced by power, when they don't protect themselves from men who should know better.

I'll carry this forever. My child will carry this forever—born into a narrative they never chose, defined by a scandal they had no part in creating.

The bathroom door opens.

Adrian stands in the doorway, still wearing the clothes from last night, his face carved with exhaustion and something deeper. Something that looks almost like fear.

He doesn't speak.

He crosses the small space and lowers himself onto the cold tile beside me, his back against the same wall, his shoulder pressing against mine. Then his arm wraps around me, pulling me into his chest, and I shatter.

The sobs come from somewhere primal—ugly, gasping sounds that tear through my throat and leave me shaking.

I cry for the privacy I've lost, for the future I imagined, for the baby who will grow up in the shadow of their parents' mistakes. I cry because I'm exhausted and terrified and I don't know how to be strong anymore.

Adrian holds me through all of it. His hand strokes my hair, his chest absorbs my tears, his heartbeat stays steady even as mine races out of control.

He doesn't try to fix it, doesn't offer empty reassurances or promises he can't keep. He just holds me, solid and present and there.

When the sobs finally quiet, when I'm left hollow and wrung out against him, he speaks. His voice is soft, patient, unusually tender—a version of Adrian I rarely see, hidden beneath all those layers of control.

"Independent Study isn't giving up, Sophie. It's not admitting defeat or letting them win. It's about being smart and choosing what’s better for you, for the baby."

His fingers trace gentle circles on my shoulder.

"You'll finish your degree. Every credit, every requirement, every piece of paper they demanded from you. And when you walk across that stage to collect your diploma, you'll have proven every single one of them wrong."

"I can't even look at my phone without wanting to disappear." My voice comes out hoarse, broken. "How am I supposed to write essays and complete coursework when the entire world is dissecting my medical records?"

"Because you're stronger than this. Stronger than them."

He pulls back just enough to look at my face, his thumb brushing away tears I didn't realize were still falling.

"You've survived worse, remember? You told me yourself—your mother leaving, your family falling apart, years of holding everyone together. You didn't break then, you won't break now."

"That was different. That was private. This is..." I gesture vaguely at my dead phone. "This is everyone. Millions of strangers who think they know me, who've decided who I am based on headlines and speculation."

"Then let them speculate from a distance."

His voice firms slightly, finding that commanding edge I know so well.

"You do this from safety. From here, where they can't reach you, can't photograph you, can't ambush you for comments. You finish what you started, and you do it on your terms. Not theirs."

I lean into him, exhausted beyond words. The fight has drained out of me completely—no more arguments about independence, no more insisting I can handle anything they throw at me. He's right, and I'm too tired to pretend otherwise.

But something nags at me, a question that's been circling since our fight yesterday, since he mentioned speaking to the administration about arrangements I never requested.

"Adrian?" My voice comes out small, tentative. "How did you arrange this so fast? The Independent Study, the remote coursework, all of it. The university, the administration... how did you make it happen so quickly?"

His hand stills on my back.

The pause lasts a beat too long. I feel the tension enter his body, the slight shift in his breathing that tells me I've touched something he didn't want touched.

"I know people." His voice is carefully neutral. "Called in some favors with colleagues who still respect me. The administration was motivated to cooperate—they want this scandal managed as much as we do. It protects their reputation as much as ours."

He changes the subject before I can press further, asking about what I need from my dorm room, whether Cleo can pack more of my things, practical questions that require practical answers.

I let him redirect. I'm too exhausted to chase shadows right now, too drained to demand answers he clearly doesn't want to give.

But something doesn't sit right.

The way his hand stopped moving. The careful construction of his response. The almost imperceptible hesitation before he spoke.

Adrian is hiding something about his connections, his influence, the invisible strings he pulls to make things happen.

I file it away. Store it in the growing collection of questions I'll need answers to eventually—when I'm stronger, when I have the energy to dig, when the immediate crisis has passed enough to examine the cracks beneath the surface.

For now, I let him hold me on the cold bathroom floor.

But I don't forget.