Please Harder, Professor

Chapter 80

Sophie’s POV

The days blur together in a haze of tests and visitors. Blood draws at six in the morning, ultrasounds at noon, nurses checking my vitals every few hours like clockwork.

I've become intimately familiar with the rhythm of this hospital—the soft squeak of rubber-soled shoes in the hallway, the distant beeping of monitors from other rooms, the way the light shifts from gray to gold to gray again through the single window beside my bed.

My body doesn't feel like my own anymore. It belongs to the doctors who examine me, the machines that track my every heartbeat, the baby growing inside me who requires constant surveillance to ensure we both survive this.

I submit to all of it without complaint because complaining requires energy I don't have.

The police gave me time to think. That's what they said when I couldn't answer their question—when my mouth opened and nothing came out, when the weight of deciding Cassian's fate pressed against my chest until I couldn't breathe.

“We understand this is difficult, Miss Hale. Take some time. But not too long. The investigation needs to move forward.”

Not too long. As if there's a reasonable timeline for deciding whether to send someone to prison, as if I can schedule my trauma around their paperwork.

In the rare quiet moments between tests and visitors, when the nurses have finished their rounds and Adrian has stepped out for coffee, I reach for my phone.

I shouldn't, I know I shouldn't. Cleo warned me, Adrian practically begged me. Even the doctors mentioned that stress could trigger another episode, that I need to protect myself and the baby from anything that might raise my blood pressure.

But I do it anyway, I can't help myself. I scroll through social media, and lose myself in the process already. The comments are worse than I imagined.

Thousands of them—strangers with profile pictures of sunsets and dogs and babies of their own, dissecting my life with surgical precision.

They've analyzed my body, my clothes, the expression on my face in the seconds before I collapsed. They've constructed elaborate theories about who I am and what I've done.

‘She knew exactly what she was doing. Look at how she dressed for his classes. Classic predator behavior.’

‘He's twice her age and was her PROFESSOR. She's clearly the victim here. This is textbook grooming.’

‘I heard she was sleeping with that other guy too. Cassian something? Girl gets around.’

‘Can we talk about how she just STOOD there while that crazy woman threatened her? Either she's the dumbest person alive or this whole thing was staged for clout.’

Some call me a victim, others call me a whore.

The theories multiply with every refresh—I seduced Adrian for grades, he groomed me from the first day of class, we've been running some kind of long-term scam together, I'm actually in love with Cassian and Adrian is the cover story.

Every version of my story exists online except the true one.

Cleo deleted the livestream, apologized again and again, but by then, the footage had already been copied, reposted, spread across platforms like wildfire consuming dry brush. Deleting it or not, wouldn’t have mattered now.

Screen recordings on TikTok. Reaction videos on YouTube. Twitter threads dissecting every frame with the obsessive attention usually reserved for crime documentaries.

There's no erasing it now. There never will be.

My hand moves to my stomach, pressing against the small swell that's become my constant reminder of what's at stake. The baby shifts inside me—a flutter so faint I might be imagining it, but I choose to believe it's real.

I choose to believe this child already knows me, already responds to my touch. The pressure in my chest tightens until I can barely breathe.

What kind of world am I bringing this baby into? A world where thousands of strangers will judge them before they're even born.

Where their mother's worst moments are preserved forever in digital amber, ready to surface at the worst possible time. Where the story of their conception will be debated and dissected by people who've never met us and never will.

I'm so lost in the spiral that I don't hear Adrian enter. I don't realize he's there until his hand closes gently over mine, easing the phone from my grip.

When I look up, his expression is soft in a way that breaks something inside me.

"Don't torment yourself." His voice is firm but not harsh. He sets the phone face-down on the bedside table, out of reach. "Those people don't know you. Their opinions mean nothing."

"They think they do." The words come out ragged. "They've decided who I am, Adrian. And nothing I say or do will change that."

He sits on the edge of the bed, close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating from his body. For a long moment, he doesn't speak. Just looks at me with those storm-gray eyes that see too much, always have.

"Then stop trying to change it."

I open my mouth to argue, but he continues before I can.

"What happened on that rooftop—the video, the scandal, the things people are saying—none of it changes what exists between us. None of it changes who you are."

His hand finds my face, thumb brushing away a tear I didn't realize had fallen.

"We handle this one problem at a time. Starting with the trial, your statement, whatever you decide about pressing charges."

"I don't know what to decide."

"You don't have to know yet." He leans forward, pressing his forehead to mine. "I'll be there through all of it, whatever you choose. I'm not going anywhere."

It's not a proposal. It's not even a promise of forever. But coming from Adrian—a man who's spent his entire adult life avoiding commitment—it feels like more than either of those things.

My phone buzzes against the table. Adrian glances at the screen, and something in his expression shifts.

"You have visitors."

My stomach drops before he even tells me who. I've known this conversation was coming since I woke up. Emma has called three times, her voice carefully neutral in the messages she left.

My father texted once—a simple 'We need to talk. In person.'

They saw the livestream. They've read the comments. They've had two days to process that their eldest daughter is pregnant by her professor, embroiled in a scandal that's spread across the internet like a virus.

This conversation is long overdue.

When the door opens, Dad enters first. His expression is harder than I've ever seen it—jaw set, eyes carrying a disappointment that hits me like a physical blow.

Emma follows close behind, and the sight of him nearly undoes me. She looks moments from tears, her hands clasped tightly in front of him like she’s physically holding himself together.

She's been my father's girlfriend for three years now, a steady presence in a house that desperately needed one.

She stepped up after my mother abandoned us, after years of my father drowning alone. Became the role model my younger sisters needed, the stability I never expected to disappoint.

Adrian rises from the bed, his posture shifting into something formal. "I'll give you some privacy."

My father's voice stops him cold.

"Sit down." It's not a request. "We all have things to discuss."