Please Harder, Professor

Chapter 61

The last couple of days of showing pregnancy symptoms have been hell. Today was no exception.

I barely make it ten minutes into Cassian's lecture on feminist literary criticism before the familiar wave of nausea hits like a freight train.

The irony isn't lost on me—discussing the autonomy of female characters in literature while my own body rebels against my complete lack of control over the situation I've found myself in.

The classroom suddenly feels stifling, the fluorescent lights too harsh and the smell of dry erase markers overwhelming my already sensitive stomach.

Students around me are taking notes, discussing Virginia Woolf's exploration of women's inner lives, while I'm fighting the urge to vomit all over my desk.

I press my hand to my mouth, trying to will the sickness away, but it's useless. I'm going to throw up, and I'm going to do it in front of twenty-five other students who are already whispering about me thanks to the scandal photos.

I bolt from my seat without explanation, my chair scraping loudly against the floor as I stumble toward the door.

Behind me, I hear Cassian pause mid-sentence, his lecture about women's agency interrupted by my dramatic exit. The irony would be funny if I wasn't so miserable.

"Ms. Hale?" Cassian calls after me, but I can't stop to apologize or explain. The bathroom is my only salvation right now.

I spend the next fifteen minutes hunched over the toilet in the women's restroom, my stomach rebelling against everything—the granola bar I'd forced down for breakfast, the sip of coffee that had tasted wrong, even the water I'd tried to keep down afterward.

Each wave of nausea feels like my body is rejecting not just food, but the entire situation I've created for myself. The porcelain is cold against my palms, and the industrial bathroom cleaner smell makes everything worse.

When the worst of it passes, I lean back against the cold tile wall, trying to catch my breath.

My hands are shaking, and I feel weak and dizzy in a way that has nothing to do with the physical symptoms and everything to do with the weight of what's happening to me.

The pregnancy test results feel surreal, like something that happened to someone else, but the evidence is right here in my rebellious body.

"Sophie?" Cassian's voice makes me freeze. I hear the bathroom door open, followed by his careful footsteps echoing off the tile.

"Don't come in here," I call weakly, mortified by the situation. "This is the women's bathroom, and I'm disgusting right now."

"There's nothing disgusting about you," he says firmly, appearing in the doorway of my stall despite my protests. His brown eyes are full of concern as he takes in my pale complexion and shaking hands. "What's wrong?

He gathers my hair away from my face with gentle fingers, and the kindness of the gesture makes me want to cry. Just as his hands secure the strands, another wave of nausea hits and I'm retching again.

He doesn't flinch or leave, just holds my hair back and rubs soothing circles on my back like this is completely normal. “You need to go to the infirmary."

"No!" I grab his wrist, probably squeezing harder than necessary. "Please, don't make me go there."

"Sophie, you need to see someone. This isn't normal stress-related nausea or anxiety. You're really sick, and I'm..."

"I'm pregnant." The words slip out before I can stop them, echoing off the bathroom tiles like an accusation I can't take back.

The silence that follows is deafening. Cassian goes completely still, his hand frozen in my hair, and I can practically hear his mind racing to process what I've just told him.

I watch his face carefully, seeing surprise give way to something more complex—concern mixed with something that might be hope.

When he speaks again, his voice is carefully controlled, like he's trying very hard not to let his emotions show. "Is it mine?"

The question hangs between us, loaded with the memory of that night when I'd sought comfort in his arms, when he'd made me feel chosen rather than conquered.

For a moment, I consider lying—it would be easier, cleaner, less complicated than the truth. Cassian would be a good father, a stable partner, everything Adrian isn't and probably never will be.

"No." I swallow hard, tasting bile and shame and the bitter truth I can't avoid. "It's Adrian's."

I watch Cassian's face change, see his jaw clench and his fists curl at his sides like he's swallowing broken glass.

The careful composure he'd maintained throughout this entire conversation starts to crack, and I catch a glimpse of something darker underneath—anger, maybe, or frustration at a situation he can't control.

"Does he know?" he asks quietly, his voice tight with barely contained emotion.

"No."

Something shifts in Cassian's expression at my answer, a complex mix of emotions I can't quite read. Relief, maybe, or calculation.

There's a moment where he looks almost pleased by my answer, but then he focuses on me again—really looks at me, taking in my defeated posture and the tears I'm trying desperately to hide—and his face softens.

"You're not going to tell him," he says, and it's not a question. It's an observation, delivered with the kind of certainty that suggests he already knows how this conversation is going to end.

"I have to," I say, even though every fiber of my being rebels against the idea. "He deserves to know, regardless of what he chooses to do with the information."

"Sophie." Cassian steps closer, his voice taking on a gentleness that makes my chest ache. "You're not alone in this. I'm here. I can help you raise the baby, love it like my own. DNA doesn't matter if we're together."

The offer stuns me into silence. Here's this man, this good, kind, stable man, offering to take on the consequences of my choices with someone else.

Offering to love a child that isn't his, to build a life with me despite everything that's happened, despite the fact that I'm carrying another man's baby.

"Cassian, I can't just…" I struggle to find the words, overwhelmed by his generosity and my own confusion. "I have to tell Adrian first. And if he wants to be involved, if he agrees to try..."

"He won't agree." The interruption is sharp, final, delivered with a certainty that makes me flinch.

"Why?" I ask, though I'm afraid of the answer.

"Because Adrian Lewis is selfish," Cassian says, his voice hardening with something that looks like old anger. "He won't sacrifice his comfort, his freedom, his carefully constructed life to raise a mistake."

The word hits me like a physical blow, sharp and cruel and completely unexpected. Mistake. My hand instinctively moves to my still-flat stomach, as if I can somehow protect the life growing there from the label Cassian has just attached to it.

"Sophie, I didn't mean—" He reaches for me, recognition of his cruelty flickering across his features.

"I'll figure this out myself," I say, my voice stronger than I feel as I stand on unsteady legs. The bathroom suddenly feels too small, too suffocating. "Just... don't tell anyone about this. Please."

"Sophie, wait."

But I'm already moving toward the door, past him and out of the bathroom, leaving behind his concerned calls and the echo of that word—mistake—ringing in my ears like a condemnation.

As I walk through the empty hallway, my footsteps echoing against polished floors, I realize that Cassian might be right about Adrian.

He might not want this baby, might see it as exactly what Cassian called it—a mistake that complicates his life in ways he's not willing to accept.

But that doesn't change the fact that he deserves to know.

And it doesn't change the fact that this baby, Adrian's baby, our baby, is not a mistake, no matter what anyone else thinks.