No longer in Need

Chapter 4

Sierra's POV

I feel like I am about to die.

That was my first thought as I pushed myself up from the bed. My head pounded, the room tilted, and my throat burned like I'd swallowed sand. Cold sweat glued my clothes to my skin.

"Alexxia?" My voice came out as a croak. "Can you turn on the lights?"

Silence.

Her bunk looked empty, or at least that was what my blurry eyes told me. I couldn't think why I felt this terrible. I only knew I had to get up. I stumbled through the dim room with one hand on the wall until my fingers found my phone.

The screen's glare stabbed at my eyes. Then the numbers came into focus.

10:00 a.m.

"Bloody hell." My lecture had started at eight. "I'm late!"

I scrambled to my feet, still dizzy and confused. My hands shook as I peeled off my sweat-soaked top, yanked on the first blouse I could find, shoved my feet into my shoes, and grabbed my bag. Everything swam. I told myself not to think, just to move. The whole thing took less than five minutes. I never once looked down.

I raced down the glistening corridor, begging myself not to trip, and pushed open the lecture hall door squirming as it creaked loudly.

Over a hundred heads turned toward me. In the center of the hall, Professor Cross stopped mid-sentence, glaring at me so intensely that I shivered.

"Miss Riven."

"Y-yes, sir." I couldn't stop stuttering. Even from the doorway, I caught the faint scent of his cedarwood cologne, and it scrambled what little focus I had left.

"You are two hours into my lecture," he said, ignoring my dropped jaw. "Why are you late?"

"Two hours?" I whispered, and something worse than panic washed over me. Disappointment in myself.

Snickers rippled through the class and kept going. Eyes dropped to my legs and rose again, and I was too dizzy to understand why.

"Sierra."

I barely heard him. My head was bowed.

"SIERRA!"

"Yes, Professor Cross?" I answered at once, still trembling under his gaze.

"What are you wearing?"

His voice was calm. The rest of the room was not. The snickers grew louder.

"My clothes, sir," I said, my face heating. Was my blouse really that bad?

Then I noticed the tips of his ears turning red, and the way his eyes struggled so much trying not to drop below my waist.

I followed his gaze and shrieked.

Below my blouse, I was wearing nothing but my sleeping shorts, still clinging to me with sweat.

The comments grew louder, and phones began rising secretly around the hall. Couldn't they let me be, just once?

"I'm so embarrassed for her," someone whispered.

"She should learn to keep her legs shut," another voice said.

But the one that stung came from Marissa. "No one likes a desperate slut!" The hall snickering going louder at this.

"Enough!"

Professor Cross's voice boomed through the hall. His eyes had left me and fixed on the students, who shrank back under his gaze. I stood frozen at the edge of the doorway, too ashamed to move.

"One more word or whisper, and every one of you fails my course for insubordination."

Pin-drop silence followed. Several students couldn't meet his eyes.

"And as for you, Sierra..."

Hearing my name in his mouth roll out so easily sent a warm rush through me, even now. It vanished with his next words.

"Never show up to my class half naked again."

His stare was cold and unforgiving. My legs nearly buckled, and I couldn't tell whether it was his glare or his rebuke.

"Yes, sir..."

"Leave my class," he said before I could finish. "And see me in my office after lectures."

I nodded, shaking, and stepped back. The door slammed in my face.

I stood in the empty corridor as the murmur of the class resumed behind it. Then my knees finally started to shake.

Walking back to the dorm in a daze, my arms wrapped around myself, tugging my blouse down as if it could cover what I couldn't. His words replayed with every step: half naked, leave my class.

The brief look of disappointment on his face haunted me. Professor Cross had made himself clear: he expected discipline, and I had just handed him the opposite. I had destroyed my punctual reputation in a single morning, and now he probably thought I was desperate and careless.

My room was a mess, and so was I. I dropped onto the bed frustrated and finally saw the notification on my phone that had stayed for hours now.

Professor Cross: I'll help you. Come to my office tomorrow morning.

"No."

"No."

"God, no."

I refreshed the app again and again. It wasn't a prank. He had answered last night, before I'd shown up half naked.

Tomorrow morning had meant this morning, and I'd slept right through it. Now he'd ordered me to his office after lectures instead. Would he still help me after this? Would he change his mind?

Shit.

I forced myself up despite my pounding head.

The door burst open.

"Sierra! Sierra!"

Alexxia stood there with her hair scattered, breathless, sweat running down her temples. Her face was pale, caught between worry and disbelief.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

She ignored me and shoved her phone into my hands. A video was already playing.

It was me, standing outside the lecture hall in my sleeping shorts, hair ruffled and eye bags so ugly I cringed. Someone had filmed my worst moment and posted it on the student platform for the whole university to see.

It could have been Marissa, I thought bitterly, remembering her hostility. But I had no proof, and the last thing I needed was another problem to add to the mess I was already in. My failed project had already put my academic future at risk and now my reputation.

"What were you thinking?" Alexxia cried, snatching the phone back.

“You were practically naked in front of him!” She screamed clearly irritated by me.

My knees gave out. I sank onto the cold floor and the tears I had been holding finally fell. I pressed a hand over my mouth to smother my sobs, my breath coming in uneven gasps, my fingers trembling against my lips.

I had been bullied before. This was worse. This was no longer a lecture hall of strangers; it was the entire university.

"Sierra, look what they're saying about you."

I raised my head slowly, trying not to let the thought sink in. Alexxia held out the screen.

The scholarship queen has turned into a slut.

I bit my lip until I tasted blood. Something in Alexxia's face made it worse. She was looking at me as if she were trying to work out whether I had done this on purpose.

After all, she knew of my obsession with him.

I couldn't do this anymore. Professor Cross had seen me at my worst. I couldn't walk into his office with the entire school watching, and I couldn't stand to see that look on his face again.

My vision blurred as I reached for my phone and typed with trembling fingers.

I'm sorry to disturb you, sir. I am no longer in need of your help.