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Nothing but need, and want, and?—

A blaring alarm makes me jolt upright. Panicked, I look around for the source and smash my hand on the alarm clock beside my bed until it silences.

I let out a shaky exhale. Holy fuck. I press my fingers against my neck, my pulse racing. I can’t tell if it was the dream that has my heart leaping or the hella loud alarm clock.

Probably a little of both.

It was a dream, wasn’t it?

I lift up the covers, almost expecting to be naked, but of course I’m still in my fungi pajamas. Morning light is streaming in through my window, a window that is closed.

I remember now. Before I went to bed, I saw Kincaid standing beneath it, smoking a cigarette and staring up at me.

Had that been a dream too?

You should hope it was a dream, I tell myself as I get out of bed, walking over to the window and glancing at the cedarthrough the window, the light dim and grey.The last thing you need is your professor creeping on you.

And yet, the idea of it makes my pussy throb between my legs, though I’m going to have to blame that residual arousal on the dream.

I shake my head and glance at the clock. Six thirty a.m. We have class right after breakfast, which is at eight. What I need more than anything is a shower, preferably a cold one.

I grab my toiletry bag and a towel and poke my head out into the hall. I hear some rustling in the rooms, but one of the showers at the end is open, so I scurry down to claim it before someone else does.

The shower is nice and spacious, but I’m not in it for long until I hear a knock at the door.

“Five-minute limit,” an unkind voice says. Immediately, I know it’s Clayton.

I sigh and start getting the conditioner out of my hair without making a mess. It’s purple, meant to counter the brassiness in my dark blonde hair. A travel size I stole from Target in a moment of poor desperation.

I get out of the shower and back into my pajamas just as he’s knocking again, not about to risk going past Clayton in just a towel.

When I open the door, he’s leering at me.

At my breasts, specifically. I keep a tight hold on my towel.

“I was hoping it was you,” he says, barely meeting my eyes.

I scowl as I walk past him, giving him a wide berth, my hair dripping down my back.

“Hey, I think we got off on the wrong foot,” he yells after me.

I ignore him. I don’t want to make any trouble for myself, considering my position here, but if he continues this shit and gets even remotely close to sexual harassment, I’m reporting his ass.

I get back to my room, lock the door, and get ready. I shake the encounter with Clayton off, but my thoughts keep going back to Kincaid, to the dream. Had he really been standing underneath my window? I remember I was about to turn off the lights, and as I walked past the window, the burning ember of a cigarette caught my eye. The dream felt real in the moment but doesn’t feel real now. It’s faded away the way that dreams do. But him smoking beneath my window? That does feel real.

And so what?I think as I find a small blow dryer in the bathroom cupboard. He can’t wander around on a smoke break? He probably wasn’t even staring at me—it’s not like I saw his eyes. It’s not like I even know it was Kincaid. It could have been anyone.

But if anything, that thought makes it worse.

When my hair is dry, I spend a moment marveling at my reflection. That purple shampoo really did the trick because my hair looks a few shades lighter, a honey blonde now, making the blue in my eyes look saturated. I run my fingers over the sides of my face, focusing on my jaw, which has always been on the wider side, thanks to my incessant teeth grinding and clenching, but I guess that face yoga I did last night on my masseters did the trick because my face looks slimmer too. I feel like this is the first time I’ve really had a good, hard look at myself in the mirror. Some days I just sort of gloss over my reflection, like I’m too afraid to see myself, see who I really am.

But I force myself to look now. And I’m surprised to see a different version of myself looking back. Someone older, and hardened, and hopefully wiser.

Someone who definitely shouldn’t want their new professor watching her through her window at night.

At breakfast, I eat with Lauren, Justin, and Munawar, who is so far keeping to his promise of wearing a different fungi shirt for each day because today he’s wearing one with happy cartoon mushrooms that saysWe Will Literally Feast On Your Corpse. For some reason, I’ve lost my appetite, still full from the dinner last night, but I drink enough coffee to drown a horse.

The morning is warm, the sun bright somewhere behind the morning fog that sticks close to shore, sliding between the trees as we walk to the learning center. There’s chatter amongst the students, a little more lively and comfortable than yesterday after everyone has gotten to know each other some. I stay close to Lauren since I can feel Clayton’s gaze behind me and do my best to ignore it.