Blocked the Wrong Professor

Dr. Ethan Ford returned my third thesis draft at midnight with comments so brutal I considered changing my name and leaving academia.

At one in the morning, I opened NearU to keep myself awake.

That was when I found my own hair clip on a viral anonymous post.

My girlfriend loved the hair clip I bought her. Thanks for helping me choose it.

NearU was Westbridge University’s anonymous campus app, mostly used for gossip, complaints, secret crushes, and the occasional department scandal.

I clicked in casually.

Then I saw the screenshot.

The girl in the chat had sent a side-profile photo. The image was cropped and blurred almost beyond recognition; only her ear, a loose strand of hair, and a deep-blue enamel hair clip were clear.

Under it, she had written:

Honey, it’s beautiful. I love it.

I lifted a hand to my hair.

The same clip was there.

Two weeks ago, my anonymous boyfriend had helped me choose it. After it arrived, I clipped my hair back, took that exact side-profile photo, and sent it to him because I was too embarrassed to show my face.

Now it was on a viral campus post.

Then I saw the location tag.

300 feet away.

I slowly looked toward the hallway.

At this hour, the building was almost empty. Within three hundred feet, there was Dr. Ford’s office, the graduate lounge, the microscopy room, and the joint lab next door, where a visiting professor had been working late all week.

My anonymous boyfriend was somewhere nearby.

My phone buzzed.

Baby? Why did you go quiet?

Then another message came in.

Did you fall asleep over your thesis again?

A third followed quickly.

Or am I being too clingy? Tell me honestly. I can change. Probably.

I stared at the screen.

We had been talking for three months. We met under anonymous usernames, joked about academic burnout, and somehow turned into late-night messages, study reminders, and embarrassingly sweet flirting. We had never exchanged real names, faces, departments, or schedules.

That had felt safe.

Now it felt stupid.

I typed:

Are you on campus right now?

Deleted it.

Then:

Which building are you in?

Deleted that too.

If I asked, he would ask me back. If he really was nearby, one careless answer could expose me.

Another message appeared.

Baby, you’re scaring me. Did I do something wrong?

I forced myself to reply.

Sorry. I was fixing a paragraph. The hair clip is still pretty. You did well.

He answered almost instantly.

So I get praise?

I rubbed my forehead.

Fine. Good boy.

The typing bubble flickered for a few seconds.

Worth it. Now finish your thesis before your adviser destroys you tomorrow.

My hand tightened around the phone.

My adviser.

Dr. Ford’s office was at the end of the hall, and the light under his door was still on.

No.

Absolutely not.

Ethan Ford was brilliant, severe, and allergic to unnecessary warmth. Last week, he told me my literature review had the structure of a tent after a hurricane. There was no way that man was calling me baby on NearU.

Except the post said three hundred feet away.

I opened our chat history and searched for clues.

The most revealing thing he had ever sent was one cropped photo of his abs, which was useless unless I planned to ask every man in the building to lift his shirt.

Then I found something useful.

Last month, he had sent photos from a stationery store.

Help me choose a pen, sweetheart. I need something that makes me look less like a sleep-deprived academic disaster.

I had picked a matte black fountain pen with a silver clip.

This one. Serious, but not pretentious.

He bought it immediately.

If he was nearby, that pen might be nearby too.

I looked toward Dr. Ford’s office again.

The light under his door was still on.