My Professor Forced Me to Partner With the Arrogant Rich Boy I Hate

The highlighter squeaked in protest as I dragged its fluorescent yellow tip across the last line of the Bioethics syllabus. Done. My semester schedule was a masterpiece of color-coded precision, each block of time accounted for, from my 6 a.m. organic chemistry study group to my 10 p.m. library shift. There was no room for error. The scholarship that kept me here, that kept my family’s hopes alive, didn’t pay for errors. It paid for perfection, and I was determined to deliver.

I felt a familiar knot of pressure tighten in my stomach, but it was a comforting weight. Control. I had control.

That feeling lasted until exactly 2:17 p.m. that afternoon, in the first meeting of Bioethics. The seminar room was small, the air thick with the smell of old books and fresh ambition. Professor Albright, a woman with sharp eyes and an even sharper mind, presented our first case study. A hospital has one dose of a life-saving experimental drug. Two patients need it. Patient A is a 35-year-old single mother of three. Patient B is a 70-year-old Nobel-laureate scientist on the brink of a cure for a widespread disease. Who gets the dose?

The answer was obvious, a simple, if tragic, calculation. “Patient B,” I said, my voice clear. “The scientist. It’s a matter of utilitarian ethics. Saving him provides the greatest good for the greatest number of people. His cure could save thousands, millions, compared to the one life of the mother.” I laid out the logic, the cold, hard facts. It was sad, but it was rational.

A low, lazy voice drifted from the other side of the room. “But who are we to decide which life has more value?”

I turned. He was slumped in his chair, one long leg stretched into the aisle. His hair was a dark, unruly mess, and he wore a faded band t-shirt that probably cost more than my textbooks. He wasn’t looking at the professor; his gaze, a startling shade of green, was fixed on me.

“It’s not about value, it’s about outcome,” I countered, my grip tightening on the pen in my hand.

“Is it?” He leaned forward, a small, infuriating smile playing on his lips. “What if the scientist’s cure only works on the wealthy? What if the mother’s children grow up to be criminals because she dies, creating a net negative for society? What if we believe in a deontological framework where the act of choosing one life over another is inherently wrong, regardless of outcome?”

The words tumbled out of him with an ease that grated on every nerve. Pointless hypotheticals. We had a problem with a clear, logical solution, and he was muddying the waters with philosophical nonsense.

“You can’t base life-or-death medical decisions on ‘what ifs,’” I snapped, heat rising in my cheeks.

“You can’t base them on anything else,” he shot back, his smile widening. “Every choice is a ‘what if.’”

The room had gone silent, everyone watching the exchange. Professor Albright was practically beaming. “Excellent points, Miss Vance, Mr. Sterling. A fantastic display of conflicting ethical frameworks.”

I barely heard her. All I could focus on was him—Liam Sterling, according to the class roster. He leaned back in his chair, the picture of nonchalant victory, and I felt a surge of pure, unadulterated annoyance. He was treating this like a game. For me, it was anything but.

The debate became our new normal. For the next hour, Professor Albright used us as her primary examples, pitting my pragmatism against his philosophical meandering. Every time I presented a fact-based argument, Liam would counter with a question about intent, morality, or the nature of existence itself. He did it with an infuriating ease, leaning back in his chair as if discussing the weather, while I sat ramrod straight, my knuckles white around my pen. The rest of the class seemed captivated, but all I felt was a hot wire of irritation pulling tighter and tighter in my chest. He wasn’t taking it seriously, and worse, he was making it impossible for me to.

When the class was finally dismissed, I packed my bag with sharp, angry movements, desperate to escape the stuffy room and his unsettling green eyes. I was almost at the door when his voice stopped me.

“Vance, wait up.”

I turned, my jaw tight. Liam was leaning against the doorframe, blocking my exit, that lazy smile back on his face. He had slung his worn leather satchel over his shoulder, and the casual posture made him seem even taller than he was in the classroom.

“It’s Elara,” I said, my tone clipped.

“Elara,” he repeated, the name rolling off his tongue far too smoothly. “You never really answered my question. The deontological one. Do you believe any action can be inherently right or wrong, regardless of the consequences?”

I stared at him, incredulous. “The class is over, Sterling.”

“I know. But you’re interesting.” He pushed off the doorframe, taking a step closer. The hallway suddenly felt very narrow. I could smell the faint, clean scent of his soap mixed with old paper from his bag. “You have an answer for everything, but it’s always the same answer. It’s a formula. Data in, logical conclusion out. Don’t you ever get bored?”

My breath caught. No one had ever called me boring—they called me dedicated, focused, smart. But the way he said it, it wasn't an insult. It was a genuine question, and that was somehow worse.

“My ‘formula’ is what gets results,” I managed, forcing myself to meet his gaze. His eyes were intense, searching. It felt like he was looking past my carefully constructed defenses and seeing the frantic, overwhelmed girl underneath. “It’s what solves problems in the real world, not in some dusty philosophy book.”

“But we don’t live in a world of results,” he countered, his voice dropping lower. “We live in a world of intentions and accidents and messy human emotions. You can’t ignore them just because they don’t fit in your spreadsheet.” He was so close now I could see the flecks of gold in his green eyes. My heart was hammering against my ribs, a frantic, disorderly rhythm that defied all logic. Why did he have this effect on me? It was more than annoyance. It was a dizzying, consuming distraction I couldn’t afford.

He smiled again, a quick, knowing flash of white. “Something to think about.” And with that, he turned and ambled down the hall, leaving me standing there, my meticulously planned afternoon completely derailed, my cheeks burning with a heat that had nothing to do with anger.

I retreated to the library later that week, seeking sanctuary in the hushed quiet of the third-floor stacks. The scent of aging paper and floor wax was a balm, a return to order. I had my organic chemistry textbook open, a fresh legal pad beside it, ready to lose myself in the elegant certainty of molecular bonds. I needed to forget the way his green eyes had seemed to see right through me, the way his voice had made my pulse jump for reasons I refused to analyze.

A low, tense murmur cut through the silence. It came from the next aisle over, a violation of the library’s sacred peace. My first instinct was pure irritation. I was about to stand up and deliver a sharp reminder of the rules when I recognized the voice. Sterling.

I froze, listening.

“No, I’m not changing my mind,” he said, his voice stripped of its usual lazy confidence. It was tight, strained. “I told you, this is what I want to study.”

A pause. I imagined a stern, disapproving voice on the other end of the line.

“Because it matters to me,” Liam snapped, and I could hear him start to pace, his footsteps soft on the industrial carpet. “It’s not a ‘phase.’ And it’s not a waste of your money. It’s my life.” Another, longer pause. The silence was heavy with unspoken disappointment. I found myself leaning slightly, shamelessly eavesdropping.

“Look, I know what the firm expects,” he said, his voice dropping, laced with a weariness that sounded ancient. “I know what you want. But I’m not you.” He stopped pacing. “Just because you don’t see the value in something doesn’t mean it’s worthless.”

The words hit me with an unexpected force, echoing our own argument from the other day. But this time, they weren’t aimed at me. They were a shield he was holding up against someone else, someone who had the power to make his shoulders slump in defeat. I peeked through a gap in the bookshelves.

He wasn’t the same person from class. The infuriating, charming facade was gone. He was standing with his back to me, one hand braced against a shelf of philosophy texts, his head bowed. He ran his free hand through his dark hair, a gesture of pure frustration. He looked trapped. He looked burdened.

He ended the call without another word, just a sharp click. For a long moment, he didn’t move. He just stood there, his shoulders tight, his head still bent as if under a physical weight. I saw the tension in the line of his back, the way his knuckles were white where he gripped his phone. In that unguarded moment, he looked less like a privileged philosophy major playing games and more like someone fighting a battle I knew nothing about.

A strange, unwelcome feeling twisted in my gut. It wasn't pity. It was a flicker of something dangerously close to empathy. We were on opposite ends of the spectrum—he was rebelling against a future that was set in stone, and I was desperately trying to build one out of thin air. But the pressure, the crushing weight of a parent’s expectations, was a language we both apparently understood.

I sank back into my chair, my eyes staring blankly at the diagrams in my textbook. The neat, predictable world of covalent bonds had been disturbed again. All I could see was the image of Liam Sterling, standing alone in the quiet stacks, looking just as lost as I sometimes felt.