Lying.

Sometimes I wish I didn't have to lie just to protect myself. In class, a lecturer asked me whether I was in class yesterday due to seeing my attendance being counted as being there but the truth is, I wasn't. We use QR codes to scan during online classes and a classmate of mine shared the link to it inside one of our subgroups. I woke up late and had like 10 minutes until the class end and hearing that the lecturer was in a foul mood for some reason. Fearing that I was gonna get chewed out and put on the spot, I instead sign my attendance but I didn't go to that class that day.

Just today, I attended my class but obviously, my presence didn't go unnoticed as the lecturer saw me come in during the online class. She asked me whether I had attended the previous class. I lied, saying that I did and told her that I came in like 13 minutes left of class. I don't think she or anyone else bought the lie. Plus, there's a recording of that class anyways so they can always call me out on that. The class went on as normal but I felt awful throughout the session, hating myself that I lied instead of telling the truth and now I feel as if their perception of me has changed.

It wouldn't affect me much if I wasn't close to the class and the lecturer but we shared one class in the last semester and now we're sharing another one and we always had a good time during classes. It's just today I felt awful about lying to the class and the lecturer.

Obviously, I am in the wrong here. Maybe I shouldn't have lied and come clean but I let my fear and anxiety take over me.