“You just need to get drunk enough to forget today happened,” Marcus said, clapping my shoulder as we walked up the dark street.
“That’s your solution to everything,” I said.
“Because it works.” He grinned. “Look, man. One race doesn’t define a season. You’ll come back. You always do.”
My jaw tightened. But that’s not what this was, that’s not what any of this was.
“Easy for you to say, you won your race today,” I said.
Marcus smirked and proceeded to tell me about how him and Collins did it.
My father had orchestrated the entire scrimmage. Set it up deliberately—either to let me destroy Liam so completely I could finally let go, or to let Liam destroy me so badly I’d have nochoice but to walk away. One way or another, he wanted the connection severed.
And Liam had done his job perfectly.
Marcus kept talking, something about splits and technique, but I barely heard him. Anger simmered beneath my ribs—at my father for his manipulation, at myself for being so easy to control, at Liam for—
For what? For winning? For doing exactly what I would have done in his position?
No… for looking at me like I was nothing and like I’d never mattered.
I wanted to scream. To punch something. To go back to this morning and refuse to race at all. But I couldn’t say any of that to Marcus, and couldn’t explain why today felt like more than just a losing a race.
So I just nodded and said, “Yeah. I know.”
Collins walked a few steps ahead with Mason, their voices carrying back to us in fragments. Something about the freshman eight. How Riverside’s coxswain had “some kind of voodoo shit going on.”
The Kappa Alpha Theta house came into view—three stories of brick and white columns. I recognized it immediately. The same house from last year—the one with the champagne tower.
A roar erupted from inside—someone had probably just won a flip cup tournament, voices rising in drunken celebration.
“This is what you need,” Marcus said as we climbed the front steps. “Good party. Cheap beer. Maybe some Kingswell girl who doesn’t know you lost today.”
“Jesus, Marcus.”
“What? I’m being supportive.”
We pushed through the front door into a wall of heat and noise. Bodies everywhere—dancing, shouting, pressed shoulder to shoulder in the narrow hallway. The smell of beer and sweatand too much cologne hit me like a physical thing. Music pounded from speakers I couldn’t see, bass vibrating through the floorboards.
Collins grabbed beers from a cooler near the entrance and handed them out. I took mine, the can cold and wet in my palm.
“Shotgun!” Marcus yelled, already pulling out his keys.
The Kingswell guys circled up, and I found myself going through the motions. Punctured the can. Tilted my head back. Let the beer flood my mouth, swallowing fast, tasting nothing.
Marcus crushed his can against his forehead and everyone cheered.
I felt detached, like I was watching myself from somewhere outside my body. These were my teammates. My friends. But right now, they felt like strangers.
Get it together. Just get through tonight.
We moved deeper into the house, pushing through the crowd. Someone’s elbow caught my ribs. A girl stumbled into me and apologized with a drunk giggle.
For a while, it almost worked. The noise, the chaos, the alcohol starting to buzz in my system, making everything softer around the edges. I could almost forget.
Then Collins pointed toward the back. “Isn’t that the Riverside crew?”
My stomach dropped.
