I gritted my teeth and tried to adjust by forcing myself to wait, to move with him instead of against him.
But my body wouldn’t cooperate. Every instinct screamed at me to pull harder, faster, and my blade caught the water a split second before his, disrupting the set.
“Moore—you’re still fighting the boat,” Hale called from the launch. “Find Thompson's rhythm.”
I tried, but it didn’t work.
It was like trying to dance to music I couldn’t hear. My timing was off. My catches too aggressive. The boat felt heavy, sluggish, like we were dragging an anchor.
“You’re rushing the slide,” Thompson said after a few minutes. “Let it come to you.”
“I’m not rushing.”
“You are. Every stroke.”
Heat crawled up my neck. “I’m matching you.”
“You’re not.” Thompson’s voice stayed calm, which somehow made it worse. “You’re pulling before I finish my recovery. It’s throwing off the set.”
I wanted to snap at him and tell him his rhythm was too slow, too cautious, too controlled.
But I bit it back, and forced myself to breathe. We kept rowing. I kept trying to adjust. And it kept not working.
“Moore, you’re early again. Feel the boat. Stop forcing it,” Hale said.
I was feeling the boat. It just felt wrong, off-balance—like trying to walk in shoes that didn’t fit.
We rowed for another twenty minutes. Drills. Pieces. Steady state.
And it never clicked.
Not once.
And the worst part? I could feel Thompson’s frustration in the way his catches got sharper, his recoveries more deliberate, like he was overcompensating for my mistakes.
“Let’s bring it in,” Hale finally called from the launch.
Thank God.
We paddled back to the dock in silence. Thompson didn’t say anything, and he didn’t need to—the failure sat between us like a third person in the boat. When we lifted the double back onto the racks, Thompson just nodded at me once and walked away. Not angry. Just... done.
I stood there, hands still on the gunwale, chest tight with frustration.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I’d rowed doubles before. At Brackett Lake, I’d—
The thought hit before I could stop it. Brackett Lake. Alex. That morning when we’d rowed together, everything had just... worked. No counting. No thinking. No fighting the boat.
We’d moved like we were one person. Like the boat knew what to do before we did.
Flying.
I smirked at the memory then shoved it away.
“Moore, my office," Coach Hale said.
The words every athlete dreads.
