Dartmouth responded immediately. Their rating spiked—a counter-move, matching our ten with their own. Their stroke seat's jaw was clenched now, face going red, the metronome precision getting harder to maintain. His bow man was yelling something—one sharp word on every drive, a cadence call.
We were side by side. Blade to blade. The water between our hulls so narrow I could see the reflection of their oar shafts in our wake.
900 meters.
Neither crew giving an inch.
My lungs were on fire now. Not the manageable burn of the first 500—the real thing. The 2K pain that lived in your chest like a fist squeezing your ribs from the inside.
Then I felt it.
A hitch in my timing. Just a fraction—my left blade entering a millisecond late, the boat checking slightly, the hull decelerating for one awful moment.
No. No no no.
My quads had seized on the drive. Just for a heartbeat. Just long enough to throw the catch.
Behind me, Alex adjusted instantly. His drive shifted to cover the check—pushing harder on the next stroke to compensate, his blade angle deepening to pull us back to speed. It happened in less than a second. If you blinked you'd miss it.
But I felt it. And he felt it. The boat told us both.
"I'm good," I said.
"We got this."
No hesitation. No worry. Not a doubt in his mind.
Just me and him—we.
Something loosened in my chest.
1000 meters. Halfway.
We were still even with Dartmouth. Princeton a length ahead. BU falling back. The field splitting—this was a three-boat race now.
From the bank, the noise was building. I could hear voices separating from the roar—Tyler's unmistakable bark cutting through: "LET'S GO MOORE! LET'S FUCKING GO!"
And from the Kingswell side, quieter but there—a rhythmic clap. Someone organizing it. Someone getting the Kingswell supporters to actually make noise for once instead of sitting there like they were at a fucking tennis match.
The officials' launch was keeping pace between lanes two and three. The photographer leaning out over the water, shutter firing in rapid bursts.
I shut it out. All of it. Narrowed everything down to the boat and the body behind me and the two thousand meters that were slowly, brutally, becoming one thousand.
"We have to take Dartmouth now," Alex said. His voice was rough. Less controlled. The composure starting to fray at the edges. "If we let them sit on us into the third five hundred, they'll have enough for a sprint."
He was right. Dartmouth was a technical crew—they'd be conserving, rowing smart, saving something for the last 500. If we didn't break them in the middle thousand, they'd outrun us at the end.
"Power twenty," I said. "Everything. Right now."
"Ready."
"This one is for us… Now!"
Twenty strokes. I emptied everything into them. Every ounce of anger and want and denial and all the things I'd been carrying—all of it converted into the drive phase, legs slamming down, back swinging open, arms ripping through. The boat didn't just move. It leaped.
Alex matched me. Stroke for stroke. His breathing ragged now, not controlled anymore—desperate, hungry—but his blade work still perfect. Still there. Still with me.
One—two—three—four—Dartmouth's bow started to fall back.
