We crossed.
The noise hit like a wall.
I let the oars slip. Collapsed forward over my knees. Mouth open, gasping, gulping air that wouldn't come fast enough. Heart hammering so hard it hurt—a physical ache behind my sternum like something was trying to crack its way out.
My hands were trembling. Couldn't stop them.
Behind me, Alex was doing the same. I could hear it—the ragged, desperate breathing, the groan that came from somewhere deep in his chest. The boat still gliding on momentum. Still carrying us.
"Holy shit," he said. The words broken by breath.
I turned around in my seat.
His face was flushed dark. Hair plastered to his forehead. Chest heaving so hard his shoulders shook with every inhale. Sweat running down his neck into the collar of his uni.
And his eyes.
His eyes were bright and wrecked and looking at me like—
Like I was the only thing in the world.
My chest went tight for a reason that had nothing to do with the race.
"We just—" I couldn't finish. Couldn't get enough air for a full sentence.
"Yeah."
We sat there. In the middle of the course. The other boats crossing behind us—Princeton twenty seconds later, then Dartmouth, then the rest. I could hear their oars, but it was allbackground. Distant. Like the world had narrowed down to this boat and the two of us in it.
"I've never—" Alex stopped. Shook his head. Swallowed hard. "Never felt anything like that."
"Me neither."
"We're—" He looked at me. Something shifted in his expression. The mask he wore for everyone else—gone. Just Alex. Raw and open and still breathing too hard. "We're amazing together."
The words landed somewhere below my ribs.
Notthat was good. Notwe rowed well.
We're amazing together.
"Yeah," I said. "We are."
"Like we were made for this." His voice was rough. Wrecked. "Made for each other."
My throat closed up.
Because he wasn't talking about rowing anymore. We both knew he wasn't talking about rowing anymore.
"Yeah," I said again. And my voice sounded different. Even to me.
We looked at each other. In the bright October sun. In the middle of a course we'd just dominated. In front of everyone who'd come to watch.
And the thing I'd been shoving down for two years—the thing I'd buried under anger and Emily and rivalry and every excuse I could find—rose up so hard and so fast that I couldn't breathe.
Not denial this time.
Not fear.
