I forced myself to move. Grabbed my water bottle and started walking toward the boathouse.
Then to make everything worse—I saw her.
Up on the Riverwalk Bridge, standing near the railing. Dressed for the cold—jacket and scarf, arms wrapped around herself. Waiting.
Emily.
My stomach dropped.
Liam spotted her across the distance. His whole body shifted—face changing into something more complicated than I couldname from here. Not relief. Not the way someone looks when they see the person they want.
Guilt, maybe. Or resignation.
He said goodbye to his teammates and started walking toward the bridge.
My teammates were heading inside. Voices and laughter echoing in the boathouse. I should go with them. Shower. Change. Move on with my day like a normal person who didn't just spend forty minutes flying in a boat with someone he'd had sex with two days ago.
But my feet carried me in a different direction.
Away from the boathouse. Up the sloping field toward campus. Cold grass crunching under my shoes, cold air cutting through my warmup.
Halfway up the hill, near the large oak with bare branches, I stopped.
The bridge was clearly visible from here. Liam reaching the halfway point where Emily waited.
I shouldn't watch this.
Pathetic. Standing here on a hill like some lovesick stalker, watching a conversation that had nothing to do with me.
Except it did. Because whatever happened down there would determine what Saturday night meant. What this morning meant. Whether I'd been fooling myself about all of it.
My hand found the rough bark of the oak and gripped it.
Down on the bridge, Liam approached slowly. Emily's posture was stiff—arms wrapped around herself. Not the body language of someone excited for a reunion. The body language of someone bracing for impact.
They stood a few feet apart.
Liam said something. Emily didn't move closer.
She started talking—arms uncrossing to gesture the way people do when they're trying to make someone understand. Her face upset. Maybe angry.
She knows something happened.
The realization tightened my chest further.
And now Liam was trying to fix it. Trying to make her believe whatever story he'd constructed.
He said something and Emily's face changed—hurt flashing across it, sharp and visible even from this distance.
She looked away toward the water. Arms crossing again.
Liam stepped closer and his hand lifted like he might reach for her, then dropped.
He's apologizing. For me. For what we did.
They talked for what felt like forever. The distance between them staying constant. Two people trying to bridge a gap that hadn't been there before.
A gap I'd helped create.
