Noah found me immediately. Pulled me into a corner near the old loading dock doors.
"What happened?"
"She saw us."
"Saw what?"
"Me and Alex. Kissing. In the hallway."
Noah's eyes went wide. "Fuck."
"She's hurt. And angry. I fucked up really bad."
Noah was quiet for a moment. Just looked at me with that steady, patient expression he always had.
"What are you going to do?"
"I don't know."
Then—through the crowd, across the room—I saw him.
Alex.
Standing with the Kingswell guys near the bar. Face carefully blank. The performance of composure—shoulders back, drink in hand, jaw set in that way I recognized because it was the same thing I did. The same armor. Different material.
But his eyes found mine across the room and I saw it—
The same fear.
The same certainty that everything was about to fall apart.
Something pulled tight in my chest. Like looking in a mirror and seeing every lie you've ever told reflected back at you in someone else's face.
His father appeared beside him. Hand on Alex's shoulder. Talking. Alex's whole body went rigid—the controlled rigidity of someone being touched by a person they hated.
We're the same. That's the thing nobody knows. Under all of it—the money, the scholarship, the river between us—we're the same.
I looked away before the thought could finish forming.
"Tomorrow," I said to Noah. "I have to get in a boat with him. In front of everyone. After this."
Noah nodded. "One thing at a time."
"What's the one thing?"
"Getting through tonight." He put his hand on my shoulder. "That's it. Just tonight."
I nodded. Didn't trust my voice.
The party moved around us—laughter, music, the clink of glasses. A fun Saturday night for everyone who wasn't me.
Tomorrow I'd wake up and either the world would know or it wouldn't. Either Emily would have told someone or she'd have decided to carry the secret that had no business being hers.
Either way, I had to get in a boat.
Either way, I had to row.
That was the one thing I could control.
