I'd spent the whole week carrying it alone—the fight, the 18:23, the texter, the silence. Carrying it the way I always carried things: quietly, privately, until my back gave out. The way I'd learned from watching my mom do it for years after my dad left. The way I'd decided was strength and was actually just loneliness with better posture.
I wanted it to be Alex.
That was the whole answer. Simple and terrifying and true. Not the boat. Not the Charles. Not the scouts or the pipeline or any of it. I wanted the person in the bow seat. The one who'd shown up at every broken moment and matched me anyway—on the water, in the dark, in the ugly middle of things neither of us knew how to say.
And if Alex wasn't going to initiate this, I would. And I'd be honest—I was done carrying it alone.
I opened my texts. Found Alex's name.
My thumb hovered. The cursor blinking in the empty message field.
What do I say? How do I start?
I didn't know. Didn't have the right words. Probably never would.
Liam
We need to talk. The bridge. Tonight. 6.
Sent it. Watched the blue checkmark appear.
Set the phone on my knee. Stared at the quad. Waited.
My phone buzzed.
Alex
I'll be there.
Relief was coming. He responded… quickly.
I put the phone in my pocket and stood up from the bench.
The bridge was hours away. The Charles was six days away. And somewhere between the two, we'd either find our way back to each other or we wouldn't.
But at least we were about to show up.
Both of us.
Chapter 21: Alex
Ialmost didn't go.
Standing in my dorm room at six-thirty, phone in my hand, Liam's text still on the screen—We need to talk. The bridge. Tonight. 6—I almost talked myself out of it.
But Ethan's voice was louder than my father's tonight.
Show up. Before you think yourself out of it.
I pulled on a jacket. Didn't check the mirror. Didn't fix my hair. Didn't do any of the things I did before walking into a room where I'd be seen. I had a response paper due tomorrow that I hadn't started. For the first time in my life, I didn't care.
I just left.
The walk across campus felt longer than it was.
Kingswell at dusk—the lampposts flickering on one by one as I passed, casting warm circles on the brick pathways. Students moving between buildings in the last light. Nobody noticing me. Nobody knowing where I was going or why.
Down the hill. Past the boathouse—dark now, locked up, the Harrington plaque catching the last of the daylight on the stonefaçade. The shells inside sleeping on their racks. Our double somewhere in there. Waiting.
