The bridge marker passed. Buoy turn ahead—Hale had set them to simulate the Charles's bends, the spots where boats stacked up and lanes narrowed and the water got choppy from traffic.
"Turn coming," I said. "Inside pressure."
"Ready."
We leaned into it. My left blade pulling harder, Alex's right matching. The double carved through the turn—not wide, not sloppy. Clean. The bow pointing true out of the bend and into the next straight.
"Nice," Alex said.
"You too."
One mile down. Two to go. My lungs were settling into the sustainable burn—the 5K pace that lived right on the edge of comfortable. Deep inhale on the recovery. Sharp exhale on the drive. The thin November air cold enough to taste.
"Split check?" Alex asked.
I glanced at the rate monitor strapped to the gunwale. "Pace is three twenty-two per five hundred."
He did the math faster than I could. "That's sixteen-ten over the full distance."
Sixteen-ten.Thirty seconds faster than the 16:40.
"Don't think about it," Alex said. Like he could hear the number landing in my head. "Just row."
"Since when do you tell me not to think?"
"Since you started overthinking."
I laughed—a short, sharp bark that echoed off the water and startled a bird on the bank. And behind me, I heard something I hadn't heard in weeks. Alex laughing too. Quiet. Almost private. But there.
We rowed.
The middle mile was where races were won or lost. The glamorless stretch where the start adrenaline was gone and the finish sprint was too far away and all you had was your body and your partner and the willingness to hurt.
My quads were screaming. The lactic acid building in my hamstrings—that deep, familiar ache that meant I was working at the edge. My hands raw on the oar handles despite the tape. The sweat running down my spine despite the cold.
"I'm starting to feel it," I said.
"Me too. Stay long on the drive. Don't shorten up."
"You're dropping your left hand on the finish."
"Am I?"
"Half an inch. You're feathering early."
A pause. Three strokes. "Fixed."
"Better."
This. This was what we'd never done before. Before the fight, we'd rowed on instinct—bodies syncing without words, the connection so natural it felt like magic. And it was. But magic broke when the magicians stopped trusting each other.
This wasn't magic. This was work. Two people choosing, stroke by stroke, to communicate. To be honest.
The boat wasn't singing the way it had before. It was doing something better.
It was talking.
"Two miles," Alex said. "Pace holding."
