"I didn't build this program so two kids could go silent when it hurts." He picked up his coffee. "Make me proud. Both of you."
He walked away. Back toward the coaching launch where Eldridge was already waiting, binoculars around his neck.
I adjusted my foot stretchers one more time. Checked my oarlock. The small, familiar rituals that grounded the body when the mind wanted to spiral.
"Liam?"
Alex's voice. Quiet. Behind me in bow.
"Yeah?"
A pause. The kind of pause that meant he was choosing words carefully.
"I don't want to let you down," he said.
"Hey," I said. I couldn't turn around in the boat—stroke seat, facing the stern, Alex behind me where I couldn't see his face. So I reached back. Found his knee. Squeezed once.
"You couldn't," I said. "Not possible."
"You don't know that."
"Yeah, I do. Because even when the boat was dead—even when we couldn't row for shit and everything was broken—you still showed up. Every morning. Every practice. That's not letting someone down. That's the opposite."
Silence.
"Okay," he said. Steadier now.
"Okay."
I settled my hands on the oar handles. Calluses against rubber. The tape on my blistered palm. The same hands that had held Alex's face last night in a hotel room, that had gripped the railing on the bridge, that had punched Marcus at a party and slammed Braden against a car.
These hands. This water. This person behind me.
The starting marshal held our stern. The boats ahead launching at fifteen-second intervals—each double surging off the line and disappearing into the course. The Dartmouth double. A Princeton pair. A BU crew in scarlet. One by one, swallowed by the river.
The Head of the Charles wasn't like any race we'd done before.
This was a head race. Three miles. Time trial. Boats launched at intervals and chased each other down the course. No lanes. No side-by-side. Just you and the clock and the river and the boats ahead of you that you had to hunt down and pass—on a course with six bridges, blind turns, and wake from hundreds of crews churning the water.
Our number was called. We paddled to the line. The marshal's hand on the stern, holding us steady.
"Attention..."
I coiled. Legs compressed. Blade set.
"GO."
The first ten strokes were controlled violence.
Not the frantic explosion I would have launched six months ago—all power, no patience, burning the tank in the first thirty seconds. This was the start Hale had drilled into us. High rate—thirty-four—but disciplined. Each drive committed. Each recovery measured. The boat surging off the line and settling into the acceleration instead of fighting it.
By stroke ten we were at race pace. Twenty-eight. The rhythm from the 16:28 piece—except now the water beneath us was the Charles, and the banks were lined with spectators, and the bridges ahead were packed with thousands of people who'd come to watch.
"Settle," Alex said behind me. "That's it. Let the boat run."
The hull responded. The run between strokes lengthening—that glide Jerry had taught me to chase. The feeling that meant everything was right.
The first thousand meters unfolded in a blur of sensation. Legs driving. Lungs finding their rhythm—deep inhale on the recovery, sharp exhale on the drive. My blade entering the water clean. Behind me, Alex matching. Not following. Matching. His rhythm locked to mine.
