"Don't."
"The secret is the leverage. As long as you're hiding—"
"Noah. Don't."
He held his hands up. Let it go. But the words hung in the room anyway, taking up space the way Noah's words always did—quiet, precise, impossible to ignore.
I lay back on my bed. Stared at the ceiling. The same water stain I'd been staring at for almost two years—shaped like a question mark, which felt about right.
"Anyway. I talked to Priya about the debate invitational," Noah said. Changing the subject. Giving me air. "She thinks we should restructure the second rebuttal around constitutional precedent instead of policy impact."
"Yeah?" I asked, not really knowing what he was talking about.
"She's wrong, obviously. But she argues it well enough that I have to take it seriously."
"Sounds like you've met your match."
Something softened in his face. "Maybe."
And then Noah talked at length about Priya. For a few minutes the room was just Noah talking about a girl who was smarter than him and how that made him feel alive instead of threatened. Good stuff. The kind of conversation we used to have before my life became a series of crises separated by rowing.
I listened.
Eventually we crashed. I slept in fragments—an hour here, forty minutes there, my brain jolting me awake every time it remembered something I didn't want to think about.
***
Morning came.
I went to class because that's what you did. Sat through a lecture on macroeconomics that I absorbed nothing from. Ate lunch alone in the dining hall—a sandwich and coffee, thecheapest thing I could assemble from the salad bar without looking like I was counting.
Walking back to the dorm after, I checked my email. Most of it was junk—course updates, a campus safety bulletin about locking bikes, a dining services survey nobody would fill out.
Then one from Eldridge's office from yesterday. CC'd to me and Alex.
Re: New England Rowing Magazine — Joint Program Feature
Liam and Alex,
NERM will be sending a journalist and photographer to the boathouse Thursday at 2 PM for the joint program profile ahead of the Head of the Charles. Please plan to be available for an interview (approximately 30 minutes) and photo session (approximately 20 minutes). Wear program gear. Coach Hale and I will be present.
This is an excellent opportunity for both programs. Please be punctual.
— Coach Eldridge
I read it twice. Closed the email. Kept walking.
Tomorrow. A journalist. A photographer. Me and Alex sitting side by side answering questions about our partnership while we couldn't even look at each other on the water.
The thought of it made something twist in my gut.
The photos. Standing next to him. Close enough for a camera frame. Close enough to smell him and feel the heat off his skin and remember what it was like when standing that close meant something different.
I thought about the bridge photo. The one from Marlow—both of us grinning, his arm on my shoulder, the trees going gold behind us. I'd sent it to him that night and he'd saved it instantly and that had made my chest do something stupid.
Now we'd be posing for a different kind of photo. The professional kind. Two athletes. Partners. Nothing more.
A cold wind cut across the quad. I shoved my hands in my hoodie pocket and walked faster.
