I still wanted him.
That was the pathetic part. After the fight. Afterplease go.Aftermaybe this was a mistake.After all of it—my body still knew his. Still oriented toward him like a compass. Still replayed the sound of his voice saying my name in the dark of his dorm room, the weight of his back against my chest, the way his hand had found mine and held on.
I hated it.
Hated that wanting him was the one thing I couldn't outwork or outrun or stuff into a box and bury. I could row until my lungs bled. I could ignore his texts. I could perform indifference so convincing even Remy couldn't crack it... sometimes. But lying in bed at night with his hoodie on my chair—I couldn't perform my way out of that.
And I was angry.
Because he called me a mistake. Said the word like it was a fact he'd been holding back, and once it was out there, hanging in the air between us, I couldn't unhear it. Couldn't unfeel it.
Mistake.
The thing was—he might be right. Maybe I was. Maybe wanting someone who lived on the other side of everything was a mistake. Maybe the kid from the south side of Brackett Lake had no business being in Alex Harrington's bed, in his car, in his life. Maybe I'd been fooling myself into thinking the bridge between us was real when it was just another thing built by someone with more money than me that I was borrowing without permission.
My mom used to saydon't fall in love with things you can't keep.She was talking about the boats at the marina—the richpeople's toys we maintained all summer and never got to ride. But it applied to everything. The scholarship. The rowing. Alex.
Things that could be taken away.
He'd called me a mistake and the worst part wasn't that it hurt. The worst part was that some voice in the back of my head—the one that sounded like every rich kid who'd ever looked through me, every coach who'd called me raw instead of talented, every person who'd ever made me feel like I was borrowing a life that wasn't mine—that voice saidhe's right. You know he's right. You've always known.
That was the thing nobody told you about caring about someone who'd hurt you—you didn't stop. You just felt both things at once and hoped one of them would win.
I got back to the dorm. Dropped my bag on the floor and laid on my bed. No Noah.
Tomorrow. Photos. His face two feet from mine while a stranger pointed a camera at us.
My phone rang, and the screen saidMom.
I picked it up.
"Hey, Mom."
"Hey, baby." Her voice was warm. It was always warm.
"How's work?"
"Oh, you know. Same. Linda's been on my case about the holiday schedule. I told her I'd take Thanksgiving if she takes Christmas, but she wants both off, which—anyway. How are you? How's training?"
"It's good." Automatic. The answer I always gave. "Getting ready for a big race."
"The Head of the Charles." She said it casually.
My stomach dropped.
I didn't tell her.
"You know about that?"
A pause. The kind of pause my mother did when she was choosing between being gentle and being honest.
"Linda showed me something on her phone last week. At the store." Another pause. "You were on TV, Liam. After a race."
The regional. The interview the journalist had done at the boathouse after the invitational. I'd forgotten about it and I hadn't told her… I didn't even tell her about the regional.
"Mom—"
"You looked good. Really good. Your coach was talking about the program, about the double, about you and that blond haired boy." Her voice was steady but something underneath it wasn't. "I watched it three times on Linda's little screen in the break room."
