"My son in a magazine." She laughed through whatever was happening on her end. "Wait until Linda hears about this."
Something loosened in my chest.
"I'll send you a copy when it comes out," I said.
"You better. I'm putting it on the coffee table."
"Mom, you don't have to—"
"It's going on the table, Liam. Non-negotiable."
I smiled. For real.
"I love you," she said.
"Love you too, Mom."
"Get some sleep."
"You too."
The line went dead. I sat there. Phone in my hand. The screen going dark.
Then I lay back. Stared at the ceiling.
My mom's voice in my head:Who's carrying you?
I thought of Alex. I wanted it to be Alex.
The hoodie from Friday night was still on my chair. I hadn't washed it. It smelled like Alex's room—his soap, his cologne, and him.
I should wash it. Should stuff it in the laundry bag and take it down to the basement machines and erase the last physical evidence of that night.
I didn't.
Couldn't.
Wouldn't.
We had two days to fix our time so we could go to the Charles. The biggest race of my life. Scouts who could change everything. The boat that was dead because the person in it with me was three blocks and a river away, probably lying in a perfectly organized room, not sleeping either.
And between us—the silence. The stubborn, loaded silence of two people who were too proud or too scared or too broken to pick up the phone and say the only thing that mattered.
I'm sorry. I miss you. I don't know how to fix this. But I want to try.
Chapter 19: Alex
The interview lasted thirty-two minutes.
I know because I was watching the clock the whole time.
The journalist was a woman named Dana—mid-thirties, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, a leather notebook open on her crossed knee. She sat across from us in one of the folding chairs Eldridge had arranged in a loose semicircle near the trophy cases on the upper level. Behind her, the photographer—a quiet guy in a flannel shirt—moved between angles, the shutter clicking every few seconds.
The boathouse hummed with the low-grade energy of a program performing for an audience. Eldridge had made sure the shells were polished, the bay doors open to frame the river in the background, the Harrington plaque visible over Dana's shoulder. Everything curated. Everything sayingtradition meets innovation.
Liam sat to my left in an identical wooden folding chair. Close enough that our elbows could have touched. We'd made sure they didn't.
He was in his Riverside quarter-zip, legs wide, hands on his knees—the posture of a guy who didn't know what to do with his body when he wasn't rowing. I was in my Kingswell gear, ankles crossed, spine straight. The posture of a guy who always knew exactly what to do with his body and hated every second of it.
