Chapter 10 Alex
The Riverside Club sat on a side street downtown, tucked between the Bluebird Café and a thrift store. The building was brick with tall windows, the kind of space that had probably been a warehouse before someone with vision saw potential.
This is it.
My stomach twisted.
The last week had been strange.
I hadn't been paired with Liam at joint practices. The coaches kept shuffling partnerships, testing different chemistries, and I was grateful. Relieved, even. Because seeing him across the boathouse bay every morning was hard enough without having to share a boat with him.
He'd gotten back together with Emily like Saturday night in his dorm room had never happened.
So I'd been avoiding him strategically. Staying on the opposite side of the boathouse, timing my arrivals so we wouldn't cross paths, keeping my head down during the brief moments when both teams gathered. The way I did everything—with calculated distance disguised as indifference.
It was easier to pretend that the rejection didn't sting when I could control the proximity.
The worst part, is that he didn't even have the guts to tell me. Or even worse, maybe I meant so little to him that he didn't feel like I mattered enough to be told.
I didn't understand why the coaches hadn't paired us again, especially if they were considering us for the invitational.
The possibility hung over me like a blade.
I could barely look at him across the boathouse.
How was I supposed to row with him—bodies synchronized, breathing matched, every stroke a reminder of what we'd been?
I pushed through the door. A bell chimed overhead.
The interior was exactly what I'd expected from the photos Maria had sent—exposed brick walls, hardwood floors that creaked under my shoes, a small stage at one end with a worn velvet curtain half-drawn.
Round tables stacked against the far wall.
A long bar running along the back, bottles catching the afternoon light from the tall windows.
Empty now, but I could picture it full—people holding drinks, music from the stage, crews from both schools mingling in a room that belonged to neither of them. Neutral ground.
We had a week and a half left to finalize everything.
"You're on time."
I turned.
Ethan stood near the stage, clipboard in hand. He wore jeans and his film festival hoodie, brown hair falling in those silky waves that caught the afternoon light from the windows. His hazel eyes watching me with careful neutrality.
Not warm. Not cold. Just... professional.
Something about seeing him in person made the weight in my chest shift. He looked tired. Probably staying up too late to edit his project.
"Yeah," I said. "I'm on time."
He nodded once. "Maria's in the back office. We need to confirm final headcount, finalize the bar order, and lock down the volunteer schedule for setup."
"Right."
Silence stretched between us. The kind that used to be comfortable and now wasn't.
"Let me go get Maria," Ethan said, already turning away. "You can look around. Both teams are meeting here at six for the official announcement, so we need to have everything done this afternoon."
He disappeared through a door marked "Office" before I could respond.
I walked the perimeter of the room alone, taking in the details.
Tables stacked and ready. Sound system installed—speakers mounted in the corners, a mixing board near the stage.
The bar was stocked with glasses hanging in neat rows from an overhead rack.
A chalkboard behind the bar listed cocktail specials in someone's careful handwriting.
We'd done good work. Even if most of it had been through emails and shared docs, never in the same room. Even if every text had been stripped of anything personal—just logistics, just facts, just the minimum words required to make the event happen.
"Alex Harrington?"
A woman emerged from the office, Ethan trailing behind her. Maybe forty, dark hair pulled back in a bun, Riverside Club t-shirt and jeans. Maria Chen—we'd spoken on the phone twice but never met in person.
"That's me."
"Good to finally meet you face-to-face." She shook my hand firmly. "Ethan's been keeping me updated. Sounds like you two have this pretty buttoned up."
"We're trying," I said.
We went through the final details—headcount locked at one-twenty, Kingswell's RSVP list confirmed that morning, Riverside capped at sixty.
Bar order placed, two bartenders confirmed.
DJ secured through Kingswell alumni at cost. Ten volunteers from each team for setup at four, breakdown at midnight.
Sponsor signage arriving Friday. Cocktail-style table arrangements.
Coat check in the north corner. Photo backdrop built by Riverside's art department, being delivered Saturday morning.
Maria was methodical, checking off items. Ethan answered most of her questions—he'd been point on the final logistics while I handled the team coordination and sponsor outreach.
We'd made a good team. Even from a distance. Even through the careful formality that replaced what we used to have.
"I think we're set," Maria said finally. "You two did solid work. This is going to be a good event."
"Thanks," Ethan said.
"I'll see you both at six for the team meeting. Then next Saturday for setup. Four sharp."
She disappeared into the office, leaving Ethan and me alone again.
The afternoon light had shifted—lower now, warmer, coming through the tall windows at an angle that lit the dust motes floating in the air between us.
Ethan flipped through his notes. "I'll send final instructions to the volunteer teams before the meeting tonight. You good to do a final walkthrough with Eldridge tomorrow?"
"Yeah. I'll handle it."
"Good."
He made another note, still not quite looking at me.
I should have gone, we'd done what we needed to do. The professional boundary was clear. But I found myself saying, "How's the film festival submission going?"
Ethan's pen stopped moving. He looked up, something careful in his expression—like he was deciding whether this question was safe to answer.
"Getting there. One week left to finish editing."
"That's soon."
"Yeah."
"What's it about?" I asked. Even though I probably shouldn't. This wasn't what we did anymore.
Ethan hesitated. Then: "My summer in Berlin. The underground art scene. People making things in abandoned spaces." A pause. "Remember?"
Something in my chest tightened. I remembered it from a few weeks ago in the beginning of the semester. The way his voice had changed when he'd talked about it—looser, lighter, more alive than he ever sounded at Kingswell.
"Yeah," I said. "That sounds incredible."
"We'll see if the festival agrees."
Another silence. But different this time—like we could go deeper?
Then Ethan said, "I heard you ended things with Marcus."
My chest tightened. "Yeah."
"Mason mentioned it at practice last week. Said you two had it out by the student center."
I nodded.
Of course people were talking about it. Nothing stayed private at Kingswell—the school ran on gossip the way it ran on legacy money, and a visible falling-out between two people from prominent families was irresistible.
"Why?" Ethan asked.
He probably hadn't heard the specific details.
"At the party. The fight." I set down the clipboard we'd been using. "Marcus called Remy a slur. That's what started everything. That's why Liam punched him."
Ethan's expression shifted—sharpened. "What did he say?"
"Faggot." The word felt ugly in my mouth even now. "And I was standing right there when he said it. I froze. Didn't say anything. Didn't do anything. Just stood there while Marcus—" I stopped. Swallowed. "Liam hit him before I could even process what happened."
Ethan smirked slightly. "He deserved it."
"Yeah. I found Marcus a few days later and told him we were done."
Ethan was quiet for a long moment. The afternoon light had gone amber, painting warm stripes across the hardwood floor between us.
When he finally spoke, his voice was different. Softer, but not soft. Like he was choosing his words as carefully as I usually chose mine.
"You guys have been friends for a long time."
"Since we were kids."
"That must have been hard."
"It was necessary," I said. And I meant it—not as performance, not as the thing I was supposed to say. Marcus's casual cruelty had been there all along. I'd just been too comfortable—too complicit—to see it for what it was.
Ethan studied me, and I forced myself to hold his gaze. Let him see that I meant it. Let him look for whatever he needed to find.
"You stood up to him," Ethan said finally. "That's huge, Alex."
The words hit harder than they should have. Not forgiveness. Not absolution. But acknowledgment—the recognition that I'd done something real instead of just performing the appearance of change.
My throat went tight.
"It doesn't fix what I did to you," I said.
"No. It doesn't."
"I know."
We stood there in the empty venue and something shifted. Not healed—I didn't deserve healed. Not repaired. But less broken. Like a fracture that had stopped spreading, even if it hadn't started mending.
"What did Marcus say?" Ethan asked. "When you confronted him."
I thought back to that moment. Marcus's face when I'd said I was done. The way he'd looked at me—not angry, just confused. Like the rules of a game he'd always won had changed without warning.
"He said I was fake. That I'd been pretending my whole life. And said I was lying to myself about who I was."
Ethan didn't respond right away. Just listened. The way he used to—patient, unhurried, giving the words space to land.
"He was right. About the lying part. But at least I'm trying to stop."
"One honest thing at a time," Ethan said.
I looked at him, surprised. That was exactly what Derek had told me on the bridge.
"A friend told me that once," I said.
"That's good advice."
"Yeah. It is."
Ethan checked his clipboard again, then looked at me. His expression was still guarded, still careful—but something behind it had loosened. Like he was allowing himself to see me again instead of just the person who'd hurt him.
"This is going to take time. The trust thing. I'm not saying it's impossible. Just... slow."
My throat ached. "I understand."
"But showing up today? Doing the work? It matters." He held my gaze. "More than the words."
I nodded. Didn't trust myself to speak without my voice cracking.
"I should get some editing done before the meeting tonight," Ethan said, but his tone was different than it had been when I'd walked in. The professional distance was still there, but the coldness had thawed—just slightly, just enough to feel. "See you at six?"
"Yeah. I'll be here."
He gathered his things and we walked toward the door together. The bell chimed when he pulled it open. Late afternoon light spilled across the sidewalk—golden, warm, the kind of light that made even a side street in downtown Ashford look like something worth photographing.
Ethan paused outside. "The event's going to be good. We did good work."
"Yeah," I said. "We did."
He gave me a small nod—the first genuine one since before that night—then headed down the street. I watched him go. His walk was the same as always—unhurried, slightly loose, the walk of someone who moved through the world on his own terms.
I turned the other direction.
The weight in my chest hadn't lifted entirely. The shame was still there—would probably always be there, in some form. What I'd done to Ethan couldn't be undone with apologies or good intentions or volunteer coordination for a mixer.
But for the first time in a while, I felt something other than hopeless.
He'd said it would take time.
He hadn't said it was impossible.
And underneath the shame, something else was taking root. That maybe I didn't have to fix everything at once. That maybe one honest thing at a time was actually enough.
It was more than I deserved.
But I'd take it.