Chapter 3 Liam
Half a seat ahead.
I could feel it—the shift. The way Alex’s rhythm stuttered just slightly, the way his blade caught wrong in the chop. He was breaking.
And it felt good.
My legs drove harder, my breath coming in sharp bursts, but everything was under control.
This was it.
This was what I’d trained for. No doubts. No fear. Just the water and the finish line and the certainty that I was going to destroy him.
I thought of my mom in the bleachers watching every stroke. I thought of Emily in the crowd, cheering my name. Noah would be losing his mind, I knew it—probably screaming so loud his voice would be gone tomorrow.
They were all here for me, all believing in me, and I wasn’t going to let them down.
I pulled ahead another quarter seat. Then half.
The seven-hundred-meter mark flashed by and I could feel Alex starting to unravel beside me. His strokes were getting choppy, desperate. He was trying to stay clean, stay technical, but panic was bleeding through.
Good.
Let him feel it. Let him know what it’s like to lose to someone he thought he was better than.I found another gear and surged forward. One full seat ahead now.
My technique was perfect—better than it had ever been. Every catch was clean, every drive powerful but controlled.
This wasn’t just raw aggression. This was skill. This was discipline.
This was everything Coach Hale had drilled into me, every morning on the erg, every brutal practice when my legs wanted to quit but I didn’t let them.
I thought back to those sessions when I’d tried to row like Alex. Smooth. Technical. Efficient. I’d watched videos of him, studied his form, tried to steal that polished precision he made look effortless.
And then—Brackett Lake flashed through my mind. The two of us in that USP Hudson double, moving together like we were one body. The way we’d found that perfect rhythm without even trying.
Flying.
I wouldn’t be this good without him. The thought hit me like a punch to the gut.
No.
I pushed it away immediately, drove my legs harder, and pulled through with more force.
No. This is my work. My discipline. My pain.
Coach Hale’s voice rang in my head, clear as day: Trust your work, Moore. Trust what you’ve built.
Yes. That’s right. My work. I earned this. This had nothing to do with him.
I pulled ahead another seat. Two seats now. Maybe three.
The Riverside bleachers were going absolutely insane. I could hear them in the distance, even over my own gasping breaths, and water churning around me. Air horns. Screaming. The whole crowd on their feet.
And I wasn’t even done yet.
The thousand-meter mark flew by. Halfway. Just one thousand meters left.
Alex was falling apart behind me. I could feel it even without looking, and sense the desperation in his strokes, the way his perfect composure was shattering stroke by stroke.
I gritted my teeth and drove harder.
Three seats. Four seats.
My lungs burned. My legs screamed. But I had more. I had so much more.
The fifteen-hundred-meter mark. Last five hundred to go.
And then—from somewhere in the Riverside crowd, cutting through all the noise—I heard it.
“MOORE POWER! MOORE POWER! MOORE POWER!”
The chant spread like wildfire through the bleachers. Dozens of voices, maybe hundreds, all screaming it in unison.
Something deep and primal unleashed inside me.
It wasn’t just anger anymore. It was rage. It was every moment he’d made me feel small. Every time he’d chosen his perfect life over us. Every second of the past year I’d spent trying to forget him and failing.
This wasn’t about winning.
This was about breaking him.
I needed to show him that he didn’t matter to me anymore. That Emily mattered. My mom mattered. Noah and Coach Hale and everyone who actually gave a shit about me—they mattered.
Not him. Never him again.
This whole thing—this rivalry, this crush, this stupid fucking pull I felt every time he was near—it was over. Done. I was burying it right here, right now, in the middle of this river.
I attacked the last two hundred and fifty meters like a man possessed.
Every stroke was violence. Every pull ripped something out of me and threw it into the water. My vision tunneled. My body moved on instinct, on fury, on something I didn’t even know I had inside me.
Five seats ahead. Six seats.
The finish line appeared through the spray and the haze.
And that was it.
I crossed it at a full length ahead of him.
A full fucking length.
The Riverside crowd erupted—screaming, air horns, someone probably jumping in the river. I couldn’t even process it. My chest heaved, gasping for air, my whole body shaking from the effort.
But I wasn’t done.
I let my boat glide to a stop and turned around.
When Alex crossed, he stopped paddling immediately, his head dropping forward, shoulders slumped.
He looked destroyed.
I waited until he drifted close enough, until he finally looked up.
His eyes met mine.
Those ice-blue eyes had lost their brightness. They looked hollow. Defeated. Terrified. And I felt something dark and satisfied coil in my chest.
I let the smirk spread across my face—slow, deliberate, cruel.
“Good race.” I paused. “Golden boy.”
His face went pale.
I turned away before he could respond, before I could see whatever broke in him in that moment, and started paddling back toward the Riverside dock.
It was over.
He was over.
And I’d never felt more alive.
***
The crowd erupted again when I got to dock and the whole bleacher section was on its feet.
Coach Hale was waiting at the dock, hand extended to steady my boat as I pulled in. His face was calm, but I could see something bright in his eyes.
“Clean race, Moore. Best I’ve seen you row.”
I nodded, too winded to speak, and climbed out of the shell. My legs almost gave out when I hit solid ground. Tyler and a couple other guys rushed over, slapping my back, shouting things I couldn’t quite process.
“Holy shit, man!”
“A full length!”
“Did you see Harrington’s face?”
I did. I saw it. And I wanted to hold onto that image—his hollow eyes, his broken composure—forever.
Noah appeared through the crowd, grinning so wide I thought his face might split. “DUDE!” He threw his arms around me even though I was dripping with sweat and river water. “That was insane! The whole crowd was losing it! Did you hear us?”
“Yeah,” I managed, my voice rough. “I heard.”
“Moore Power, baby!” He pulled back, still beaming. “That’s gonna be a thing now. I’m making shirts.”
I laughed despite myself, the adrenaline still crackling through my veins. I felt invincible. Untouchable. Like I could take on the whole damn world and win.
And then I saw her.
My mom.
She was standing near the edge of the crowd, hands pressed to her mouth, tears streaming down her face. She was wearing her navy jacket and her hair was pulled back like she’d actually gotten ready for this.
My heart stopped. “Mom.”
She broke into a sob the second I said it and rushed forward. I met her halfway, and she threw her arms around me so tight I could barely breathe.
“I’m so proud of you,” she whispered into my shoulder. “So, so proud.”
My throat closed up. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d been able to come to a race. She was always working—double shifts, night shifts, whatever she could get to keep us afloat. And I never asked her to come because I knew she couldn’t afford to miss work.
But she was here.
“How did you—“ I pulled back to look at her. “How did you even know about this?”
She wiped her eyes, laughing through the tears. “Someone told me I needed to be here. That you were racing and I shouldn’t miss it.”
I turned, scanning the crowd, and found Emily standing a few feet away. She was watching us with this quiet smile, her arms wrapped around herself.
Our eyes met.
She gave a small shrug. “I thought she needed to be here.”
Something cracked open in my chest.
Emily had invited my mom. After everything—after I’d been distant, after I’d clearly been pulling away—she’d done this for me. Not because she was trying to prove something. Just because she thought my mom should see me win.
“Emily—“ My voice broke.
She shook her head. “You don’t have to say anything. I just... I wanted her to see you. The way we all see you.”
They way we all see you.
The words rang in my head like a puzzle needing to be put together. How did people see me? Didn’t they just see me as an angry hot-head? What did she mean?
My mom stepped over to Emily and pulled her into a hug. “Thank you, sweetheart. Thank you so much.”
Emily hugged her back.
When they pulled apart, I stepped forward.
“Emily.”
She turned to me, and I pulled her into my arms. She melted against me, her head tucked under my chin, and something in my chest settled.
This.
This was what mattered.
“Thank you,” I said into her hair. “For bringing her. For... everything.”
“Of course,” she whispered back. “I wanted her to see you. You were amazing. I’m so lucky to be with you.”
When we pulled back, our eyes met and held. There was something there—that intensity, that connection. The way she looked at me, like I was everything.
It felt like what it used to feel like with Alex. But better. Because this was real. This was safe. No secrets. No danger. No impossible choices.
Just Emily. Here. Choosing me. And me finally choosing her.
Maybe I’d just needed to let go of Alex to really feel this. That’s what had been in the way all along—some ghost of what we had, blocking me from being fully present with her.
Emily squeezed my hand and she smiled up at me.
“I couldn’t have done it without you,” I said, and I meant it.
For the first time in a year, my heart felt whole.
Noah appeared at my side again, slinging an arm around my shoulders. “You’ve got people, man. We’re not going anywhere.”
I looked around—at my mom still wiping tears from her face, at Noah grinning beside me, at Coach Hale nodding from the dock, at Tyler and the rest of the guys still celebrating like we’d just won nationals.
For the first time in... I didn’t know how long... I felt surrounded. Not by pressure or expectation or people I had to prove myself to.
By people who chose me. Who showed up. Who gave a shit.
I didn’t need Alex Harrington’s validation. I didn’t need him to look at me the way he used to at Brackett Lake. I didn’t need any of it.
Because I had this.
My mom squeezed my hand. “You were incredible out there. I knew you would be.”
I pulled her into another hug, letting myself actually feel it this time—the relief, the gratitude, the bone-deep certainty that I wasn’t alone.
When I finally pulled back, I looked across the river.
The Kingswell dock was quieter now. I could just barely make out Alex’s figure in the distance, still sitting in his boat, head down, alone.
And I felt nothing.
No pull. No ache. No desperate need to fix what he’d broken.
Just... nothing.
I turned back to my mom, to Noah, to the people who actually mattered.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
Noah grinned. “Hell yeah. Victory lunch is on me. Well, on my dad’s credit card, but same thing.”
My mom laughed, and we started walking back toward the parking lot, the noise of the race fading behind us.
For the first time in a long time, I felt free from Alex’s grip.
And I was done looking back.