Chapter 4 Alex
I couldn’t move.
The finish line was behind me, the race was over, and people were cheering somewhere—I could hear it but like I was underwater. I just sat there in my shell, staring at the gray sky, feeling nothing and everything at once.
A full length.
He’d beaten me by a full length.
My hands were still gripping my oars. My chest heaved with each breath, but it felt like no air was getting in.
Good race, golden boy.
The smirk on his face, the cruelty in his voice, and the way he’d looked at me like I was nothing.
Like I’d never been anything.
“Harrington.” Coach Eldridge’s voice cut through my thoughts. He was in the officials’ launch, motoring toward me. “Bring it in.”
I nodded mechanically and started paddling toward the Kingswell dock.
Each stroke felt like moving through cement. My technique was still clean—muscle memory taking over when my brain couldn’t function. But everything inside me felt shattered.
When I reached the dock, Braden was there to steady my boat. He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t need to. His face said it all—a mix of pity and relief that it wasn’t him out there getting destroyed.
Damn, it must have been really bad if Braden felt bad for me.
I climbed out, my legs shaking. The dock felt unstable beneath me, or maybe that was just me.
“Alex—“ someone started.
I walked past them. Past the team. Past Coach Eldridge’s clinical assessment face. Past the parents with their tight, disappointed smiles.
I needed air. Space. Anything but this.
I found myself behind the boathouse, away from everyone, leaning against the cold brick wall. Everything hurt in ways that had nothing to do with the race.
“There you are.”
I looked up. Ethan was walking toward me with my team jacket, that concerned furrow between his brows.
“I’m fine,” I said automatically.
“Yeah, you look fine.” He stopped a few feet away, studying me. “That’s why you’re hiding behind the boathouse looking like you’re about to pass out.”
“I just need a minute.”
“Alex.” His voice was gentle. Too gentle. “Talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. I lost. It happens.”
He shook his head. “I saw that race. I saw your face after. This isn’t about losing.”
Something in my chest cracked wider.
“Please,” I said, my voice breaking on the word. “I can’t—“
“Hey.” Ethan closed the distance and wrapped my jacket around my shoulders. “It’s just me. It’s okay.”
His hands lingered on my shoulders and he watched me.
That’s when I broke. Something about the genuine look in his eyes and his touch on my shoulder. Like I had been starved of love and affection for too long. Starved of someone who actually cared and wanted to know me.
The first sob came out of nowhere, ripping through me. Then another. And another. A lifetime of holding everything together—every lie, every carefully constructed piece of armor, every moment I’d swallowed down what I actually felt—came crashing down all at once.
Ethan pulled me into a hug, and I collapsed against him, gasping for air between sobs.
“I can’t do this anymore,” I choked out. “I can’t—“
“I know,” Ethan said, holding me steady. “I know.”
“He looked at me like I was nothing. Like I never mattered.”
“That’s not true.”
“You didn’t see his face.” I pulled back, wiping my eyes roughly with my palms. “He destroyed me out there, Ethan. And he enjoyed it. He wanted to break me.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened. “What…?”
“Because he hates me.”
Ethan’s voice was careful. “Does he? Or is it something else?”
My chest constricted. I could feel the words pressing against my throat, wanting to come out. Wanting to tell him everything—Brackett Lake, the video, the way I felt every time Liam looked at me.
But I couldn’t. Not here. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“I don’t know…” I said.
Ethan gave me a look that said he wasn’t buying it. “Alex. I’ve watched you all last year. I’ve seen the way you—“ He stopped himself, reconsidered, but whatever he thought made him continue.
“The way you react when his name comes up. The way you can’t seem to stop thinking about him.”
“He’s my rival,” I said, the words automatic. “Of course I think about him.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
My hands were shaking. I stepped back and pressed them against the stone boathouse wall. “What are you talking about, then?”
Ethan was quiet for a moment, choosing his words.
“I’m talking about the fact that you just broke down crying after a race. And it’s not because you lost. I’ve seen you lose before. This is different.”
I slid down the wall to sit on the cool concrete, my knees close to my chest. “I’m just tired. The pressure, my father—“
“Stop.” Ethan’s voice was firm but not unkind. “You don’t have to tell me everything. But don’t lie to me.”
I closed my eyes, feeling the panic rising in my chest. How much did he know? Was I that obvious? What if I said it out loud? What if I admitted—
No. I couldn’t. Once I said it, I couldn’t take it back. Once I gave voice to what I actually felt, it would be real in a way I couldn’t control.
I felt Ethan sit next to me, his shoulder nudged mine.
“He matters to you. I don’t know the whole story, and you don’t have to tell me. But I know that much.”
I swallowed hard. “It doesn’t matter anymore. You saw what happened out there. He made it clear how he feels.”
“Did he? Or did he make it clear that you hurt him?”
The words hit like a slap and I turned my head to Ethan.
“I didn’t—“ I started, but my voice broke. “I never meant to hurt him.”
Ethan raised his eyebrows.
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
A cold wind whipped around the boathouse, chilling my legs. A silence settled between us and we both stared out on the quad. The Kingswell University complex looked like ancient castle grounds. Did I have a choice? I never felt like I had a choice.
Ethan’s leg nudged mine.
“Not for me. You don’t understand what it’s like. The expectations, the legacy, my father watching every move I make. I can’t just—“
I stopped myself before I said too much. Before I crossed the line I couldn’t uncross.
Ethan turned his head back to me, watched me carefully.
“You’re allowed to feel things, you know,” he said finally. “Even things that don’t fit into your father’s plan. Even things that scare you.”
My throat tightened. I wanted to tell him. God, I wanted to tell him so badly. So I could stop carrying this alone and have someone who knew the truth.
But the safest thing was to just bury it deeper. To control it. To never let it see daylight.
“I should go,” I said, starting to stand.
Ethan caught my arm. “Alex. Whatever’s going on—whatever you’re dealing with—you’re not alone. Okay? Even if you can’t talk about it yet.”
Yet.
The word hung in the air between us.
I nodded, not trusting my voice, and pulled my arm away.
Ethan stood up beside me, and we just looked at each other for a moment. He knew. Maybe not everything, but enough. And he was telling me it was okay. That whenever I was ready, he’d be there.
But I wasn’t ready. I might never be ready.
Before I could respond, footsteps crunched on the gravel behind us.
“Alex.”
I froze.
My father stood there in his best khakis, a Kingswell windbreaker, and sunglasses on his head—expression unreadable. Ethan tensed beside me, probably preparing for the worst.
But my father just looked at me and said, “Can we talk? Alone.”
Ethan glanced at me, a silent question. I nodded.
“I’ll be right inside,” he said, then walked away.
I stood up, put my arms in my jacket and buttoned up.
“Walk with me,” my father said.
I nodded and followed him as we headed down the river walk. The wind had finally died down, but the sky was still gray and the air still cold. It was silent for a while as we walked but soon the pressure in my chest became too much.
“You’re disappointed,” I said finally, my voice hollow.
“No,” he said.
Shocked, I turned to look at him. “What?”
“I’m not disappointed.” He was staring at the river as he walked. “This is what needed to happen.”
My stomach dropped. “I don’t understand.”
He was quiet for a long moment.
“When I was a freshman at Kingswell, I had a chance at the Henley quad. Do you know how rare that is?”
I shook my head slightly.
I knew he’d gone to Henley, but it was when he was a junior. Henley was the Royal Regatta in England. The most prestigious rowing event in the world outside the Olympics where only the best collegiate rowers in the country got invited to compete.
“Robert Lockwood was a junior that year.” My father said the name with controlled distaste. “Braden’s father. We were competing for the same seat. He was good. But I was better.”
I stayed quiet.
“That should have been enough. But it wasn’t.” His voice was measured, clinical. “I needed to prove I was better. Every practice became about beating him. Every erg piece was a personal war. I stopped rowing for myself and started rowing against him.”
He paused for a moment, took a deep breath and continued.
“I over-trained. Pushed too hard. Three weeks before the Henley selection, I injured my back because I was trying to beat Lockwood’s split times instead of focusing on my own technique.”
He turned to look at me, his eyes cold. “Lockwood made the boat. I didn’t. And you know what I learned later?”
I shook my head.
“He barely thought about me. While I was destroying myself over our rivalry, he was just rowing. Focused on his own performance. I made him matter more than my own goals, and it cost me that year.”
My chest tightened.
“I’ve watched you since you met Moore,” my father continued, his voice sharp now. “The way you row differently when he’s on the water. It’s not good.”
“I don’t—“
“Don’t lie to me, Alex.” His tone cut through my protest. “And I needed it to end. One way or another. Either you beat him decisively enough to finally let it go, or he destroyed you so badly you’d have no choice but to walk away.”
I stared at him, my throat tight. “You wanted this. You wanted him to destroy me?”
“I wanted the connection severed,” he corrected me. “It didn’t matter how. You can’t row like that. You can’t win like that. You can’t build a career fixated on someone else like that.”
“But he beat me by a full length,” I said, my voice cracking. “Everyone saw it. The scouts, the coaches—“
“And now you have two choices. Let this define you—let Moore ruin your season, your career, everything we’ve built. Or let it burn away whatever was distracting you.”
“I don’t know—“
“You will.” Not a suggestion. A command. “Whatever you feel towards Moore—whatever hold it has on you—it’s finished. He made sure of that today.”
I thought about Liam’s face at the finish line. The cruelty in his smirk.
Maybe my father was right. Maybe it was broken beyond repair.
As we continued to walk, the sound of gravel crunched under our feet. It was loud in my ears.
The moment of realization was surreal. He had set this whole thing up. An entire scrimmage between two D1 schools just to teach me a lesson. Whether he knew all the details about me and Liam... I didn’t know.
My father’s power and commitment to controlling my life was overwhelming.
And I didn’t know if he thought this was how to show love... but to me it was the cruelest thing he’d ever done.