Page 39 of Open Water
I looked down at myself. The Riverside logo across my chest. Liam's clothes on my body.
"Everyone's going to know I slept here."
"Alex." He looked at me. "Everyone already knows everything."
A beat. He was right. The photo was out. The secret was gone. Showing up to practice in my Liam's shirt was so far down the list of revelations that it barely registered.
"Fair point."
"Besides." He pulled his own shirt on. "You look good in burgundy."
"I look scruffy."
"Are you saying I look scruffy?"
"Yeah, but in a hot way."
We walked out of the dorm at 5:41 AM. The air cold enough to see our breath. The path to the Riverside boathouse was cracked asphalt and bike racks and bare trees under street lights.
Nobody was out yet. The campus had that early-morning emptiness — no witnesses, no audience, just the sound of our shoes on pavement and the river somewhere to our left, invisible but present.
I was wearing Liam's shirt walking to practice at Liam's boathouse. Yesterday, I'd beaten Marcus bloody on a library floor and now I was walking to rowing practice with who everyone would think is my boyfriend.
Boyfriend.
I let myself think the word. Let it sit there. Could he be my boyfriend one day? Would he want to?
The boathouse lights were already on.
Riverside's boathouse was a different species from Kingswell's. Two stories of fading burgundy paint and a metal roof that pinged in the rain. The dock system was functional wood and metal, solid but scarred. Inside: rows of ergs in varying states of repair, wood benches without cushions, windows overlooking the rowing tank below. No leather chairs. No donor plaques. No 1985 Henley banners.
It was a building that existed to be used, not admired. I'd been inside it a dozen times for joint program sessions and it still caught me, the absence of the performance. Kingswell's boathouse saidlook at us.Riverside's saidget to work.
I kind of liked that.
Remy was the first person I saw.
He was standing by the erg bay when he saw us walk in together.
He didn't ask what happened. Didn't ask about the photo. He looked at Liam first. Then he looked at me. At the bruise. At the Riverside shirt on my body. At the way I was standing close enough to Liam that our shoulders touched.
"You two okay?"
"Yeah," Liam said.
Remy nodded. Then he did something I didn't expect. He put his hand on my shoulder.
"For what it's worth," he said, "I'm glad you're not hiding anymore. But sorry it went down like it did."
He said it simply. The way someone who'd already walked this road could say it. No drama or fanfare, just recognition from one queer person to another.
I didn't trust my voice. I nodded.
Remy looked at Liam again then back at me. "Whatever you guys need. I'm here."
"Thanks, Rem," Liam said.
Tyler materialized from somewhere near the launch bay carrying two oar handles.
