Page 53 of Racing Hearts

By the time I’m paddling out for my next attempt, the sun hovers low in the sky and the air has quieted with a gentle dusk. Moments later, the boat yet again tips out from under me, possibly even sooner than last time. Without the kids around anymore, I let out the scream that’s been simmering in my chest for the last hour.

“This isn’t possible,” I say as I heave myself back onto the dock, water streaming off my braid and shoulders heating from the repetition.

“You’re not committing to it,” Adrian tells me. “You’re not connecting with the boat. You have to lead with your heart instead.”

I press my lips together and narrow my eyes over the expanse of water, darkening to charcoal blue with the setting sun. “None of those words make any sense in the order you’ve put them in.”

Adrian laughs. “Out of your head and into your body. It’s the same thing I tell you in practice—this is just a different format for learning it.”

I let out an exasperated groan. Of all the coaching cues Adrian has given me over the last week, this one is the most confusing. Every time I try to ask him to break down what he means—to explain it to me in terms of leverage or handle height or torso hinge—he interrupts to say I need to stop thinking with my head so much and just feel it all more.

“I have no idea what that means,” I protest impatiently. “I’m in my stupid body. There’s literally nowhere else I can be. I bet this is actually impossible and you’re just trying to break my spirit or something.”

“Impossible?” Even from a few dozen feet away, I can hear the challenge.

With one foot on the hull of my boat, I thrust it toward his launch. “Show me, then.”

Adrian grins like he was hoping I’d say that.

A few moments later, he’s leaped onto my seat and is moving away from the dock. A puddle accumulates beneath me as, knees pulled into my chest, I trace his movements.

He’s wearing a light-colored Henley, better suited to coaching than crewing, and even though the rigging is wrong for him, he looks perfectly at home in my boat. He handles the oars with easy confidence, forearms flexing as he arcs the stern toward me. He’s just as strong and balanced as he was on a yoga mat, but now there’s a self-assuredness in the flex of his arms and a smoothness to the press of his legs. He rolls a hand against the oar grip and, for a sudden confusing moment, I wish it were the back of my head under his fingers.

Adrian flashes me a smile, clenches his eyes shut, brings his feet beneath his body, and stands. The motion is wobbly, yes. He’s a rower, not a gymnast. Still, his movements are sure and precise. A moment later, he’s fully upright, eyes closed, with arms splayed out to his sides.

It should make me feel jealous or maybe even defeated. Instead, I’m just impressed.

“How are you doing that?” I yell across the water.

Eyes still closed, Adrian lists to one side, but quickly recovers. “Practice. And connection. You have to get out of your head and connect with the boat.”

“Okay there, Sensei,” I say with a laugh even though I’m still grappling with the growing knot in my stomach.

There’s an aliveness to him that I’ve either never seen before or never fully appreciated. His energy is striking. Infectious. I want it near me. I want to breathe it in with deep, gasping inhales.

“Ready to try again?” he asks.

“I’m fine sitting here and watching you.”

The words pop out of my mouth before I can check them against my mental rubric.

That’s not something I’d say to Carla.

Adrian’s eyes fly open. They grab me over the glimmering water: him still riding those faint waves, me soaking wet and unbearably warm despite it. A shimmer of electricity passes between us, a cord connecting us that I thought I’d severed days ago. It sends a rush of heat down my spine, a tingle all the way to my still-damp toes.

Adrian’s mouth unfurls in a smile.

And then his boat tips.

Seventeen

47 Days Until Pan Ams

I vow to use my next recovery day to get my head back in the game. With a full day at Mom’s house, I can alternate napping, foam rolling, and stretching in forty-two-minute increments. I can mix up all my recovery beverages using my favorite recipes, and sip on them as I scroll through updates from Rower’s World. I won’t have to think about the way I awkwardly bolted from the boathouse the day of the standing challenge or the uncomfortable fluttery feeling in my stomach that I’ve had every day in practice since. Today, there won’t be disconcerting eye contact, random interruptions, or sudden changes in plans.

This is a good thing.

Obviously.