Page 60 of Racing Hearts

“After I quit rowing, I took a year off before college. Everything in my life was up in the air, so I ran through a lot of options. I’ve always loved to cook. Chef was on the short list.”

“Oh. You quit rowing after high school? I’ve been assuming you were on some varsity crew.” Adrian’s splits on the erg were way too good for him to have topped out as a high school athlete.

He nods, but doesn’t look up from the rhythmic thuds of his knife against the chopping block. “I had an athletic scholarship to Georgetown, but I ended up turning it down. Much to my dad’s dismay. But, as it turned out, he hated the culinary school idea even more. So much that he eventually offered to pay for part of my tuition if I still went and got a degree in exercise science.”

I tilt my head, watching him. I know a lot of people whose parents got them into rowing. Most ended up resenting the sport. “Did you, er, like crew?” I ask. “As an athlete.”

Adrian’s knife sails across a stack of herbs and he considers the question for so long that I wonder if the answer is no. Then he says, “Yes. I loved being part of a team.”

“But?”

“But there was a lot of pressure.”

“From your dad?”

He looks up sharply. “Did I already say that?”

I lift up a foot onto my stool and rest my temple against my bent knee. “No, but you described his personality. Plus, I know a lot of athletes from ‘legacy’ families.”

“Right. I guess you’d know the type.” He blows out a long, controlled breath. “Yeah, you’re right. My dad…Well, you already have a picture. He always wanted me to be the best. Race up age categories. Medal at Youth Nationals. Get on the best varsity crew.”

He tosses a clove of garlic onto his chopping block and crushes it hard with the flat side of his knife. “The better I got, the closer the races got. The harder I had to work. The more he expected perfection instead of merely excellence. My last couple of years of high school, he started coaching me himself. Not on the water, but cross-training sessions in the weight room and on the running track.”

“That’s never a good idea,” I say.

Adrian laughs hollowly. “It certainly was not. One time, I forgot my heart rate monitor after school, and Dad decided that he would also ‘forget’ how many intervals I was supposed to do. Every time I finished a lap, I’d ask him how many more and he’d say ‘I forget’ and make me do another.”

“Horrible,” I whisper. “What did you do?”

“I kept going. Dad never brokered any disagreement. But, eventually, I guess he decided I’d learned my lesson when I was barely dragging my toes across the ground. He took me home. And yet—”

He cuts himself off and turns to the stove, clicking it on.

“And yet?” I prod.

Blue flames spring to life, reflecting in his pupils and casting across the hollows of his cheekbones. The light illuminates an emotion lingering there. Sadness? Regret?

“And yet it still wasn’t enough. He never said good job or that he was proud of me for sticking it out. We got in the car and went home. Mom asked me how it went, and I told her it was great, just like I always did.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He lifts a shoulder as he gazes down at the pan, waiting for it to heat. Then he pours in a stream of oil and lays his scallops in the shimmering liquid. The pause lasts long enough that I assume his next words will be consequential, but all he says is: “It is what it is.”

“It’s not,” I insist, trying to catch his eye, but he’s too focused on the olive oil, the popping scallops. “What he did to you was unfair and cruel. You didn’t deserve that.”

“Maybe not. It was easier then, though.”

“How so?”

But Adrian’s shoulders have gone tight. It’s like he requires all his focus to spoon little puddles of liquid over the crisp, brown surface of the hunks of meat. His jaw is clenched so hard I wonder if he can breathe properly. Maybe I shouldn’t prod. Selfishly, though, I want him to keep talking.

“You don’t have to tell me,” I say. “I know there isn’t anything I can actually do to help. But I promise I’ll listen. Whatever it is, I won’t judge.”

It’s something Sofi sometimes says. Like, Do you want opinionated Sofi or nonjudgmental Sofi? With the toughest stuff, nonjudgmental Sofi is the easiest to talk to.

Adrian flicks off the stove and frees his browned scallops from their hot liquid. I wait in silence as he sprinkles the meat with salt and uses a mitt to pull a tray of crispy-looking asparagus from the oven.

“We should eat now,” he says, motioning to the pair of plates with scoops of brown rice already laid out. “The scallops are best fresh off the heat.”