Page 103 of Oar Than Friends

And that’s how the worst year of my life became my best.

20. Kate

(It had to go tits up some time)

‘How did it already get to be the fifteenth of January?’ Imogen flopped onto my bed with a dramatic sigh, and tugged her long ponytail from where it had gotten stuck underneath her shoulder. ‘Not to mention how did it get to be the fifteenth of January and we already have enough work to last us the term?’

I picked up my giant water bottle and glugged it down while I thought about a response, not that she wanted one per se – I had the impression it was more of a rhetorical question – but either way I still wasn’t quite sure of the answer. Christmas and New Year seemed far longer ago than two weeks; the bliss of being away from school while spending time with Oz and his family was now a distant memory. Not to mention that since we’d gotten back to school ten days ago, I’d only seen Oz once and I was missing him so much I’d been carrying around a permanent ache in my chest.

The only time I was given temporary reprieve was during Boat Race training. It had now stepped up so intensely that I didn’t have any space in my brain during our sessions to do anything other than concentrate on guiding my crew through the river. We barely had the energy to get another few hours of study in before collapsing into bed every night.

Oz was the same, except his coursework had increased given his finals were only a few months away; it had provided a glut of teasing that he now finally seemed to have the same amount of work as I did.

I joked, but in reality I had a fuck ton to do and not enough time to do it. I’d been trying not to panic, but if I couldn’t keep on top of my work within the first few weeks, then I had no chance of being able to manage my load, and train at the same time.

I stared down at the piles of flash cards Imogen and I had made ahead of our mock histology exam next week – the one we’d only been told about on Monday.

I dropped down next to her. ‘Why did we choose medicine?’

‘I don’t know,’ she groaned, ‘think it’s too late to switch to a different course?’

‘No.’

‘Really? Because I’m having serious thoughts about moving to English. At least people’s lives won’t be at stake if I fail my paper on Shakespearian tragedies.’

‘That’s very true,’ I chuckled quietly.

‘That boyfriend of yours has it right. Only an idiot would take medicine and want to be selected for the Boat Race crew. A genius picks classics.’

I grinned next to her, still staring up at the ceiling, ‘Yeah, you’re right. He has a crap ton of work at the moment, though.’

‘How’s their training going?’

I shrugged. ‘Same as ours, I guess. We don’t really talk about it beyond having it twice a day. Sore muscles, that sort of thing.’

‘You don’t talk about Boat Race training?’

I turned on the mattress, propping my head on my elbow to face her. ‘We talk about ourselves as individuals – you know, like the other day when I took us through the stream too late and I lost us the race. Or he’ll tell me how much he’s lifted in the gym because he loves to brag, that sort of thing. But we’ve never talked about crew training.’

She nudged me gently, ‘That wasn’t your fault on Saturday. The weather was shit, and we pulled too early.’

I shook my head, not wanting to relive the disaster and humiliation, ‘I should have steered you better. I could have done better, I’ve totally blown my chances for Blondie.’

I’d been beating myself up for the last five days. Our first race back since the holidays had been against King’s College London and had taken place along the stretch of Tideway I’d been practising. The same stretch Oz had taken me over Christmas.

After the starting pistols had been pulled, my crew had raced ahead ready to move into the stream of water running down the centre of the Tideway, as we always did, the bit where the water is the smoothest. It was exactly what the cox for King’s had urged his crew to do too, except I hadn’t studied the wind speeds carefully enough before the race and turned the boat too hard. Instead of slipping ahead, Imogen in stroke position had clashed oars with King’s bow.

It was a stupid mistake, and one I should have never made. I knew better.

Safe to say, Coach was pissed.

I’d called Oz and cried to him for an hour.

‘You have not, don’t be stupid. You’re still miles better than Morgan – she’s not aggressive enough. We’re so much slower with her than you.’

‘She doesn’t cause you to clash oars though.’

‘Asters, it was an accident.’

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