Page 108 of Oar Than Friends

‘Okay,’ I replied numbly, while actively concentrating on not being sick.

‘Congratulations, Kate,’ Coach Stephens smiled, ‘this is a good thing. You’ll win for us this year, I can feel it.’

I got up and walked to the door on autopilot, and headed straight for Imogen in the break room.

‘Well, what happened?’ she asked as I walked through the door. ‘Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?’

I sat there, trying to figure out the words.

‘Kate. What’s happened?’

I stared at her, ‘I’ve been made coxswain for Blue Boat.’

She blinked several times before her face broke with a wide grin, ‘Wow, that’s awesome! I’m bummed we won’t be racing together, but so happy for you. What happened to Becka Jones?’

I shook my head as I slowly repeated Westcott’s words, ‘No, not the women’s boat. The men’s. I’m racing the men’s boat. Mike Short is out for the season. They want me to take his place.’

Imogen stood up, then sat down again and stared hard at me. ‘Blue Boat? Men’s Blue Boat?’

I nodded, ‘Yep.’

In fairness to her it took less time for her to register what I’d said than it had for me to hear it, but it came eventually.

‘Holy shit, Asters. Blue Boat!’ she screeched, then her face fell with a loud gasp and she dropped into the chair. ‘You’re going against Oz.’

‘I know.’ I nodded slowly, my voice barely above a whisper, and doing my best to hold my nerve when my insides were thickening with a tornado of anxiety. ‘Will said the news wasn’t bad. But this is way worse than bad.’

Imogen stared at me, for the first time struggling to find words.

The bubble I’d been living in since Christmas had well and truly burst, letting the January blues rush right in.

Except they were the Cambridge Blues.

And I had no idea how to beat them.

21. Arthur

(A not-so-knight in dark-blue armour)

‘Marshy …’ I called out, spotting Pete a hundred paces ahead up the path as we all left the boathouse following a gruelling training session. We were ten weeks out from the Boat Race and my muscles were feeling it. ‘MARSH. WAIT UP.’

He spun around, and even from this distance I could see the frown lines which had become permanent over the last few months. In fact, he hadn’t been his usual buoyant self for a while.

Every morning we’d trained together, I’d taken his instruction, listened to him and watched him, but something had been off. He’d been short tempered more than usual, and since term had restarted I’d caught him slamming his locker on more than one occasion,andhe’d opted out of drinks last Saturday night – something almost unheard of.

‘Hey,’ he removed one of his ear buds, ‘what do you want?’

I shifted my backpack onto my opposite shoulder, and ignored the annoyance in his tone. ‘Hey mate, just checking in on you. Haven’t spoken to you properly in a while, so I wanted to see if you were okay.’

‘I’m fine.’ Pete frowned and began walking again, butwith our height difference it didn’t take me any effort to keep up with him.

‘Really? Because you don’t seem fine. You seem like you’re pissed off with the world, and have been for a while.’

His eyes narrowed at me, but he didn’t slow his pace. ‘Oz, I’m fine. You don’t need to follow me home. I’m not a kid.’

‘You’re not fucking fine, so I’ll keep walking next to you until you spill, because something is eating you and it’s not going to do you any good to keep it bottled up.’

He stopped dead and dropped his bag on the ground with a heavy sigh. We were next to a bench, so I took the opportunity to sit.

---