Chapter 11: The Unfinished Question
The fluorescent lights in the hallway buzzed like trapped insects, casting a sickly greenish glow on the linoleum. Amber paced, the sound of her socks a soft whisper against the floor. Eighteen steps from the fire extinguisher to the vending machine, turn, eighteen steps back.Sleep was a traitor. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the spreadsheet—her father’s spreadsheet—its cells glowing like little prison bars. Then she saw Y/n’s face, the patient curiosity in her eyes. What do you want?The question had claws. It had dug under her skin during the forced laughter of the karaoke, through the walk back to the residential wing, and now here, at two-thirteen in the morning, with the Olympic Village holding its breath.A door clicked open down the hall.
Amber froze, mid-pace.Her heart vaulted into her throat.
Y/n stepped out, silhouetted against the dim light of her room. She was in gray sweatpants and a white tank top, her tattoos stark in the shadow.She didn’t seem surprised to see Amber. She just leaned against the doorframe and ran a hand through her choppy hair.
“Can’t sleep either, huh?” Her voice was low, a little rough with sleep.
Amber shook her head, suddenly conscious of her own ridiculousness—pacing a deserted hallway in old leggings and an oversized Team USA t-shirt.“Ice brain,” Amber mumbled, a standard athlete excuse. “Thoughts won’t shut off.”
“Tell me about it.” Y/n pushed off the frame and padded softly down the hall. She didn’t stop until she was right there, the faint scent of soap and sleep clinging to her.She looked at the floor, then back at Amber.“Floor’s cold. But the sitting’s not bad.”
She slid down the wall, her long legs stretching out into the corridor.After a beat, Amber joined her, letting her back press against the cool concrete block. Their shoulders touched.A line of heat, immediate and electric, shot through Amber’s arm. She didn’t pull away.For a while, they just sat in the hum of the building. A refrigerator kicked on somewhere.A door closed three floors up.
“It’s the quiet that gets you,” Y/n said finally. “All day, it’s noise—coaches, crowds, your own head.Then this. And it’s fucking loud.”
Amber let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “Yes.”
“Your dad get in okay?”
“His flight lands at nine.” Amber picked at a thread on her leggings. “He’ll go straight to the hotel, review the tape from today, and cross-reference it with the spreadsheet. He’ll have notes by breakfast.”
Y/n was quiet for a moment. “That sounds exhausting.”
Two words.So simple. Not he’s dedicated or he’s thorough.Exhausting.It was permission.“It is,” Amber whispered. The admission felt dangerous, like admitting a fundamental flaw in the universe.“Sometimes I wish he’d just… watch. Just see me skate.”
“And what would he see?”
What do you want? The question was back, but softer now, wrapped in the dark.
Amber stared at the opposite wall, at a scuff mark shaped like a crooked moon. “Today, during my long program… there was this one combination.A triple lutz, double toe.It wasn’t the hardest. But when I landed it, for maybe half a second, I didn’t think. I just… was.I wasn’t counting rotations or judging my edge. I was just flying.” She swallowed, her throat tight.“That’s what I want. I want to feel like that for four whole minutes.Not for a score.Not for him. Just for me.”
She braced for the response. For Y/n to tell her it was naive, that the Olympics were about scores, that her father’s way was the only way to win.
Y/n shifted slightly, her shoulder pressing more firmly against Amber’s. “So that’s the thing to want.”
“How?” The word cracked. “How do I want it for myself when every single person, every camera, every judge… they’re all there representing him? They’re all holding a piece of his spreadsheet.”
Y/n turned her head. Amber could feel her looking, but kept her eyes fixed on the crooked moon.“You ever watch little kids on a playground?” Y/n asked. “They don’t swing to get to the other side of the bars. They swing to feel the drop in their stomach. The second they start thinking about the other side, they fall.”
Amber finally glanced at her.Y/n’s profile was sharp in the low light, her expression thoughtful.
“Your old man’s spreadsheet is the other side of the bars,” Y/n continued, her voice a low murmur just for the two of them in the empty hall. “It’s a destination.But the feeling you’re talking about?That’s the swing. That’s the point.” She turned her head, and their eyes met. “Maybe… don’t look at the other side.Just feel the fucking swing.”
Amber’s vision blurred. She looked away, blinking hard.A single, hot tear escaped, tracing a path down her cheek. She swiped at it angrily.A warm hand covered hers where it lay on the cold floor. Y/n’s fingers were long, her palm calloused from her board grips. The touch was steady, unambiguous.
“Then start by wanting it for yourself,” Y/n said, her thumb moving slowly, gently, across Amber’s knuckle. “Even if it’s just for that half-second.Own that half-second.It’s yours. Not his.”
Amber looked down at their joined hands.Her own looked pale and small, almost fragile, under Y/n’s. She didn’t feel fragile, though.She felt anchored.
“You won’t have time,” Amber said, her voice thick.“Your semi-final run is at ten. My practice is at nine-forty-five.You’ll be on the mountain.”
Y/n squeezed her hand. “I’ll make time.I’ll catch the tail end. I want to see it.”
The promise landed deep, a solid weight in Amber’s chest.It wasn’t about monitoring her performance. It was about witnessing it.Amber nodded, unable to speak. She squeezed Y/n’s hand back, a quick, tight pulse of gratitude.
They sat there until the chill from the floor seeped through their clothes. When Amber finally stood, her body stiff, Y/n rose with her, their hands parting slowly.
“Try to get some sleep, Glenn,” Y/n said, a faint smile touching her lips. “Fly tomorrow.”
Amber walked back to her room, the phantom warmth of Y/n’s hand still etched on her skin.The spreadsheet was still there in her mind. But it seemed smaller now, fainter, like writing on a foggy window.
Back in her bed, the silence was different.It wasn’t empty. It was full of the echo of a voice telling her to feel the swing.
She lay awake for a long time, but she wasn’t pacing.She was plotting her rebellion.It would be a quiet one, invisible to everyone. A single half-second, owned by her. She could almost feel the ice under her blades, not as a calculated surface, but as a launchpad into air.
When she did drift off, just before dawn, it wasn’t to dreams of medals or scores. It was to the sensation of falling, and the terrifying, exhilarating freedom that comes just before the catch.