Chapter 15: The After-Party Escape
The official after-party was a compression chamber of noise and bodies. A bass-heavy techno remix of some pop song Amber didn’t recognize thumped through the common room of the athletes' lounge, making the plastic cups vibrate on the long tables. The air was thick with the smell of cheap beer, adrenaline, and synthetic fog from a malfunctioning machine in the corner. Amber stood with her back against a wall, a lukewarm soda in her hand, watching the celebration unfold like an ethnographer studying a foreign tribe. Snowboarders and skiers mingled with figure skaters in an awkward, joyous clash of cultures—beanies and gold chains, puffy jackets and sequined sweaters.
Across the room, Y/n was the eye of the storm. A crowd surrounded her, hands clapping her shoulders, voices shouting congratulations. Someone had placed a garish, glittering crown from a party store on her head. She wore it with an ironic shrug, laughing at something a burly Finnish boarder yelled in her ear. But her eyes kept scanning. They found Amber. Held. Then, with a slight tilt of her head, she gestured toward a fire exit door, half-hidden by a draped USA flag.
Amber’s pulse, which had been a steady metronome, stumbled. She pushed off the wall, weaving through the crowd, murmuring ‘excuse me’s that were lost in the din. She felt Alysa’s curious glance but didn’t turn. The metal bar of the exit door was cold. She pushed.
The hallway was blessedly silent, lit by harsh fluorescent tubes. A moment later, the door swung open again and Y/n slipped through, the plastic crown now dangling from her finger. “Oppressive, right?” she said, her voice a low rasp against the quiet. She didn’t wait for an answer, just started walking toward the elevator bank. Amber followed.
They rode up in silence. The elevator hummed, smelling of antiseptic and wet wool. Y/n leaned against the back wall, her eyes closed. In the sterile light, Amber saw the fatigue etched under her eyes, the purpling bruise on her left temple from some earlier spill. The gold medal hung heavy around her neck, not as a decoration, but like a piece of mining equipment.
Y/n’s room was exactly as described, a controlled catastrophe. Amber paused in the doorway, taking it in. The bindings on the wall, the photo. The smell was a punch—sweet, earthy patchouli undercut by the sharp, electric burn of energy drink residue. The tattoo on the wall, the jagged peaks and the bold green statement, seemed to vibrate in the dim light from a single desk lamp.
The door clicked shut. The distant thump of the party was gone.
Y/n tossed the crown onto a heap of laundry and sank onto the edge of her unmade bed with a long, ragged exhale. She started peeling off her socks. “So,” she said, not looking up. “Confession. I broke my finger.”
Amber blinked. “What?”
“On the pipe. When I hand-downed. Felt the pop. Kinda a pathetic little sound, honestly.” Y/n held up her right hand. The ring finger was swollen, already turning a ugly yellow-purple at the knuckle. She wiggled it, and winced. “Taped it up good before the podium. Media’s got a hell of a grip when they’re shaking your hand.”
A sound escaped Amber—a short, surprised puff of air that was almost a giggle. It was the absurdity. The gold medal, the historic win, the dedications… and a broken finger taped under a glove. “Only you,” Amber said, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed. “You win the biggest prize in your sport and your main takeaway is a medical bill.”
Y/n grinned, that real, lopsided smile. “Priorities.” She grabbed a roll of athletic tape from the nightstand and started, with clumsy left-handed movements, to re-wrap the injury. “So, what’d you think? Of the show.”
“It wasn’t a show. It was… a statement.” Amber ventured further into the room, her eyes tracing the lines of the tattooed mountains. “You made it look like play. When it clearly wasn’t.”
“It’s always play,” Y/n said, focusing on the tape. “The second it feels like work, you’re already falling.” She glanced up. “You know that.”
Amber did. The ice could feel like a prison or a canvas. There was no in-between.
“What’s next?” Amber asked, nodding at the hand. “The Snowboard Cross is in two days. And the Parallel.”
Y/n finished her taping, examining her work. “Cross is fine. It’s all strapped in. Might make grabbing the start gate a bitch.” She sighed, the lightness leaving her face. It was the first time Amber had seen something that looked like genuine strain there. “Parallel Giant Slalom, though… that’s edges. That’s precision. This,” she held up the bandaged hand, “is a problem.”
“You’ll have to withdraw.”
“Can’t.” The word was flat, final. “Team’s injured. Both alternates wiped out in training last week. I’m the only U.S. entry. If I don’t drop in, we forfeit the spot.” She leaned back on her elbows. “It’s just a finger. I’ll ski on stumps if I have to.”
The weight of it settled in the room. Amber understood it perfectly—the obligation that transcended pain, the name on your back being bigger than the body inside it. But Y/n’s version was so stark, so stripped of the patriotic pomp Amber was used to. It wasn’t for God and country. It was because her friends were hurt and the slot was theirs.
“They’ll kill you in the commentary box,” Amber said softly. “If you’re off. They’ll say the gold streak made you reckless.”
“Let ‘em.” Y/n’s eyes found hers, green and unwavering in the lamplight. “They’ve said worse. They’ll always say worse. The trick is to stop listening before you start believing it.”
She pushed herself up from the bed and walked to the small fridge, pulling out two bottles of water. She handed one to Amber. Their fingers brushed. Amber’s were cold. Y/n’s were warm, the tape rough.
“Thanks,” Amber said. “For the dedication. It was… unexpected.”
“Was it?” Y/n cracked open her bottle, took a long drink. “You hold your breath. We all see it. You think it makes you look controlled. It just makes you look like you’re drowning.” She said it without malice, a simple observation. “Sometimes you gotta let the air out. Even if it sounds ugly.”
Amber looked down at the water bottle in her hands, the condensation beading on the plastic. The noise from the world below was gone. Here, there was just this quiet, messy room and this infuriating, insightful person who saw clean through her.
Y/n reached over to the cluttered desk, shuffled some papers, and pulled out a wrinkled course map for the Snowboard Cross. She smoothed it on the bed. “Alright, Glenn. You’re a strategist. A tactician. Look at this course with me. Tell me where you’d hold back. And where you’d burn the whole damn thing down.”
Amber moved to sit beside her on the edge of the bed, their shoulders not touching but close enough to feel the heat. She looked at the tangled lines of the course diagram, a world away from the clean geometry of her own performances. For the first time in a long time, she wasn’t thinking about her own next jump, her own next score. She was looking at a problem that wasn’t hers, for a person who shouldn’t matter.
And it felt like the most natural thing in the world.