Chapter 16: The Taped-Up Confession
The course map was a labyrinth of ink—sharp turns marked with red pen, rollers denoted by shaky circles. Y/n’s bandaged finger traced a line down a section labeled ‘The Pinch,’ where the course narrowed between two artificial banks. Her knuckle, swollen and ugly under the tape, brushed against the back of Amber’s hand.The touch was incidental. Dry medical tape on skin. But it sent a jolt through Amber’s nervous system, a static shock that had nothing to do with the polyester bedspread. She flinched, pulling her hand back as if scalded.
“Sorry,” Y/n murmured, not looking up, her focus on the map.“Tactile learner. Need to feel the terrain.”
“It’s fine,” Amber said, too quickly.Her own voice sounded strange in her ears—thin, reedy. The silence that followed was different now, thick and laden. The hum of the CRT TV, the faint laughter from a Friends rerun, the sound of their breathing. It all pressed in on her. The absurd, monumental pressure of her own life, every repressed feeling, every withheld scream, condensed into this stupid, quiet room.The words were out before she could cage them.
“I was so bent on being perfect I never had a real orgasm.”
The air evacuated the room.
Y/n’s finger stopped moving on the map. She didn’t look up for a long moment.Then, slowly, she lifted her head. Her green eyes were wide, not with judgement, but with a kind of stunned, disbelieving curiosity. A soft sound escaped her—a choked, strangled puff of air that bloomed into a full, open-mouthed laugh. It wasn’t mean.It was pure, unfiltered shock.Amber’s face ignited. She shoved at Y/n’s shoulder, hard. “Shut up.”
Y/n rocked with the push, her laughter growing, echoing off the cinderblock walls. She clutched her bandaged hand to her chest, wheezing.“Oh my god,” she managed, gasping for breath. “Of all the confessions… in the history of Olympic villages… Amber Glenn…”
“I said shut up!” Amber slapped her shoulder again, but there was no force in it, her own horrified smile breaking through.The utter ridiculousness of it, the profound embarrassment, was also a release. A poison tipped out of a vial.
Y/n finally caught her breath, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes with her good hand. She recomposed herself, but the ghost of the laugh still danced in her eyes.“Okay.Okay. That’s… that’s a benchmark, for sure.” She studied Amber, the mirth softening into something more contemplative. “So that’s the trade, huh?Perfection for… everything else.”
Amber looked away, burning. She stared at the peeling NSYNC poster, the young faces smiling obliviously. “It wasn’t a conscious trade.”
“It never is.” Y/n shifted on the bed, facing her fully. “Alright.New deal.A real one.” She nodded toward the map. “I’ve got Cross, then the Parallel Slalom.You’ve got your free skate. You come watch my races.Not as a competitor.Not as a critic.Just… there.And you cheer. Like a normal person.You let go.You make some noise. Get ugly with it.”
Amber frowned. “What’s the other side of the deal?”
“If you do that… if you actually, genuinely let go and watch me possibly eat shit on international television…” Y/n’s voice dropped, serious now. “Then, after this circus is over, whatever you decide to do next—whether it’s touring, or quitting, or running away to join a monastery—you do it your way.Not your parents’ way, not your federation’s way. Your way. And you let me be there when you figure out what that is.”
The proposition hung in the space between them, vast and terrifying.It wasn’t about sex.It was about witness. It was about permission.
“You want me to be your… cheerleader,” Amber said, the word foreign on her tongue.“I want you to be present,” Y/n corrected. “I spend half my life in the air, looking down. It’s nice to know there’s something solid on the ground, looking back.” She tapped the map with her bandaged finger. “You analyze this.You tell me where to push, where to hold back. You use that terrifying brain of yours.And then, at the race, you turn it off. You feel it instead.That’s the deal.”
Amber looked at the map. She saw the geometry Y/n couldn’t, the angles of incidence and velocity, the points of maximum risk and reward. It was a language she understood.She pointed to ‘The Pinch.’ “Here.It’s tight. Everyone will hold back, afraid of contact. If you get a clean start, you can take the inside line and accelerate before the second roller.It’s a dice roll. You’ll either gain three places or faceplant into the netting.”
A slow grin spread across Y/n’s face.“See? Terrifying brain.” She absorbed the advice, her eyes scanning the section with new clarity.“Okay.Inside line at The Pinch. Got it.”
She leaned back, the tension bleeding from her shoulders. The glow from the TV flickered across her face, across the tattooed mountains on her arm.“So? Deal?”
Amber thought of the arena, the roar of a crowd not there for silent grace, but for chaotic, muddy speed.She thought of making noise. Of being seen not as a symbol, but as a person, yelling for another person. It felt more vulnerable than any triple axel.She swallowed, her throat dry. “Deal.”
Y/n nodded, as if a contract had been signed in something more binding than air. She reached for the remote and muted the TV, plunging them into a deeper quiet. “Good,” she said, simply.“Now, explain the second roller to me again. In terrifying, glacial detail.”