Chapter 19: The Price of Letting Go
The roar of the crowd was a physical thing, a wall of sound that hit Amber’s chest as she struck her final pose, arms outstretched, breath sawing from her lungs. The ice felt electric beneath her blades. She hadn’t thought about the technical panel. She’d thought about fog, and a whisper, and a conversation. She’d skated like she was still half in that dawn-lit rink.
The flowers rained down. Stuffed bears and bouquets littering the ice around her. She offered a small, genuine smile to the judges, then to the bleachers, her eyes scanning almost automatically for a tall frame, a choppy haircut, a smirk.
“Amber! Over here!” Isabeau’s voice, bright and sharp, cut through the fog of her focus. Off the ice, her friends were bouncing, Alysa clutching Isabeau’s arm. Coach was nodding, a rare, full smile on his face.
The scoreboard flashed. A number. A leading number. The highest of the day. The crowd roared again.
Then she was engulfed. Alysa’s hug was fierce, Isabeau’s chatter immediate. “You were insane! That triple lutz-loop combo was so clean! And the step sequence—you looked like you were barely touching the ice!”
Amber accepted the hugs, the praise, her body humming. Her eyes darted back to the spot where Y/n had been, up in the nosebleeds near the exit. The seat was empty. A crumpled program sat on it.
“She had to go,” Isabeau said, following her gaze. “Like, her whole team came and hauled her out right after your last spin. Some guy with a walkie-talkie looked super intense.”
“Snowboard cross starts at noon,” Alysa added, checking her watch. “It’s on the other side of the village, at the boardercross course. We’ve got time if we hustle after the podium.”
The medal ceremony was a blur of gold, anthems, flashing lights. The weight around her neck felt familiar, but the smile on her face didn’t ache the way it usually did. It felt light. She changed out of her costume in a daze, pulling on a thick USA sweatsuit, her hair still pinned tightly. The adrenaline was leaching away, leaving a strange, buoyant emptiness.
“Come on, gold medalist, let’s go!” Isabeau was already at the door, pulling Alysa by the hand.
They half-jogged through the village, past the lingering scent of grilled food and the buzz of different languages. The air changed as they moved away from the insulated skating arenas. It grew sharper, tinged with pine and cold dirt. The sound was different, too—not the clean slice of blades but a distant, rumbling roar, like continuous thunder punctuated by collective gasps and shouts.
The boardercross venue was a brutal gouge in the mountainside. A serpentine track of banked turns, terrifyingly steep drops, and jarring jumps, all carved into the mud and snow. The crowd here was different. Loud, dressed in bright parkas and beanies, holding cans of beer. The energy was rowdy, less reverent, more visceral.
They shoved their way to a railing, the cold metal biting through Amber’s gloves. Down below, snowboarders in padded armor and full-face helmets waited in the start gate, six at a time, looking less like athletes and more like gladiators.
“There!” Alysa pointed.
Y/n was easy to spot. Tallest in her heat, bouncing slightly on her board at gate three. Her posture was pure, loose-limbed focus. No tension, just ready potential.
The buzzer screamed.
A explosion of snow. Six bodies launched into the trench, a chaotic, elbows-out scramble for the first turn. It was brutal. It was nothing like the solitary grace of figure skating. This was a pack fight on a frozen rollercoaster.
Y/n took the first turn high, barely avoiding a tangle of bodies that spilled in a cartwheeling crash below her. Amber’s breath caught. Y/n carried speed, tucking low on the straightaways, her body a fluid extension of the board. She hit a series of rollers, catching air off each one, but it wasn't for show—each landing was a tactical adjustment, gaining inches.
On the final turn, the rider in gate two cut across Y/n’s line. It wasn’t dirty, just aggressive. Boards clattered. For a heart-stopping second, Y/n wobbled, her edge skidding. She fought for balance, one hand dragging in the snow, spraying a white plume. The crowd groaned.
She didn’t fall.
She used the drag to pivot, slipping inside the other rider as they hurtled toward the last jump. They launched side-by-side. For a moment, they were suspended against the grey sky, a frozen tableau of competition.
Y/n landed first. A hard, stomping landing that echoed up the hill. She crossed the finish line a board-length ahead, throwing a fist into the air before skating to a stop, chest heaving.
Amber realized she was gripping the railing so tight her knuckles were white. She let go, a slow exhale misting in the air.
“She made it look easy,” Isabeau breathed.
“That wasn’t easy,” Amber corrected, her voice quiet. She’d seen the correction, the save. The sheer athletic will of it.
They watched Y/n pull off her helmet, shaking out her short hair. She was laughing, accepting a rough clap on the back from a competitor she’d just beaten. No malice, just shared respect for surviving the chute. She scanned the crowd as she pushed toward the exit gate, her green eyes sweeping past banners and faces.
Then they stopped. On Amber.
A slow, widening grin broke across Y/n’s face, sweaty and triumphant. She jerked her chin up, a clear you came.
Amber felt a flush that had nothing to do with the cold. She didn’t smile back, not fully. But she gave a single, slight nod.
Y/n’s grin turned into something softer. She mouthed a word lost in the distance and the noise. It looked like “flag.”
Then her coach was pulling her away, toward the preparation area for the semi-finals.
“Okay,” Alysa said, nudging Amber with an elbow. “So that’s the snowboarder.”
“Yeah,” Amber said. The medal around her neck felt suddenly insignificant compared to the mud-spattered, fearless energy thrumming from the course below. “That’s her.”
The wind kicked up, carrying the smell of frost and gasoline from the snowcats. Down in the bowl, workers were already smoothing the track for the next heat, erasing the traces of the race. But the imprint of it, the raw, chaotic speed, stayed with Amber. She didn’t move from the railing. She would wait. The deal, it seemed, went both ways.