Chapter 8: The Weight of a Word
The Titanic poster above her bed watched her with Leo’s smoldering, doomed eyes. Amber stared back, unseeing. The room’s silence wasn’t quiet; it was a dense, cottony pressure in her ears, amplifying the echo of a single word.
Don’t.It pulsed behind her sternum, a second, harder heartbeat. Y/n’s face in the cafeteria gloom, the crooked mountain peak on her arm, the casual devastation of her offer—Or, you know.I can join. It played on a loop, spliced with her father’s last email, a clinical dissection of her practice times. The two things warred in her skull, a dissonant, screeching static.She threw the thin blanket off. The chill of the room bit into her skin. She pulled on a baggy USA hoodie, the fabric smelling faintly of arena popcorn and anxiety.Her socks were mismatched.She didn’t care.
The hallway was a tunnel of institutional beige, lit by emergency exit signs casting a sickly green glow. Her trainers made no sound on the linoleum. Two doors down, a sliver of yellow light leaked from under a door.She knocked, a quick, nervous triplet.
A moment of muffled shuffling, then the door swung open. Alysa, her hair in a messy pineapple bun, squinted.“Glenn?You okay? It’s like, two AM.”
“Can I come in?”
Alysa read her face—the tightness around her mouth, the hunted look in her eyes—and stepped back without another word.Their room was a mirror of hers, but lived-in. Clothes exploded from open suitcases, energy bar wrappers littered the desk, a portable CD player emitted the tinny whisper of The Cardigans. Isabeau was propped up in her bed, marking up a music sheet with a fierce concentration that softened when she saw Amber.
“What’s up?” Isabeau asked, setting the sheet aside.
Amber stood in the center of the room, suddenly unsure why she’d come. The words felt lodged in her throat, sharp and embarrassing.
“Sit,” Alysa commanded, patting the edge of her bed.“You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or, worse, your dad.”
That broke the dam.A shaky breath escaped Amber. She sat, folding her hands in her lap, studying the threads of her sweatpants. “It’s… it’s not my dad.Not directly.”
She started talking. It came out in disjointed fragments—the shared lunch, the mock-peace summit, the horrible shepherd’s pie. The way Y/n talked about her body like it was just another piece of equipment, interesting but not definitive. Her laughter, loud and unselfconscious in the empty cafeteria.The question about the furnace.Her own whispered confession.
I’d disappear.And then Y/n’s face, so certain. Don’t.I’d miss you.Isabeau listened, her expression thoughtful. Alysa’s eyes grew wider with each detail. When Amber finished, the only sound was the faint chorus of “Lovefool” from the speakers.“Wow,” Alysa breathed.
“Yeah,” Amber said, the word a puff of air.
“She said ‘I’d miss you’?” Isabeau clarified, her voice soft.“Just like that.”
Alysa whistled low. “Okay, ignoring the incredibly hot, knife-in-the-ice romantic tension of that for a second… you’re freaking out because someone was kind to you? And sees you?”
“It’s not kindness,” Amber protested, but weakly.“It’s… it’s complication. She’s a snowboarder.I’m a figure skater.Our worlds don’t… mix. They crash.”
“Says who?” Alysa shot back.“The Olympic rulebook? Chapter seven, clause twelve: ‘Thou shalt not fraternize with the cool kids from the frictionless snow sports’?”
A faint smile touched Amber’s lips. “It’s not that simple.”
“It kinda is,” Isabeau said, shifting to sit cross-legged. “She asked you a real question.You gave a real answer.She gave you a real one back. That’s… rare.Here, especially.”
The simplicity of it was disarming. Amber picked at a loose thread on her hoodie cuff. “What do I do with it?”
“You don’t have to do anything,” Alysa said, leaning forward. “You just… hold onto it.See what happens next.”
“Next is the team event finals. Next is my father analyzing every frame.Next is…” She trailed off, the weight settling back onto her shoulders.
Isabeau nudged her foot with a toe.“Forget next for five minutes. Right now, in this gross room, you’re just Amber. And Amber has a crush on a tall, tattooed snowboarder with a good line in cafeteria banter.”
The word crush sent a jolt through her.It was too juvenile, too small for the seismic shift she felt. But it was also terrifyingly accurate.
“It’s not a crush,” she mumbled, feeling her face heat.Alysa’s grin turned wicked.“Oh, it’s a crush. A big, gay, inter-sport, Olympic-level crush. Does she know you read books about men with flaming shirts?”
“Shut up,” Amber said, but she was laughing now, a real, relieved sound that bubbled up from her chest.
“Imagine the dinner,” Alysa continued, warming to the theme.“Your dad, with his spreadsheets and his posture. And Y/n, just… existing.‘So, Mr. Glenn, what’s your personal best on the halfpipe?’ ‘I don’t snowboard.’ ‘Oh.Cool. More gravy?’”
Isabeau snort-laughed, falling back onto her pillow. Amber pictured it: her father’s stunned, frozen face, Y/n’s easy, unflappable grin. The horror of it was so absolute it circled back to being hilarious.
“She’d probably ask him about his tattoos,” Amber said, wiping her eyes.
“He doesn’t have any!”
“Exactly.”
They devolved into giggles, the three of them, a hushed, wheezing mess in the dim light. It was stupid and childish and exactly what she needed. The monstrous pressure in her chest cracked, not vanishing, but making space for something else—something lighter, warmer.
When the laughter subsided, Amber felt hollowed out and clean.The static was gone.
“Thanks,” she said, meaning it.“Anytime,” Alysa said, bumping her shoulder.“Seriously. This is more fun than obsessing over edge calls.”
Back in her own room, the silence had changed. It was no longer oppressive.It was just quiet. She lay in the dark, one hand resting on her stomach, feeling the steady beat of her heart.
The memory of Y/n’s voice was still there, clear and unwavering.Don’t.
But alongside it now was the echo of her friends’ laughter, the ridiculous image of her father confronted with a plate of peas and a simple, sharp question.The two sounds didn’t clash.They intertwined, a strange, new harmony.
She closed her eyes. For the first time in nights, she wasn’t picturing blades on ice or a judge’s scorecard. She was picturing a crooked mountain peak, etched under fluorescent light, and a promise that felt, against all odds, like solid ground. A smile, small and private, touched her lips in the dark, and she carried it with her into sleep.