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Her head was spinning more and more, but not in an unpleasant way, more in a... calming way.
She knew she shouldn't have been drinking alcohol, she rarely did it before, she happened to drink some flavored beer without her parents' knowledge or some semi-legal drink on vacation abroad, but today she overdid it. First, Ilia (who took advantage of the fact that he could legally drink and did so without much restraint) gave her some orange drink, which, despite its bitterness, was really good, then Maxim gave her a glass of wine, and finally Ellie offered her shots of some lemon vodka. It wasn't much in terms of volume, but it was definitely too much in terms of the types of alcohol, and now, from all this mixing, the girl felt slightly detached from the ground.
“Alysa?” She heard a familiar voice behind her and quickly turned around, which made her head spin again. She staggered slightly and would probably have fallen over if it hadn't been for the strong grip of strong arms.
Amber looked at her with obvious concern on her face. She had a few drinks herself and her mind was not the clearest, but she could see that something was wrong with her friend.
“Amberrr,” Alysa slumped slightly into the blonde's arms and smiled broadly. Amber smiled back, unable to help herself, but quickly pulled out her phone and started tapping on it.
“We're going back to the hotel, no discussion. It's better if no one else sees you like this, it could only cause problems.” Alysa had no problem going back to the hotel, and she certainly had no problem going back to the hotel with Amber.
The truth was that she had liked Amber for several months now. All the touches of hands, hugs, and exchanged smiles only fueled her feelings, which she really tried not to think about. Feelings. Alysa wasn't sure what she was feeling, she knew it was something much stronger than infatuation, she knew she was head over heels in love with her teammate, her opponent, the woman who had just beaten her at the Nationals Championships and had a plan to beat her at the Olympics too. However, Alysa was afraid to admit to herself how strong her feelings were, let alone think about saying them out loud.
A cold gust of wind snapped her out of her reverie; she didn't even realize when they had managed to get outside. She was wearing her coat, which she certainly hadn't put on herself, so Amber must have helped her with it, and now she was adjusting her scarf, looking ahead.
They stood there for a minute until a car pulled up in front of them, which turned out to be the Uber Amber had ordered while they were still inside. The blonde gently took her hand, opened the door for her, and helped her fasten her seatbelt. They spent the entire ten-minute drive to the hotel in silence, as well as the walk through the reception area to Alysa's room. When they stopped at her door so Alysa could find her card, Amber decided to speak up.
“You shouldn't have been drinking, especially at an official team meeting.” It wasn't a reproach, it was concern, and Alysa, who had already calmed down a bit, had no problem sensing it in her friend's tone of voice.
“I know.” She nodded slightly, turning toward the blonde. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
“Always.” Amber looked straight into her eyes.
They stood there for a few seconds, breathing faster and faster until Alysa moved a few inches closer. If Amber had been sober, she would never have let this happen, she would never have allowed herself to take advantage of her friend's condition. But Amber wasn't sober, definitely not after drinking almost half a bottle of whiskey in which she had decided to drown her feelings. Feelings. Amber felt she had too many of them, especially those concerning Alysa. Yes, she definitely had too many. It wasn't just a crush, it was love, which Amber couldn't afford, not now, not before the games, not with her rival, who was barely twenty years old.
The noise in her head stopped and Alysa moved a little closer, the other girl following her. Their lips met, the first kiss was gentle, the next not so much. Alysa finally found the key to her room and opened the door, pulling Amber behind her.
It was definitely the best night of her life, exhausting, but definitely the best, and everything would have been fine if it weren't for...
“I love you,” Alysa whispered with her head on the pillow, already on the verge of sleep.
“Alysa...” But Alysa was already asleep. Amber sobered up immediately. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
She got up quickly from the bed and began to gather her things and get dressed as quietly as she could. In a second, she was overcome with immense remorse. Alysa was drunk and young and unaware of what was going on around her, and Amber had taken advantage of that. Fuck. She grabbed a piece of paper from the hotel notepad that was lying on the shelf, wrote a short “I'm sorry, this shouldn't have happened,” and left the room as quietly as possible, making sure to close the door behind her.
When she returned to her room and closed the door, she slid down it with her back and burst into tears. She felt terrible about herself. Alysa was barely twenty, Amber was twenty-six, she should have been responsible for God’s sake, she should have taken care of her friend from the team instead of taking advantage of the fact that she was drunk and hooking up with her.
***
Alysa stretched slightly and yawned before attempting to open her eyes. She blinked a few times and smiled at the memories of last night. Her head ached slightly, but overall she had never felt so good. She reached out her hand and ran it across the mattress, expecting to find the warmth of another body, but it wasn't there. She opened her eyes fully and quickly sat up. For a moment, she thought Amber might be in the bathroom, but the room was completely silent, no sound of running water or anything else that would indicate the presence of another person. Complete silence. Alysa looked around carefully, with the false hope that Amber was standing in one of the corners. But she wasn't, instead there was a note on the cabinet on the other side of the bed, which Alysa immediately grabbed, hoping to find some explanation on it. She couldn't have been more wrong.
“I'm sorry, this shouldn't have happened.”
Fuck.
Her eyes immediately filled with tears and her body slumped limply back onto the bed. She didn't understand what had happened, she didn't understand how it had happened. Had she done something wrong? Had she said something wrong? She must have done something wrong, after all, why else would Amber leave her without a word, or rather with six words written in hotel pen on a hotel notepad. Her tears flowed uncontrollably for several more minutes until she fell asleep from exhaustion.
***
Almost three weeks passed during which Amber exercised, trained, slept, exercised, followed her diet, trained, and felt. Above all, she felt disgust for herself. She couldn't even look at herself in the mirror without feeling repulsed, nor could she look at Alysa's social media profiles without automatically bursting into tears and wanting to throw her phone against the wall. She had never regretted anything so much and at the same time clung to it so tightly. That night was the best and worst night of her life. If only Alysa hadn't said what she said, Amber would have woken up in the morning, they would have talked about how it was the alcohol's fault and that it didn't mean anything and that the Olympic Games were coming up and that they could still be friends and that Amber didn't want to take advantage of her and that she was drunk too, and everything would have been fine. But Alysa said what she said, and now Amber had to live with it. Live with the responsibility for what she had done and with the knowledge that she had fun and unknowingly manipulated her friend.
She sat in her seat on the plane to New York, from where she was to fly to Milan with the entire US team. With Alysa. Her legs were shaking with stress and her fingers were constantly playing with her hair. Damon looked at her, but most likely thought it was Olympic stress and left her alone. Except it wasn't Olympic stress, at least not mainly. Of course, she was stressed about the Games, but she was even more stressed about how much time she would be spending with Alysa, training, interviews, and recording Blade Angels content for social media. All she could think about was that Alysa probably hated her for using her and probably didn't want to know her. Amber understood that; she wouldn't want to know her either if she were in her shoes.
She knew she shouldn't have gotten so worked up before the competition she had been waiting for her entire life, but she couldn't help it. For the past three weeks, she had been training during the day and thinking about how badly she had screwed everything up at night. Isabeau had texted her a few days after that night to ask if everything was okay, because she hadn't been active in their group and hadn't replied to anyone. Amber laughed grimly when she read that message. She really wanted to tell someone, to get it off her chest, but she couldn't. What was she supposed to say? “Alysa got drunk and instead of taking her to her hotel and putting her to bed, I took her to hotel and slept with her”? No, that was definitely not an option. So Amber blamed it all on training and stress, and Isabeau seemed to let it go.
Throughout the flight from Dallas to New York, Amber did breathing exercises, which did nothing for her, but at least allowed her to take her mind off the brown and gold hair she had been combing not so long ago.
The transfer in New York was quick and smooth, but her seat was problematic — between her coach and Ilia, and directly behind Alysa, whom she didn't even look at when she sat down in her seat, but whose gaze she felt on her. For eight hours of the flight, she pretended to be doing something on her phone, when in fact she was staring at the seat in front of her. She wanted to tell Alysa that she was sorry, that she didn't want to take advantage of her, that she felt so terribly stupid, but she couldn't. She couldn't even look at her, let alone talk to her.
When Alysa got up from her seat, Amber pretended to be extremely absorbed in her phone, but she felt that gaze on her, the gaze that had haunted her in her dreams and waking hours for the past few weeks.
When they landed in Milan, someone from social management stopped her and told her to record some material for the US media team with Isabeau and Alysa. She wanted to vanish or drown herself, or preferably both at once. However, she allowed herself to be led to the designated place, greeted everyone briefly, did what she had to do, and escaped to the bus as quickly as possible.
She had never been so grateful for anything as she was for a single room. She couldn't pretend that over the past few weeks she hadn't once wondered what would happen if she had to share a room with Alysa. A month ago, she would have considered such a situation a dream, but now? Now she felt like she didn't know anything about herself. She used to be sure that every moment spent at the Olympics (if she ever went) would be amazing. Now her thoughts were preoccupied with how to avoid Alysa without anyone on the team noticing.
***
For three weeks, her body seemed detached from her head, and she did everything she could to keep it that way. She couldn't allow her thoughts to interfere with her training, not now, not before the Olympics, not right after her big comeback on the ice. Alysa did everything mechanically, ate, trained, slept at set times, and felt like she did when she was sixteen and lost all love for the sport. Except that wasn't it. She loved skating and was overjoyed with her return and with getting into the Olympics. She had only one problem—Amber. Or rather, her feelings for Amber, which she tried to get rid of but couldn't. She was in love, and after that night, she was convinced that it wasn't just some silly crush, and then she read that note and felt her heart break into pieces.
She wanted to call, she wanted to write, for God's sake, she even thought for a moment about getting on a plane to Texas and talking to Amber face to face, but she stopped herself at the last moment. And now she had to train with her, eat with her, smile at the cameras, and pretend that night had never happened. She was doing all of this, even though she felt it slowly crushing her. She trained until she dropped, after all, the women's short program in the team event rested on her shoulders, and she wanted to skate it perfectly.
The biggest problem was training on the same ice as Amber, who was supposed to skate the free program if Team USA qualified for the second part, and it was obvious that this would happen. So they skated next to each other, Amber jumped triple axels as if it were the only thing keeping her alive (which they kind of were), and Alysa focused on polishing her combinations. They gave interviews sitting next to each other but not looking at each other, ate meals sitting at the same table with the rest of the team, and both felt like it was killing them.
It lasted exactly six days. On February 5, the day before the short program, Alysa made a decision—she couldn't go out on the ice tomorrow without letting out what she was feeling, it could only lead to a fall, injury, and the loss of a chance at a team gold medal.
She put on her US team tracksuit and left her room with her heart in her mouth, trying to calm her breathing.
***
Amber lay on her bed wearing sweatpants, her makeup smudged, staring at the ceiling. This is what her evenings had been like since she arrived at the Olympic Village (they had been like this when she was still at home, but now she felt it more intensely). She thought about Alysa again and what had happened, and her eyes filled with tears. She missed her so much, her smile, her voice, her laughter, her jokes, and her awful motivational quotes that sounded like she had read them on Tumblr. She wanted so badly to tell her how she felt, how she felt then, and that she didn't want to lose her, but she couldn't. Every time Alysa came into view (Amber didn't look for her herself, if anything she avoided her as much as she could), images from that night flooded her mind and she felt even more remorse than before.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Amber got up from the bed and wiped her tears as she headed for the door. She took a deep breath and, thinking it was her coach, Ilia, or Isabeau, opened the door.
“Alysa.”
“Can I come in? Please, I want to talk.” Alysa looked tired, with red eyes as if she had just stopped crying and bags under. Amber moved aside without a word and let her in.
The younger girl glanced around the room briefly and looked questioningly at the bed. Amber just nodded, and they both sat down on it.
“I came to talk to you, I want to get this off my chest because I can't function normally anymore. Please don't interrupt me, you don't even know how much it cost me and how many times I went over it in my head.” Amber nodded and Alysa continued. “I don't know what I did wrong and I don't want to know, I don't want to live with the knowledge that I could have done something differently and still have you with me, I just can’t. I'm sorry. For everything. I didn't want it to turn out this way, fuck, who am I trying to kid, of course I wanted it, the alcohol just helped me gather the courage to do something I'd wanted to do for a long time. I've been in love with you for months and what happened was my dream, but I know it shouldn't have happened. I know I shouldn't have kissed you then, I know I fucked everything up, you just wanted to take care of me because you were worried, and I took advantage of the fact that you were drunk too. I'm so fucking sorry, I never ever wanted to ruin our friendship, I care so much about you, and now you can't even look at me.” Amber looked up from the floor and looked at Alysa, who had tears running down her cheeks, and quickly looked away. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I regret fucking it up, but I don't regret that night. I really tried to regret what happened, and I regret my behavior and that I didn't call you and that I didn't text you, but I can't regret sleeping with you. How could I regret it when it was the best time of my life?“ Amber looked at her again. Alysa was still crying, but now she also had a slight smile on her face as she remembered that night. This time, she didn't look away. ”I know I can't fix this, and I know that what happened was just a moment for you. I really want everything to be like it used to be. I know it's not possible, but can we at least try? Please."
She hadn't been able to breathe during her entire monologue, but now she felt the tightness she had been feeling for a month loosen a little, and she took three deep breaths before looking at her friend. Amber looked at her, and it was clear that everything was making her head spin. Alysa got up and headed for the door to give Amber time to process everything that had happened.
“Wait, please.” Alysa's hand stopped on the doorknob. She turned to Amber, who was still sitting on the bed, looking at her. “Fuck, Alysa.” Amber took a deep breath and exhale. “You didn't ruin anything, I fucked everything up. I was supposed to take care of you and walk you to your room, but instead I slept with you. You're six years younger, for fuck's sake. I haven't been able to look at myself for a month because I fucked everything up so badly. I'm just sorry, when you said you loved me, I realized what I had done and I was scared that when you woke up in the morning, you would hate me for taking advantage of you. I couldn't stay. I'm sorry about that note, it was immature, we should have talked then, but I couldn't bear the thought of your eyes full of disgust.” Her breathing was getting faster and shallower, but she continued anyway. “I just care so much about you...” More rapid breaths. “I...”
Amber began to hyperventilate, repeating “I'm sorry” over and over. Alysa quickly approached her and grabbed her hand, trying to calm her down.
“Calm down, Amber, I'm here, it's just a panic attack, you're safe. Breathe. Inhale, exhale.” It didn't help, so Alysa put her other free hand on Amber's cheek and turned her face toward her to make eye contact, then began to speak. "I could never hate you, Amber. Calm down, breathe, I'm here. I'll always be here, I promise. I love you, okay? Everything is fine, you're safe.
She didn't say anything else, she just wanted Amber to calm down, to know that everything would be okay. It took a while, but Amber finally looked like she was back to reality. Alysa wiped the tears from her cheeks and looked her straight in the eyes.
“I love you, Amber, I always will, but if you don't feel the same way, I promise I'll give you time and space, I promise I'll...”
“Stop.” Amber's voice was terribly weak, she was terribly weak, but she found enough strength to speak. “I love you too, so much it hurts, and I was so afraid that I ruined everything back then.”
“You didn't ruin it, we ruined it together because we were afraid of our feelings, but now we have a chance to fix it, and that's exactly what we're going to do. If you want to, of course.” Alysa looked at her, stressed. Even after everything that had been said in the last twenty minutes, she still wasn't sure if Amber would want to try.
“I really want to, I can't lose you, I'm going crazy without you.” Amber smiled gently, and it was the most beautiful smile Alysa had ever seen.
“I want us to be on the same page, okay? I don't want any more stupid misunderstandings that could have been cleared up in five minutes but took us almost a month.” Alysa gently ran her fingers through Amber's hair without breaking eye contact. “Can I kiss you?”
Amber just nodded and tilted her head in anticipation, which didn't last too long. Alysa joined their lips in a gentle kiss that conveyed all their emotions and doubts. When they pulled apart, Amber cleared her throat.
“You have a room to yourself, right?” Alysa nodded. “Maybe you want to stay with me tonight? Please?”
“With you? Always.” Amber smiled so hard that her cheeks hurt.
***
Amber stretched slightly and yawned before attempting to open her eyes. She reached out her hand and ran it across the mattress, expecting to find the warmth of another body, but it didn't happen. She opened her eyes wide and quickly sat up. For a moment, she thought Alysa might be in the bathroom, but the room was completely silent, no sound of running water or anything else that would indicate the presence of another person. Complete silence. She noticed a note on the nightstand and took a quick, panicked breath before grabbing it.
"Sorry I left you, but I had to go to practice and didn't want to wake you up. Besides, i think that leaving notes for each other will be our thing.
I love you."
Amber smiled slightly and shook her head in disbelief.