Chat NEED Monica Stevens x female reader ASAP! A slow burn enemies x lovers ANYTHING! Also Angela Lopez x reader Lucy Chen, Celina Juarez, Nyla Harper x reader EVEN Sandra aka ‘La Fiera’ DUDE AND that bodyguard that showed up a few times Charlie Bristow iykyk GET ON IT SOMEONE PLEASE😭🙏
Pt 2 and they’re in that weird limbo…. Wanting to use press conference pics but she’s smiling in like all of them when I need her looking serious sighhhhh
Use of Y/N 😔 like 5k words too and mainly just miscommunication trope LOL Alysa doesn’t mean to be a shitty gf 💔
LMAO omg the amount of people under the first part… I feel like I can’t live up to part 1 so sorry in advance part 3 is also needed and I’ve yet to decide whether it’s happy or something else…
The ceremony itself passes in a blur.
For something the world has spent years building toward—years of anticipation, planning, promotion—it moves strangely fast once you’re actually inside it.
Your delegation lines up in the tunnel with the rest of Team USA, the noise of the stadium roaring faintly ahead of you. Someone in front of you adjusts the flag they’re carrying. Someone behind you is bouncing on the balls of their feet, too full of nervous energy to stand still.
Your heart is pounding, but it feels detached from everything else. Like the moment is happening around you rather than to you.
When the announcer calls United States of America, the crowd erupts.
The tunnel opens. And suddenly you’re walking out into a stadium filled with tens of thousands of people.
The lights are blinding. Camera flashes sparkle everywhere. Fans wave flags and scream and chant from the stands. The whole place hums with this overwhelming, electric energy that you know you’ll probably remember for the rest of your life.
You smile automatically. It’s instinct at this point. You wave at the crowd. Someone next to you grabs your arm and pulls you closer so you can both wave together toward a section of fans. You lean into the moment the way you’re supposed to—shoulders relaxed, posture open, expression bright for the cameras.
From the outside, you probably look thrilled. Inside, everything still feels a little… muffled.
You’re aware of the noise, the lights, the movement of the athletes around you—but there’s another layer of thought running quietly beneath all of it. Because somewhere across the stadium floor, Alysa is here too.
Not in your section. Figure skating is grouped separately. But you know she’s somewhere in the sea of white jackets and white gloves moving through the stadium.
And sure enough, at one point while the teams are circling the field, your eyes catch on her. It happens the way it always does. Almost unconsciously. Like a magnet. Alysa is walking with the rest of the skating team, her posture relaxed, the same black beanie still pulled low over her forehead. She looks up at the exact moment you do.
For half a second your eyes meet across the crowd. Not long enough for anyone else to notice. Just long enough to confirm something simple.
You’re still there.
Then the moment passes. You keep walking. She does too. It happens again once or twice more during the ceremony—quick glances across the stadium floor, brief eye contact before one of you looks away again.
Neither of you approaches the other. Neither of you waves. Neither of you smiles. You just… check. Like two people making sure the other one still exists in the same space.
And then it’s over.
The ceremony ends in a rush of music and fireworks and movement as athletes begin filtering back toward the buses that will take everyone up to the mountains again. By the time you’re back in the staging area outside the stadium, the adrenaline has started to wear off. People are tired. Voices are hoarse from cheering. Everyone is moving slower now.
You’re standing near your snowboard teammates when you spot Alysa again. This time she’s walking toward you more cautiously than before. Not the confident stride she had earlier. Something more careful.
You step away from your group instinctively.
She stops a couple feet away from you.
For a second neither of you speaks. The air between you feels strangely unfamiliar. Not hostile. Just… unsure. Like two people who suddenly don’t know what the rules of the interaction are anymore.
You clear your throat first. “Just rehearsals tomorrow?” you ask. Your voice sounds steady. Normal.
Alysa nods. “Yeah, final in 2 days.” She shifts her weight slightly, hands tucked in the pockets of her jacket. “Big air qualifiers in 2 days too, right?”
“Yeah.”
Another small silence settles between you. It’s awkward. Painfully awkward. You’re both clearly aware of it. Like you’re standing in a moment that should feel warm and easy but instead feels stiff and unfamiliar.
You glance briefly at the ground. Then back at her. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” you say finally.
Alysa nods again. “Okay.”
You hesitate for half a second. Then before you can stop yourself, you lean forward and press a quick kiss against her cheek.
It’s barely more than a brush of your lips. A compromise. Something small enough that it doesn’t completely betray the stubborn part of you that’s been holding your ground all day. But still something.
Alysa freezes slightly when it happens. By the time she reacts, you’ve already stepped back.
“Goodnight,” you say quickly. Then you turn. And walk back toward your team.
—
The next morning is chaos.
Media day.
From the moment you wake up, the schedule is packed. Press conferences. Photo shoots. Short video clips for Olympic social media.
You barely have time to breathe between appearances.
By mid-morning you’re sitting at a long conference table with a row of microphones in front of you and a dozen reporters staring back. The moderator introduces you. Cameras click. Hands go up immediately.
The first few questions are good. Actual sports questions.
“What adjustments have you made to your training this season?”
“How are you approaching the big air course this year compared to the last Olympics?”
You answer easily, slipping into the familiar rhythm of athlete interviews. But eventually the questions shift.
“Did you see that Hailey Bieber reposted your X Games run on Instagram?”
You blink. “…I’m rarely on Instagram, so I didn’t actually see that.” A few reporters laugh.
Another one raises their hand. “Will you be watching the Super Bowl while you’re here?”
You shrug lightly. “I don’t really keep up with American football,” you admit. “But… go Seahawks and Bad Bunny.” More laughter.
Then someone else speaks up. The tone of their voice changes slightly. More curious. “Have you seen Alysa Liu since arriving in Italy?”
The room quiets just a little. Your shoulders stiffen slightly before you catch yourself. You clear your throat. Shift in your chair. Buying a second to think.
“Oh—yeah,” you say carefully. You nod once. “We have. Yesterday was just a really chaotic day. Hundreds of athletes, everyone trying to find each other… I’m sure you understand.” You offer a polite smile. “But yeah. We met up before the ceremony.”
Another hand shoots up. “Are you excited to watch the Team USA free skate?”
That question is easier. You nod immediately, your energy lifting a little. “Yeah, absolutely. I’m really looking forward to it. I wish all of them the best.”
Someone else jumps in quickly. “As an athlete yourself, what advice do you give Alysa before major competitions?”
The irritation hits you before you can stop it. You keep your expression neutral. But your patience is thinning.
“Alysa’s a professional in her own right,” you say evenly. “She’s been competing since she was very young. I don’t think she needs my advice, so I don’t give any.”
Another reporter opens their mouth to ask something else but the moderator steps in. “Alright, we’re going to wrap it up there.”
You breathe out quietly. “Thank you,” you say with a polite smile as the conference ends.
—
Your next interview is completely different. Instead of reporters and cameras and aggressive questions, you’re led into a smaller room where a little girl is waiting with a microphone and a notebook.
She’s maybe ten years old. Her snowboard jacket is slightly too big for her. Her smile is enormous.
When she sees you walk in, she practically vibrates with excitement. “Hi!”
“Hi,” you say, immediately smiling back.
The interview is easy. She asks about training. About motivation. About what it feels like to compete in the Olympics.
You answer every question with genuine enthusiasm, leaning forward in your chair, encouraging her dreams and telling stories from your own career.
By the end of the interview, she’s giggling “Okay,” she says shyly. “Can I ask one more question?”
“Of course.”
“Can it be something… more personal?”
You nod. “Sure!”
She glances down at her notebook. Then back up at you. “…Can I ask about Alysa?”
You smile automatically. “Okay.”
“How do you make it work?” she asks earnestly. “You seem so in love, but you have very different schedules.”
You take a slow breath before answering.
“Yeah,” you say softly. “Schedules can definitely be tough. I mean, I was just in Aspen for X Games and then immediately flew here… so it’s not exactly something normal people have to deal with.” You pause briefly. “But, it’s the same as any relationship. It’s just about being with the right person.” Your voice steadies as you say it. “Everything else just kind of… sorts itself out.”
The girl nods thoughtfully. Then she asks her final question. “Does she make you happy?”
The room is quiet for a second after she says it. Not the tense kind of quiet you get during press conferences when reporters are waiting to catch a mistake—just a small pause that comes naturally when someone asks something sincere.
You open your mouth to answer.
And then you stop.
Not because you don’t know what to say. Not because the question catches you off guard. But because the answer arrives so quickly—so clearly—that it surprises you for a moment.
Your brain had been prepared to do what it’s been doing all day: weigh words carefully, choose something neutral, avoid giving the internet another soundbite to dissect. But that instinct doesn’t even get a chance to kick in. Because the truth is already there.
Simple. Obvious.
You think about the past two years. Not the version of you two people see online—the photos, the clips, the little glimpses fans latch onto—but the real moments. The quiet ones. The ones that belong to just the two of you.
For a moment you’re struck by how simple it is. Despite everything that happened yesterday. Despite the confusion or the hurt. You know the truth instantly.
Yes.
Alysa Liu makes you happy.
So happy that even now—when you’re frustrated with her, when your chest still aches from the weird distance between you—you know you wouldn’t trade what you have for anything.
A small smile tries to form on your face. You tuck it away. Then nod.
“…Uh,” you say softly, nodding. “I’m happy.”
—
Unfortunately, the internet doesn’t have access to your internal monologue.
And when the clips from the interview start circulating online later that afternoon, people only see the surface. The hesitation. The careful answers. The fact that you and Alysa barely interacted during the opening ceremony.
Within hours, the speculation begins. Tweets. Threads. TikTok edits.
“Did they break up?”
“Something feels off.”
“Why are they acting so distant??”
People take every tiny detail and twist it into evidence. Your answers. Your body language. The lack of photos together.
By the end of the day, a narrative has already formed.
You and Alysa broke up.
And somewhere else in Milan, Alysa is seeing the same posts. Watching the same speculation explode online. And slowly— starting to spiral too.
At first it’s just a notification. Then another. Then ten more. Her phone keeps lighting up on the table beside her in the athletes’ lounge in Milan, the vibration rattling faintly against the wood surface every few seconds. She ignores the first couple out of habit—people tag her in things constantly during competitions—but eventually curiosity wins.
She reaches over and flips the phone face-up. The first video she opens is from some Olympic fan account.
The caption reads:
“Something feels so off with her”
Alysa frowns immediately. She taps the video. It’s you.
You’re sitting at a press conference table, microphones lined up in front of you, the Olympic logo behind your head. The clip is short—just a few seconds—but it’s clearly taken from the interview earlier that day. Someone off-camera asks a question. You answer. Your voice is calm and measured. Careful.
Alysa watches the clip twice. Then she scrolls.
Another video. This one is longer—one of those TikTok edits where someone has cut together multiple clips from your interviews that day. They’ve added dramatic text over the top. “Did they break up???”
She presses play. Again it’s you. But it’s… different.
Not in any obvious way. Your posture is the same, your voice sounds the same, your expression still polite and composed. Anyone else might not notice the difference. But Alysa does. Because she’s watched enough of your interviews over the past two years to know the pattern.
Usually when she opens clips like this, she’s bracing herself for something. For your oversharing. For you casually telling the world something about your relationship that she didn’t even know had become public.
She’s used to finding out through a random TikTok that the entire internet now knows about the time she took you to a carnival and won you a giant stuffed banana at one of those impossible basketball games. That had happened six months ago. You’d mentioned it in a press conference without thinking. The clip had gone viral within hours. Alysa had woken up the next morning to her entire comment section flooded with banana emojis.
Normally, when she sees you in interviews, she’s preparing for that version of you. Loose. Talkative.
The version that says things like “yeah my girlfriend actually hates cheesecake but I made her try it the other day and she wasn’t totally against it.”
But this video isn’t that.
You’re answering questions carefully. Your words are precise. Controlled. Like you’re measuring every sentence before you say it. It’s subtle. But it’s enough that people online have noticed.
Alysa scrolls through the comments.
“Why is she acting like Alysa doesn’t exist??”
“They didn’t even interact at the ceremony either.”
“This feels like a soft launch breakup.”
Her stomach twists.
That’s stupid, she thinks immediately.
People online speculate about everything. She knows that better than anyone. She scrolls again.
Another clip. This one is from the interview with the little girl. Alysa watches the entire thing this time. She leans back slightly in the chair, elbows resting on the armrests as she stares at the screen. The interview is sweet. You laugh easily when the girl asks a question about training, and you explain things patiently without sounding rehearsed. At one point you even lean forward further, resting your elbows on your knees while you tell her about learning to fall properly on a snowboard. But there’s still that same carefulness underneath it.
Then the last 2 questions come up. The first one is about long distance and Alysa thinks that you sound fine. That, okay, you’re talking about being with the right person. Maybe she’s been overthinking this whole time.
But then the next question is asked. The little girl’s voice is small but clear. “Does she make you happy?”
Alysa straightens slightly. And that’s when she sees it. The pause. It’s small. Short enough that someone casually watching the interview might not think twice about it. But Alysa notices immediately.
Because she knows your rhythm. Knows the way you normally answer questions without hesitation, especially when it’s something simple or personal. You’re not someone who stalls when talking about the people you love—you’ve always been almost annoyingly open about it.
So the silence that follows the question feels louder to her than it probably should.
It’s only a second. Maybe two.
But she sees your eyes shift slightly downward for a moment, like you’re thinking. Like you’re weighing something. And that alone sends a sharp flicker of unease through her chest.
Why are you thinking about that?
Her brain immediately starts running through possibilities. Is the question too personal because it’s coming from a kid? Are you trying to figure out how to phrase the answer without oversharing?
Or…
A worse thought creeps in before she can stop it.
Are you trying to decide whether to lie?
Alysa hates that her mind goes there. But the pause is still sitting there on the screen.
Then you nod. “…Uh,” You say,“I’m happy.”
The clip ends.
She scrolls down to the comments immediately even though she knows she shouldn’t. Someone has clipped just that last question and posted it by itself. Thousands of likes. Thousands of comments.
“Why did she hesitate??”
“If someone asked me if my girlfriend made me happy I’d answer immediately.”
“She didn’t even mention Alysa’s name at all 😭 didn’t say Alysa makes her happy or confirm that Alysa’s the right person she’s talking abt. She just said she’s happy.”
Alysa scrolls faster. Her stomach twisting more with every comment. Because now that people have pointed it out, it’s impossible to unsee.
Alysa squeezes her eyes shut for a second and drops her phone onto the bed. “God,” she mutters under her breath.
This is exactly why she hates internet speculation. It plants ideas in your head that weren’t there before. Now she can’t stop seeing things through that lens.
The hesitation. The wording. The distance between you during the opening ceremony. The way you barely looked at her when you spoke yesterday.
Alysa presses the heels of her hands into her eyes.
None of this makes sense. Because just a week ago you’d FaceTimed and you were showing off your hoodie and talking about how much you missed her.
And before then, you’d been texting her from Aspen. Sending videos of your training runs. Complaining about the cold. Calling her late at night when you couldn’t sleep.
There had been nothing in your voice that suggested something was wrong.
Nothing.
And now—now it feels like she’s watching a version of you that’s slowly pulling away without telling her why.
By the time the sun goes down in Milan, Alysa has watched the videos enough times that the words start to blur together.
Her head feels crowded because the more she watches the clips, the less sense they make.
The internet thinks you broke up. But that doesn’t line up with yesterday.
Yesterday had been weird.
Awkward.
But not breakup weird.
You kissed her on the cheek before walking away. You said you’d call her. That’s not something someone does if they’ve already ended things.
Right?
Alysa rolls onto her side, staring down at her phone again. Her thumb hovers over your contact. She could call. Just ask.
But what would she even say?
Hey. Why aren’t you being overly obsessed with me in public anymore?
The thought makes her grimace.
She tosses the phone onto the bed beside her.
—
The next morning is Alysa’s media day.
She’s sitting between Amber and Isabeau at another long conference table, microphones lined up in front of them. Reporters fill the room. Flashes go off occasionally as photographers capture shots of the three of them together.
The first part of the conference is easy. Questions about their programs. Training adjustments. Expectations for the team free skate.
Alysa sits with her hands loosely folded on the table, listening to Amber answer a question about choreography while Isabeau explains how she’s preparing for her Olympic debut. The rhythm of these things is familiar—question, answer, polite laugh, next question—and Alysa slips into that quiet mode she always does during media events.
Her mind drifts, just enough that the voices in the room start to blur together.
Until when someone says her name. “I have a question for Alysa.”
Alysa remembers him clearly because she’d seen the clip of that moment at least three times the night before, watching it over and over as the internet tore apart every word you said.
Something tightens in her chest before she can stop it. Her jaw sets slightly.
It’s irrational, she knows that.
Reporters ask questions. That’s their job. But right now, seeing his face again sparks a small flash of irritation that feels almost personal.
Because in her head, he’s become the person who started this entire mess.
The person who asked the question that kicked off the speculation. The person who gave the internet the moment it needed to start building theories about your relationship.
It’s not fair to blame him. She knows that.
He didn’t invent the hesitation in your voice.
He didn’t make the opening ceremony awkward.
He didn’t create the strange distance that’s been sitting between you for the past two days.
Something else did that. Something Alysa still hasn’t figured out.
But the irritation is still there anyway.
“Have you been keeping up with Y/N’s interviews from yesterday?”
The room goes quiet for a moment.
Alysa feels every pair of eyes shift toward her. She doesn’t smile. Doesn’t laugh. Her expression flattens almost immediately, the small relaxed look she’d been wearing seconds earlier disappearing like a switch flipped.
Because the truth is—yes.
She has been keeping up with them. More than she probably should have. She’d watched the clips late into the night. Watched the hesitation. Read the comments. Scrolled through people dissecting your words like they were decoding a crime scene.
And every time she’d replayed the videos, she’d only ended up more confused.
So when the reporter asks the question, Alysa doesn’t feel amused. She doesn’t feel like joking about it. Mostly she just feels tired. And a little irritated that the same person who helped fuel the rumors now seems ready to dig for more.
She leans slightly closer to the microphone. “Yeah,” she says. Her voice is steady. Flat. “I watched them.” That’s it. She doesn’t elaborate. Doesn’t add a joke. Doesn’t give him a story or a quote or anything he could turn into a headline.
Just the simplest answer possible.
Across the room, the reporter seems to wait. Like he expects more. Maybe he thinks she’ll expand on it, comment on the speculation or say something emotional or revealing. But Alysa doesn’t move. She just looks back at him calmly. Letting the silence stretch long enough that it becomes clear she’s not going to give him anything else to work with. And eventually he realizes it.
The moment passes.
The next reporter raises their hand. “There’s been a lot of speculation online about your relationship. Is there any truth to those rumors?”
This question makes Alysa itch. Because she doesn’t even know the answer herself. She glances sideways at Amber. Not dramatically but a quick look out of habit. Amber reads it immediately.
Before Alysa can respond, Amber leans toward her microphone. “Guys,” she says lightly, though there’s a firmness under her voice, “we’re all adults here. Don’t listen to rumors on the internet.”
A few reporters chuckle awkwardly. The moderator jumps in right after. “Let’s keep the questions focused on skating and the event, please.”
The conference moves on. But Alysa barely hears the rest of it.
—
Afterward, the three of them are escorted out of the room by a volunteer toward another lounge area.
The moment they’re out of earshot of reporters, Amber slows down. Then she turns. “Alysa.”
Alysa looks at her.
Isabeau is watching too, concern written clearly across her face.
“What’s going on?” Amber asks.
Alysa exhales sharply. “I don’t know.”
Amber raises an eyebrow. “You don’t know?”
Alysa shakes her head. “We were fine like a week before I got here,” she says. “And now it’s just… weird.” She gestures vaguely in the air. “I don’t know what happened.”
Isabeau tilts her head slightly. “You guys haven’t talked?”
“Not really.”
Amber sighs softly. Then she steps a little closer, resting a hand briefly on Alysa’s shoulder. “Okay,” she says in that calm big-sister tone she sometimes uses. “First of all, stop reading internet comments.”
Alysa snorts quietly. “Too late.”
Amber nods. “Second of all… whatever’s going on between you two is probably not what the internet thinks it is.”
Alysa stares down at the floor. “I hope not.”
Amber squeezes her shoulder once. “Until you actually talk to her, don’t assume anything.”
From that point on, Amber keeps a quiet eye on Alysa throughout the rest of the day. If reporters try to push questions about you, Amber jumps in. If interviews start drifting into personal territory, Amber redirects.
By the time the day finally ends, Alysa is exhausted. Emotionally more than physically.
She returns to her room late that night. The building is quiet. Most athletes are already asleep. She changes into sweatpants and a hoodie, brushing her teeth mechanically before climbing into bed.
Her mind is still running in circles. Still replaying the interviews. Still wondering what the hell changed between last week and now.
Her phone buzzes on the nightstand. She reaches for it automatically.
A message from you.
You:
good luck tmr
That’s it. Three words. Alysa stares at the screen. Her confusion deepens.
Because if you’d broken up… You wouldn’t text her that. Right?
And yet, it still feels like she’s somehow being kept in the dark.
Like you know something she doesn’t. Like the entire world is watching your relationship unfold while she’s the only one who hasn’t been told what’s happening.
———
The night passes and for most of the next morning, Alysa feels lost.
Not in the physical sense—she knows exactly where she is. She knows the layout of the arena, the timing of warmups, where her teammates are supposed to be, what the schedule looks like down to the minute. She’s done this long enough that the structure of competition is second nature to her.
But mentally, emotionally—she feels completely untethered. Like she’s been dropped into something she doesn’t understand without any kind of map.
Everything around her is sharp and clear—the ice, the lights, the movement of people—but inside her head, it’s all fog. Nothing connects. Nothing makes sense. Every thought she tries to follow just loops back to the same place and then collapses in on itself.
For two years, your relationship has run on a kind of quiet rhythm.
Predictable in the best way.
You’ve always been the expressive one. The affectionate one.
The one who doesn’t think twice before pulling her into a hug in front of people, kissing her cheek, resting your head against her shoulder when you’re tired.
Alysa had gotten used to it. More than used to it. She’d built entire habits around it. Without realizing it, she’d stopped initiating things. Because she never had to.
You were always there first. Your hand reaching for hers. Your arms around her waist. Your voice saying you missed her before she even had the chance to say it first.
And now suddenly… Nothing.
It stopped like someone flipped a switch. And Alysa doesn’t know how to function in the silence that replaced it.
Now she’s standing in an Olympic arena, surrounded by her team, and she feels like she’s been quietly removed from something without being told. Like she’s been pushed outside of her own relationship and no one thought to explain why.
That’s what makes it worse than just being confused. It’s the feeling of being lost without a reason.
Because confusion usually comes with a cause. Something happens, something changes, and then you react. But this feels like she missed something entirely.
Alysa has always been someone who handles things by shutting them down, simplifying them, pushing them into boxes that make sense.
Pressure? Focus on the program.
Nerves? Control your breathing.
Problems? Solve them or ignore them.
But this isn’t something she can categorize.
She can’t out-train it.
Can’t out-focus it.
Can’t even properly name it.
All she knows is that something is wrong and she doesn’t know what, which is scary. Because it means she doesn’t know how to fix it. And if she doesn’t know how to fix it, then what if it just… keeps getting worse?
The thought sits heavy in her chest as she moves through warmups, barely registering what’s happening around her.
She’s walking along the boards during warmup when it happens.
She’s supposed to be watching Amber run through parts of her program, offering encouragement like the rest of the team, but her mind is somewhere else entirely. She turns her head slightly and walks directly into the padded barrier at the edge of the rink.
The impact isn’t hard, but it’s enough that her shoulder bumps awkwardly against the wall.
“Hey—!” Amber’s voice cuts through the arena noise immediately. She glides over, grabbing Alysa’s arm to steady her. “Whoa. You okay?”
Alysa blinks. “Yeah.”
Amber studies her face for a second. Her eyebrows pull together. “…You sure?”
“Yeah,” Alysa repeats.
But Amber doesn’t look convinced. Alysa almost never zones out like that. Not during competition. Not when the team is preparing for a final. Amber doesn’t push it right there. She has a program to skate. But the concern doesn’t leave her face.
—
When Amber finally comes off the ice after warmup, Alysa is waiting by the boards. Amber walks straight toward her, still breathing a little heavier from the run-through, but the first thing she does is look Alysa up and down again.
“Okay,” Amber says quietly.
“What?”
“What’s going on with you?”
Alysa shrugs. “Nothing.”
Amber stares at her. “You walked into a wall earlier.”
“I was distracted.”
“Yeah. I noticed.”
Alysa doesn’t answer. Instead she turns and starts heading toward the locker room area backstage. Amber follows immediately. They walk down the narrow hallway together, the sounds of the arena fading behind them as they reach the quieter backstage corridor.
By the time they reach the locker room hallway, Amber speaks up again. “Alysa.”
No response.
“Alysa.”
Still nothing.
Alysa pushes through the locker room door and walks straight to their stall. She starts pulling off her gloves, moving through the routine motions like muscle memory.
Amber follows her inside. “Alysa, talk.”
Still nothing.
Amber steps closer. “Alysa.”
That’s when Alysa slams her locker door shut. The sound echoes sharply in the room.
Alysa turns around. “I don’t know!” she blurts out. Her voice is louder than she intended. Amber blinks. “I don’t know what’s wrong!” Alysa continues, frustration spilling out faster now. “I don’t know what happened and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
Amber’s expression softens immediately. She leans against the lockers, listening.
Alysa starts pacing. Back and forth across the small locker room floor. Her hands rake through her hair. “She was fine,” she says, words tumbling over each other now. “We were fine. Like… totally fine.”
Amber doesn’t interrupt.
“Even the morning of opening ceremony we were fine,” Alysa continues. “We were texting, she was sending me stuff from the train, everything was normal.” Her pacing speeds up. “And then we meet in person and it’s like…” She stops. Her hands fall to her sides. “…like we’re strangers.”
The last word comes out quieter. The anger drains from her voice, replaced by something heavier. “I don’t know why,” she says. Her shoulders slump slightly. “And I’m scared and confused and I—” Her voice falters. “I don’t want to lose her.”
The admission hangs in the air.
Alysa swallows hard. “I love her,” she says quietly. “A lot.” She looks down at the floor. “More than a lot.” Her voice drops even lower. “I can’t function without her.”
The room goes silent.
Amber pushes off the lockers and steps closer. She places a gentle hand on Alysa’s shoulder. “Alysa,” she says softly. “You need to talk to her.”
Alysa lets out a short, humorless scoff. Not at Amber. Just at the idea. “Talk and say what?”
Amber shrugs. “Exactly what you just told me.”
Alysa blinks. “What?”
Amber gestures toward her. “Tell her what she means to you.”
Alysa stares at her. Like the thought has genuinely never crossed her mind before.
“Be open about it.”
Alysa frowns slightly. “I mean… she knows.”
Amber raises an eyebrow. “She does?”
“Yeah.” Alysa crosses her arms. “I’m not shy when we’re back home.”
Amber tilts her head. “…Okay.” She pauses. Then says carefully, “What about outside of home?”
Alysa hesitates.
Amber’s expression turns thoughtful “i mean,” she says slowly, “I feel like I’ve only ever seen her be affectionate with you.” Alysa’s stomach tightens. Amber continues. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you be affectionate with her.”
Alysa’s brain starts spinning again.
Does that matter?
Her first instinct is defensive. “Who cares what we’re like in public?” she says quickly. “She knows what I’m like in private. That’s what matters.”
Amber nods slowly. “Yeah,” she says. “Of course.” Then she adds quietly, “But two years in and you can’t kiss your girlfriend in public?”
The words hit Alysa like someone dumped a bucket of ice water over her head.
For a second she just stands there. Her brain suddenly replaying memories she hadn’t examined before.
Amber’s voice continues gently. “That would feel like a punch in the face to most people.”
Alysa swallows.
Her mind flashes back to opening ceremony day. You standing in front of her. The way you didn’t jump into her arms like you usually would. The way your fingers hesitated slightly before touching her hair. The way your expression shifted when she casually said she’d dyed it without mentioning it to you. Then the kiss. That quick, awkward brush against her cheek. The hesitation behind it. Like you were holding yourself back on purpose.
Alysa exhales slowly. “I’ve kissed her before,” she says weakly.
Amber gives her a look.
“We’re a normal couple.”
Amber doesn’t respond.
Alysa continues defensively. “I just don’t kiss her all the time because she’s already doing it before I get the chance.”
Amber tilts her head. “…Maybe that’s the problem.”
Alysa frowns. “What?”
Amber shrugs. “Maybe she feels like it’s a sixty-forty relationship. Maybe she’s pulling back to see if you’ll meet her halfway.”
The room falls silent again.
And suddenly… It clicks.
The way you’d stood there waiting. The way you’d looked at her like you were expecting something she never gave.
Alysa’s stomach drops. “Oh.” The word barely comes out.
For the first time in two days, Alysa understands why everything feels like it’s falling apart.
And the realization makes her chest ache even more because she’s unsure how to make it right.
And for someone like Alysa—someone who’s built her entire life around control, precision, knowing exactly what to do and when—that feeling is almost unbearable.
———
Loser!Alysa doesn’t know how to express her feelings properly and now she’s stuck. Someone help her
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