A/N: So, I was using the story generator on seventhsanctum, and this was one of the ones I got. Apologies if it's a little forced or, well... bad. I sory of wrote it with a contest in mind, so, yeah, maybe sorta forced. Honest feedback, please. Taking suggestions for the title. Been playing with this theme a lot lately, and I'm sure you can expect more stories on it from me. Don't know how realistic the ending is... but whatever. You can give me your opinion in your REVIEW (coughcough)

Challenge: The story is set during a snowstorm. The story takes place in the late morning. A character is deceptive throughout most of the story. During the story, a character makes a life-changing decision.

Snowstorm

Cassandra Jan Kelly sat on the sill with her knees pulled up to her chest, staring out the cold-fogged window. Her own eyes stared back at her, gray as the sky outside, deep-set and framed by the curly mass of blondish-brown hair that fell past the window’s end. With a sigh, she extricated an arm from the woolen blanket draped around herself and rubbed a spot on the glass clean with her sleeve, for the umpteenth time that morning.

Snowflakes drifted lazily down from the sky to settle on every available surface. The ground was blanketed in a pure, untouched white, while the clouds above formed a solid mass of steel-grey.

There were footsteps behind her. Cassie turned, shrugging her slipping blanket more over her shoulders.

Coming gracefully down the stairs was a curvy brunette, her tousled chestnut hair still somehow managing to fall on either side of a part, cascading down her back in shimmering wave and setting off the golden tan of her delicate, willful face.

She raised a hand to cover a yawn, and Cassie grinned in spite of herself. “Morning Steph,” she said, shifting to make room for her friend on the sill.

Steph sat beside Cassie, taking the proffered end of the blanket and draping it over her legs. She glanced out the window, and Cassie could see her slowly expel a breath of wonderment as her eyes lingered on the backyard and the scene before her. “Wow,” she said softly, reverently.

Cassie gave a small smile. “Yeah, I know.”

They sat in silence for a moment longer, peering through the frosty windowpane at the swirling world of white.

“How long’ve you been up” asked Steph finally.

Cassie stretched luxuriously, working the kinks from her body after sitting still in the cold for so long. “Eight-ish.”

Steph looked at her watch and flinched. “You’ve been up for two hours?” Cassie laughed and nodded. Steph grimaced. “You should’ve woken me. I slept so late. And I didn’t want you to be, like, insanely bored, waiting around for me to wake up.”

“It’s okay,” said Cassie with a shrug. “It’s nice out there.” She nodded at the window and the outside.

Steph looked out the window for a moment more. “More fun than watching me sleep, that’s for sure.”

Cassie’s laugh sounded forced to her own ears, and she hoped that Steph was still too groggy to notice. The truth was that Cassie had spent a lot of the time she’d been awake doing just that.

“Breakfast?” she asked, possibly a bit too brightly, in an effort to change the subject.

Steph shrugged. “You can if you want. I don’t usually eat breakfast.”

“Okay,” said Cassie, handing the blanket off to Steph and standing. “I had a little something that’ll hold me till lunchtime.” She crossed the room to the closet, opened it, and started rummaging around behind the many hanging jackets.

Steph looked at her curiously. “What’re you doing?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m going outside.”

Steph lounged against the wall, watching with some amusement as Cassie struggled to pull on a boot. “Clock is ticking, Cass,” she called; she was already decked out in full snow regala.

Cassie groaned. “Tell that to the boot.” Steph laughed, and went to her friend’s side to try to help.

Between the two of them, they managed to get the stubborn shoe onto Cassie’s foot. “Thanks,” said Cassie with a giggle, straightening and grabbing a heavy coat off of the peg beside the closet. Steph just grinned, putting on her gloves in a businesslike manner. Cassie reached around her and pulled open the door.

A blast of cold, crisp, winter-smelling air struck them both in the face. Shielding her eyes from the flying snowflakes borne by the wind, Cassie stepped outside, Steph behind her, and shut the door.

Turning around, Cassie took a huge breath of the brisk, wonderfully refreshing wintry air, feeling it in her lungs and in her entire body. She could feel the tingling of snowflakes melting on her cheeks and, seized by a childlike impulse, stuck out her tongue, with her head tilted skyward.

Steph, watching, grinned. “No one ever accused you of being acting your age, Cassie,” she said, and Cassie laughed out loud.

All the same, there was something about the scene. It was just that… however much things changed, the year’s first snowstorm would be the same, the glistening white covering everything would remain. There was something magical about it.

“Hell with it,” Cassie said over her shoulder as she walked into the center of the yard, savoring the crunch of the fresh snow as her boot tamped it down, and the fact that it was her making the first footprints in the untouched snow. “The first snow only comes once a year.” And with that, she launched herself forward.

Steph’s laughter and footsteps were muffled through the snow that had fallen around her ears. Levering herself up from the ground, extremities red and stinging with cold and melted snow dripping down her face and hair, she shook her head vigorously, sending droplets of water flying in all directions. “Man, I am awake.”

Squatting beside her, Steph trailed a gloved hand through the snow. “That might be,” she said, straining to keep from bursting out in giggles again, “the stupidest thing I have ever seen you do!”

In one smooth motion, Cassie pushed herself off the ground and into Steph, who gave an uncharacteristic squeak and toppled into a fresh patch of snow. She emerged spluttering. “No,” she corrected herself, “that was the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”

There was a moment of silence. Then, a broad grin broke out over Steph’s face and she seized a handful of snow, throwing it at Cassie. Cassie scrambled to her feet and made her own snowball in retaliation, hurling it and narrowly missing her friend’s head.

And thus, the great snowball fight had begun. Cassie flattened herself against the wall of her house and Steph’s snowball burst harmlessly on the wooden paneling. She was bending down, making her own ammunition, when a second snowball struck her on the top of the head, the wetness trickling down through her woolen ski cap. Cassie gasped as she felt the freezing cold water on her face. Then, spurred into motion, she sprang forward and hurled the clump of snow she still clutched in her hand.

More snowballs were exchanged, the two girls happily shouting curses and insults at one another, until finally, frozen and shivering, Steph called out hoarsely, “Truce!”

Breathing heavily, Cassie emerged from her shelter behind the mailbox, massaging the circulation back into numb fingers. “I can’t feel my hands,” moaned Cassie, grinning.

“Should’a worn thicker gloves.” Steph, also slightly out of breath, still smiled, holding up her hands, snug inside thick, insulated ski gloves.

“Probably a good thing we stopped,” said Cassie, with a glance at her watch. “But then again, I guess I was beating you so badly I—What?" A maniacal grin was slowly spreading across Steph’s face. “What?” asked Cassie again, warily.

Without any warning, Steph sprang at Cassie, grabbing her around the waist, and, laughing, the two girls wrestled each other to the ground, landing in a heap. Little drifts of snow fluttered up, and were caught up on the wind. Cold stung Cassie’s face as she lay squished under Steph, one cheek pressed into the snow.

Her breath caught in her throat as her cold-slowed brain registered the warm weight on top of her. Steph’s body heat somehow blocked out the cold all together. Cassie’s heart was for some reason thudding at the contact, and she was suddenly hyper-aware of every point where their bodies touched. There was a strange heat rising in her, an urge to feel more of Steph on her, to hold her closer…

Cassie wriggled out from underneath Steph, head reeling. She stumbled, unsure of her footing, as she scrambled to her feet, not even sure of where she was going of what she was doing, what she was feeling, except for the knowledge that she had felt something powerful that she couldn’t describe for her life, and her cheeks burned with humiliation and shame at the thoughts she had had, and that she had to be somewhere, anywhere, away from here, somewhere where she could stop the world and sit and think and figure out what she had felt. And maybe what she had always been feeling.

And with that realization, she stopped dead in her tracks, just as a hand caught her arm. She turned slowly, her mind caught up in a blur of frightening possibilities, hundreds of different, horrible outcomes of this one conversation, with one of her best friends.

“What is it?” asked Steph, confusion in her voice, and even fear. And why not? Cassie had just tried to run away, for what seemed like no reason at all.

Cassie let out a trembling breath and looked away, fixing her eyes on a point over Steph’s shoulder, a tree branch laden with snow.

“What is it?” asked Steph again. Her voice was gentle. She stared beseechingly at Cassie, confused and lost, looking for some scrap of information that she could use to help her friend.

Cassie finally looked at Steph, and saw the worry and concern shining in those captivating, rich brown eyes. She drew another deep breath, and cold, invigorating air flooded her lungs. It cleared her head a bit; not very much, but enough for her to see what she should do. Or maybe, shouldn’t do. Nothing was really certain anymore, because Steph had been her friend, before, and now she was…

“There’s something I need to tell you,” blurted Cassie, tongue moving independently of her mind, which was still deciding whether or not she should speak. Steph looked at her expectantly, and Cassie fumbled for words. “I... I’ve been thinking…” she said slowly, haltingly, searching for the right way to phrase this, or for any way to phrase it. “I… I…”

She stared helplessly around her. There was no way she could say this. To say it was to admit what she was feeling, and to utterly destroy the friendship she had with Steph. There was absolutely no way.

“Cassie.” The soft voice startled her out of her thoughts. “Cassie,” said Steph again, quietly, gently, but insistently, and Cassie had to look up. “Cass, just say it. Whatever it is, it’s okay, I promise.”

How would she be able to keep that promise?

But how would Cassie be able to keep this inside of her forever, and never know what it was that she was feeling?

Cassie looked into Steph’s eyes again, and saw the compassion and love in them, the warmth and security they promised. And she felt a fluttering in her stomach, and a single coherent thought drifted through her mind: now or never.

Cassie stepped forward, even closer to Steph, and looked up at her. She raised a hand and tenderly brushed a lock of chestnut hair, damp from the snow, off of Steph’s face. And her hand lingered there, and slowly, hesitantly, Cassie leaned forward and kissed her.

Her whole body tingled in excitement as their lips met, and for a single moment, time had stopped, and all that her world consisted of was that kiss. She pulled away slowly, reluctantly, still feeling a buzzing on her mouth, filled with elation. Then, abruptly, she came to her senses and realized what she had just done. And she turned and ran, to go somewhere, anywhere, sort out her mind and figure out what was happening to her, inside of her, her feet crunching through the white powder on the ground and the wind whipping snow into her face. And as she rounded a corner onto the next street, she glanced behind her.

Steph was just standing there, staring after her, one hand on her lips.