When the Snow Melts

They had met in a snow covered park as children. Their mothers were co workers at a nearby business and upon finding that their children were close in age, they had decided to set up a play date. One women held the hand of a little girl with an indifference look under her bundles of winter clothing. The small child's gray eyes seemed to lazily look off into the distance while her mother tugged her gently along. The other women held hands firmly with two small girls, both seemingly identical. One girl held a cheerful smile, while the other just frowned.  

"This is Chell," was the lone child's introduction from her mother. "She's kind of shy. Try to be nice to her, ok?" The women smiled down at the twins.  

"Aww, isn't she adorable?" The other women cued over the little girl. "These are my daughter. Caro-"  

The frowning girl yanked her hand away from the women's grip. "I'm not Caroline!" The small girl yelled.  

"I'm sorry, Glados I-" her apology went unheard as the child ran off to the play ground.  

"Sorry, it's a problem having identical twins. Sometimes..." The two remaining child walked off toward the play ground, ignoring anything else their mothers were discussing.  

Chell looked to the real Caroline, who had began to walk in the direction of more children. The girl, now alone, walked to were the other twin was seated on a swing. The two of them sat in silence for a long while before Chell looked over to the girl. Glados had been staring at her for a long while before talking. "Your not going to make me feel better, no matter what you say."

Chell simply smiled at the comment, making Glados raise a brow. Chell's smiled turned into a toothy grin and it stayed as that. Despite Glados' best efforts at trying to hold onto her feeling of anger, found that it was sleeping from just seeing the other girl smiling at her.

True to her word, nothing Chell said made her feel better.  

Years passed from their fated first encounter and Glados was reluctant to admit that Chell had became her best friend. From the first weekend after their meeting to the present, they had sent the night at each others homes. Every spare chance they had, they had spent it together whether it was the movies, the science center, the café, or even that dingy little park from all those years ago.  

Glados was rather frustrated when she realized that almost every passing moment that she thought of the girl and it made her even more frustrated that she didn't know why. She had other friends that could occupy her thoughts, or even school work and her upcoming science project that she had heard about. But no. Her thoughts were centered on that one stubborn, quiet, and rather weird girl she dared call her best friend.  

Glados had figured out her dilemma after sitting through one of Caroline's long and annoying squabbles about how much she liked a boy in her class. Caroline's "symptoms", as Glados called them, were strikingly similar to hers. The only real difference between them, was that the boy of Caroline's fantasies had never spoken to her but Glados was the only person hers would talk to.  

Now she sat with another problem to face. She loved Chell. She loved a girl. Not just any girl, because she figured that being just a lesbian would be a lot easier, but the girl she liked had to be her best friend since they were seven. One time, sitting on the park swings like all those years ago, Glados had tried to tell her friend about her feelings. "Chell?"  

Said girl looked over with her bright eyes, waiting for her to continue. Though her heart screamed for her to just get it over with, something else settled in over it's place. "You're coming to the science center with me tomorrow.."

Chell smiled and nodded her approval of the idea and began to swing. Glados looked down to herself and glared at nothing in particular. Now she had another thing to add to her turmoil list. No only was she in love with the girl who was also her best friend, she was scared to tell her. She had tried to think of the reasons behind her fear, but only one really stood out. She honestly didn't care about what people would think of them. She didn't care what her family thought. The one thing that she cared about, was if Chell would still be her friend after she knew.  

Glados knew of Chell's popularity at school and that never bothered her. The bells had rung not to long ago and Glados was more then ready to take her friend back to her house so that they could work on their project together (of course it would be only natural that they would work together on such a thing). Much to her annoyance, however, was that Chell was no were to be seen. With any sort of permission from the other party, Glados reached into Chell's desk and began to pack her belongings for her. That's when she found it. A small piece of folded paper with Chell's name written on it. Curiosity got the better of Glados and she opened the little note and read it's contents.  

If her glare could make something spontaneously combust, the little note would have. Written on the tiny paper was a small poem (a horrible one if she thought about it), that requested that Chell go down the hallway before school ended. Glados crumbled the small paper into her fist and stormed out of the room, intent on finding her friend. Finding her was no challenge, but the person she was with made her stop in her tracks. A rather tall and muscular boy towered over Chell and was talking to her too softly for Glados to hear.  

Under any other circumstances, she would have saved her socially awkward friend from such an encounter, but she couldn't move from her place. Chell was smiling up at the boy. Something in Glados' heart seemed to clench painfully at the sight, which only intensified when Chell let out a small chuckle at a comment he made. And despite her best efforts, Glados couldn't hold back the tears the leaked from her eyes as the boy leaned down and kissed her best friend.  

Something had broken. She couldn't place what it was, but Glados knew that whatever it was it had broken. She didn't attend school for the next day or the day after that. She simply hid from her mother and sister, not caring if they never found her. She felt crushed, and knew she was taking this badly but she didn't know how else she was suppose to handle something like this. Her heart felt like it was no longer there and her eyes ached but no more tears would fall.  

She just sat in the darkness of her cramped hiding space and stared at nothing. She didn't care for the time, nor did she care about the noises she heard outside of her enclosed area. When she heard footsteps first enter her home, she had dully noted that it was probably her mother, or Caroline, but when those footsteps began to shuffle through the entire house she no longer thought that it was her family. At this stage of her turmoil, she didn't care who it was as long as they left her alone.

Those footsteps drew closer and closer to her hiding space and Glados squeezed her skinny legs closer to her chest. Her wishes of being left in solitude were left unheard as the creaky door to the cabinet she had crawled into opened. The soft fluorescent light of her kitchen leaked into the small space, making Glados turn her tired eyes to the person who had disturbed her. More tears seem to form at the corners of her eyes as she saw Chell's worried face looking in on her. Glados bit her lip and looked away, muttering an angry, "I'm fine, go away."

Chell never moved though, she simply looked at the poor and pathetic appearance of her best friend. Glados growled softly, trying to get the girl to take a hint and leave. Chell, being the most stubborn person she had ever met, continued to look at Glados. "Look, I told you I'm fine! Nothing you can say is going to make this- this feeling go away!"

Chell raised a brow and titled her head, interested in hearing more. "What feeling?"

Glados bit her lip again. What more harm could it cause to just tell her at this point? Anything seemed better then having this sickening feeling of hopelessness. "It's all your fault. Despite anything good you've done for me.. in the end you broke my heart." She choked out a small sob. "You're so stupid. You should have noticed. You should have fixed it!" A stronger sob broke her sentence this time. "You were always there to help before! You always fixed things before but you ignored this.."  

Her voice seemed to have died out one her, turning into small whispers. Chell had leaned forward into the cabinet to hear Glados more clearly. "You let it turn into this... you should have stopped it.." Another weak noise escaped Glados' throat as she turned to look at the cause of all her grief. "Chell, I love you!" She half yelled before crushing her lips against her best friends before shoving her violently backwards and scrambling out of the cabinet to run.

She was caught by the waist and hoisted into the air before she had a chance to stand on her own. Glados squeezed Chell's arms, trying to pry them away from her, but Chell just held her best friend on her lap. Glados stopped her struggle and just sat tensely on Chell's lap. A soft noise came from Chell as she moved one arm to rub Glados' soothingly. Glados turned on Chell's lap as silently to uncharacteristically hug the girl. Chell continued to pat and rub her best friend's back, trying her best to comfort her. After a few moments, Glados had fallen asleep.

Although Glados looked horrible (with puffy tired eyes and a ridiculous blush), she went to school the next day. When she had gotten out of the car, she was immediately hugged by Chell. Glados looked at the girl oddly, her chest still aching from the previous days episodes. "What are you doing...?" she asked in annoyance.

Chell looked up at her with a gentle smile and peaked her on the cheek before whispering something to Glados. Her blush intensified and she couldn't help but smile back. Chell took Glados' hand and tugged her gently toward the school. Just the Glados was about to be lost in thought again by her sudden discovery, her eye was caught by the boy from before. She laughed rather loudly upon noticing that he had a rather large bruise on his face. Chell in turn laughed as well, admitting she had punched him before.

As they entered the school, they had gotten many odd looks and crude whispering began but Glados didn't care. She simply smiled happily as she was lead to her first class by her girlfriend.