~ 1 week later ~

“Hey, Lightning! What are you doing?”

Lightning looked down from the tree she was currently climbing in the front yard, just now noticing that her dad had arrived home from work.

“How many times have I told you not to climb trees after it’s just snowed?” he called to her, getting out of the car.

“And how many times have I done this when you weren’t around, and turned out to be just fine?” she responded, laughing slightly. “Besides, it only snowed…well, a lot.”

Her dad shook his head, walking closer. “It’s going to be too slippery and the branches are much more likely to break if they’re wet,” he explained. “Now, carefully come down.”

Lightning sighed. Her dad had always been way too protective over her, but ever since the train crash, it had been worse than ever. She made her way down, knowing he wouldn’t leave her alone until she was safely on the ground.

“You ruin everything, you know that?” she told him, jumping down from the lowest branch.

“Well, at least you’re safe,” he smiled, heading inside. “I’ll start making dinner.”

Lightning didn’t respond, getting her phone out and checking her messages. There were several unopened texts, as she hardly ever ended up reading most of the things people sent to her. There were a few missed calls from her boyfriend, Snowfall, and he rarely ever called her for no reason. As she was about to call him back, something else got her attention.

“Hey, Dusty,” Minty called to her as she and Frosty approached down the sidewalk. “I just love your neighborhood, you know. My house is nice, but honestly when I move out, I’d just like to live in a cute little house like yours.”

“You’re the only one who thinks so, Minty,” Lightning said, putting her phone back in her pocket. “So, what’s up, you guys?”

“Not much,” Minty replied. “Wishing we were still on holiday break. What are you doing out here? Just admiring the pretty snowflakes?”

Lightning laughed. “That’s more of your thing, Minty. I was climbing this tree but my dad made me come down.”

“Oh no, Dusty, it’s not the time to climb trees,” Minty told her. “The snow makes them really slippery and the branches get weak. Besides, didn’t you fall out of that thing when you were little?”

“Yeah, like 12 years ago,” Lightning said.

Frosty raised an eyebrow. “Why were you climbing trees when you were- wait, because it’s you. Never mind.”

“So, does this mean you’re not doing anything?” Minty asked.

Lightning looked at her suspiciously. “Why?”

“Well, we were just going over to Minty’s place for the evening,” Frosty said. “You weren’t answering any of our messages, so we thought maybe something was wrong. But it looks like you’re fine.”

“Oh, whoops, I actually left my phone inside,” Lightning said quickly, though the other girls looked unimpressed.

“…you were just on your phone when we got here,” Frosty told her simply.

I really need to think before I speak, Lightning thought to herself. “Alright, well let’s not live in the past, are we going to Minty’s house or what?”

Minty rolled her eyes. “Sure, let’s go.”

~.~.~.~.~.~.~

The girls stood around Minty’s kitchen, Frosty flipping through the pages of a cookbook. They had planned on baking cookies, and Frosty was searching for the recipe.

“Here it is,” Frosty finally announced, proudly holding up the book. “Minty, do you think you’ve got all this stuff?”

Minty carefully read over the ingredients. “Looks like we do. Oh, this looks confusing. You’re the one who’s got a thing for cooking, Frosty.”

“That is true,” Frosty said. “I’m the best baker in our little group, anyways.”

Lightning looked up from her phone. “Well, I’m sure it’s not that hard. All you do is follow the directions. It’s not exactly a skill, Frosty.”

“It does take a lot of practice,” Frosty said. “You need to be really specific with the measurements, and it takes quite a bit of patience, too. Not your thing, Dusty.” She reached in the pantry and pulled out a mixing bowl and a bag of flour.

“Frosty,” Lightning looked at her. “You really think you can make better cookies than me?”

“Well, you haven’t ever done it before and I’m used to cooking,” Frosty said. “So, yeah, I guess I am.”

Lightning smiled. “Challenge accepted.”

“Wait, I’m sure she didn’t mean it that way,” Minty said, watching as Lightning got out her own mixing bowl. “Right, Frosty?”

“Oh no, I definitely did,” Frosty replied. “She’s not going to take my baking skills seriously until she actually realizes how hard it is. Let her try, see how far she gets. It’s a good thing you have 2 ovens!”

Minty sighed, sitting on a chair in the dining room. She knew once her friends got caught up in any kind of contest, there was no reasoning with them. Their friendship was definitely back to normal.

Frosty set the cookbook on the counter between them, and went to the cupboard in search of measuring tools. She found the cups she needed and went to locate the other ingredients in the fridge when Lightning shoved her aside.

“Hey, watch it,” Frosty snapped at her. “We’ve got all evening, you know, and I hope you’re not gonna be in such a rush when you’re cooking. Hand them to me.”

Lightning walked past Frosty, setting the ingredients on the counter. “Well, you think highly of me, don’t you? I’m not completely careless, you know.” She glanced quickly at the recipe and then scooped some flour out into the bowl. Frosty held back from correcting her, trying to concentrate on her own instead. However, it was difficult when there was flour flying everywhere, and the occasional swearing coming from Lightning’s side of the kitchen.

After a few minutes, Frosty was just beginning to pour out the proper amount of vanilla when Lightning grabbed the cookbook.

“Hey, I need to see that,” Frosty said, reaching to take it back.

“I’ll just be a second,” Lightning said, taking it over to one of the ovens and hurriedly looking it over. 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes, that seemed like way too long. She looked back at Frosty, who was organizing her measuring tools and laughed to herself. This was way too easy; she would have hers done before Frosty even got hers in.

She gave the book back to Frosty before going to her oven and turned the temperature up as high as it went. 500, that wasn’t too bad. If she took them out at around 8 minutes, she should get the same result in a lot less time. As she put the sheet of cookies inside and pushed ‘start’, she turned to see what Frosty was doing.

Frosty was carefully measuring chocolate chips in a cup, looking the other direction. Lightning smiled mischievously, scooping up some of the butter that was left. Just as Frosty started to turn around, Lightning reached up and rubbed it into Frosty’s hair, bursting into laughter. Frosty ran her hand through her long blue hair, getting butter all over her hands.

“Oh, you’re in for it now,” Frosty said.

“Oh, am I?” Lightning asked, still laughing. “What are you going to-” but she never finished, as before she could, she found herself covered in flour. She wiped the flour from her eyes, now seeing Frosty smirking at her.

“Oh, it is so on!” Lightning said, grabbing a handful of flour and throwing it at Frosty’s face. They threw ingredients back and forth a few more times before Minty ran over and stopped them.

“What are you doing?!” Minty shouted, taking the bag of flour and setting it aside. “This is going to take hours to clean up, and my parents will be home anytime!”

The 2 girls looked at each other for a moment, when suddenly Frosty sniffed the air a few times.

“Um…Dusty?” she glanced around, before setting her eyes on the oven. “What did you do?!” She cried out, running over.

Lightning’s eyes went wide as she heard the smoke alarm, realizing she forgot to set the timer for her cookies. She ran over and coughed as she opened the oven and some more smoke poured out.

“I turned it off!” Frosty shouted over the incessant beeping of the smoke alarm, coughing a little. She waved the smoke out of her face as Minty grabbed some oven mittens, getting the pan out after a minute. She dropped it on the counter, looking at the black circles that were supposed to be cookies. After most of the smoke had gone out the windows, Minty and Frosty turned to glare at Lightning, who was standing off to the side of the kitchen.

“Frosty, I’ve got to admit…” Lightning started, entering the kitchen.

“Yes?” Frosty said, knowing her point had been made.

“This was so much more fun than I ever expected!” Lightning said, causing Frosty to groan in frustration. “Baking is awesome!”

Frosty had no idea what to say. She glanced at the mess, remembering the food fight, and then back at the girls. “Well, talk about extreme cooking,” she said, before unusually bursting into laughter. Minty was about to join in until she heard her phone ringing, picking it up hesitantly.

“Oh, no,” Minty said as the phone continued ringing. “It’s my mom, they must be on the way home. We need to clean this up right now!”

“Most of it is flour,” Lightning said, brushing off her clothes. “And we know whose fault that is. Frosty, what have I told you about being careless?”

Frosty simply rolled her eyes. “Where’s the cleaning supplies?”

~.~.~.~.~.~

After about half an hour, the girls had gotten most of the mess cleaned up, except for the faint smell of smoke in the air. Minty hoped her parents wouldn’t notice. Frosty had washed her hair and gotten most of the butter out, and Lightning had changed into one of Minty’s extra outfits as hers was still full of flour.

They sat on the living room couch to watch a movie, one that Minty had chosen. It was a romantic comedy, which Lightning found to be boring and cringey in the first minute of watching. She was scrolling through her phone instead, deciding it was finally time to read her unopened messages.

Some of them were memes from her friends, and others were ‘good morning’ or ‘goodnight’ texts from her dad. She finally got to Snowfall’s messages, and saw the latest one which read,

“I need to talk to you.”

She looked up at the other girls and saw that Frosty was also on her phone, and Minty was way too involved in the movie to even know if she was there or not. She got up and went to one of the extra bedrooms, closing the door. When she called Snowfall, he instantly picked up.

“Hey, what are you doing?” he asked in his usual monotone voice.

“Been a little busy, alright?” Lightning responded. “My friends wanted to do something, so I’m at Minty’s house. But she put on a long cringey movie, so I’ve got a few minutes.”

“Oh, it won’t be long,” Snowfall said. “I’m just going to say it. I’ve found someone else.”

Lightning paused for a minute before laughing. “Good one. Like you could find anyone better than me even if you wanted to. Anyways, what are you-”

“I’m serious,” Snowfall cut her off. “There’s another girl who I met, and she also goes to Crystal Prep. Lightning, I’m sorry to do this, but it wasn’t like you valued our relationship anyway.”

“Well…” Lightning started, wondering if she should tell him the truth, but decided against it. “I have a lot of other things going on right now, okay? I can’t just change my life for you.” She stopped to force a laugh. “You know, this is your loss, Snowfall. There are plenty of other guys, and probably girls, who would do anything to go out with me. I can get whoever I want. You have fun with her, I’ll just…yeah. Bye, Snowfall.”

With that, she hung up, standing in the middle of the room for a minute before throwing her phone on the nearby bed. She sat down, staring out the window. What she told Snowfall was mostly true. She had been asked out by many of the other Crystal Prep students before, but turned them down. They were too ordinary for her. Snowfall was different, and though she hated to admit it, she loved him. She had gone on lots of dates, but never would have gone so far to say she ‘loved’ anyone else.

“No, snap out of it,” she whispered to herself, taking deep breaths. It had happened again. She let herself get emotional, and that wasn’t supposed to happen. It was going to be okay. She was a tough girl, and a breakup wasn't going to affect her like this. Just as she got up, she heard a knock on the door.

“Dusty, are you in here?” Minty’s voice called.

Lightning took a deep breath, going to open the door. As soon as she saw Minty, she put on her usual smile and acted normal.

“Hey, just uh…had to take a call from my dad,” she said. “Did I miss anything?”

“The movie’s over,” Minty told her. Lightning quickly looked at her watch, noticing it had been half an hour since she left.

“Well, I should be getting home,” Lightning said, walking past Minty and grabbing her bag and smiling at Frosty. “Baking was great, can’t wait to do more.”

Frosty chuckled, waving to her as she headed out the door as well. “Goodnight, Dusty.”

⚡⭐⚡⭐⚡⭐⚡⭐⚡⭐

Author's Note

Yes, I updated twice today. This is probably my favourite chapter I've ever written, it was so much fun!! It looks like this book is going to be a little longer than I planned at first.
I would love to know your thoughts!!