Snowstorm surprise
1090 Words
“Miss!”
The voice of the little girl sprinting toward her made Lydia stop in her tracks. The girl clutched Lydia's brown water flask tightly to her chest as she struggled through the crowd to Lydia.
“You left your water flask”, the child said between heavy breaths, her blue eyes bright with excitement that she'd finally made it to Lydia without being knocked over in the bustling train station.
“My graciousness!” Lydia muttered as she dropped her bags and stooped to the child. She was way too tired to smile, but she managed to stretch her lips as she collected the flask.
“Thank you so much.
You're a sweetheart.
Where's your mum?” She asked, tucking the flask into one of her bags and glancing around.
“My mum travelled to heaven,” the little girl said plainly.
Lydia's brows furrowed. Was the little girl joking? She sounded pretty serious. Lydia leaned closer. “What did you say?” Maybe heaven was the name of an estate here in Spain. Who knows?
“Sofia!”
A masculine voice called from above them, and the little girl looked up in reflex. Lydia followed Sofia's gaze and her eyes lit up. A commanding face, broad jawline and sharp chin framed by dark, neatly combed beard. The man's eyes were slightly higher from Lydia's angle, giving him an intense, towering presence as the contours of his cheekbones and nose caught the light.
“We’re running late,” he said calmly.
“Alright Dad.” Sofia responded taking his hand.
“Bye, Senora!” she waved at Lydia as the duo disappeared into the crowd.
Lydia sighed, picked up her bags and headed out of the train station. She needed to get to the guest house before the snowstorm worsened. All the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season was nothing to her now and she hoped to stay at the guest house until the season is over. She had lost her sweet mother three years ago on Christmas Eve and partaking in any of the season’s activities would rip open the wounds she had been nursing to heal.
Outside, she pulled out her phone to have a final glance at the address just to ensure that she had been reciting the right name all along.
She had!
But her phone beeped immediately, the low battery warning blinking like a threat.
“At least I got the address,” she thought out loud, hopes high on charging the phone as soon as she reached the guest house.
“Fifty-Four Stone Street,” she informed the cab driver as she got into the taxi and shut the door.
“That would cost you two fifty,”
“One fifty,” she shot back, rolling her eyes as she sank into the headrest.
“Get off then!” The driver barked.
“Why?”
“If you're not paying two fifty, get yourself and luggage, off my taxi!”
“Fine!” She snapped. Finding this taxi had been hard enough. She wasn't about to go through the stress again because of a hundred bucks.
“I even said two fifty because this is my last trip of the day,” he went on ranting, his Spanish accent saucing up his words as they hit the road.
Lydia's mind had drifted as the taxi driver rambled but the sudden halting of the taxi pulled her back to reality.
“Bloody Nora!” the driver yelled, punching the steering wheel.
“What's going on?” She asked sharply. It better not be another drama of his.
“The snow! I can't drive any further,” he said as he got out of the taxi, wrapping his scarf tightly around his neck and shoulders.
“What do you mean you can't drive any further? How am I supposed to get to where I'm going?”
“What would you then have me do? Carry you on my back?”
“Find a solution then!”
She pushed open the door and as soon as her boot touched the snow, it sank deep. Snow nearly reaching her knees. The tyres were swallowed by thick white layers, and the fog made it impossible to see ahead.
They were at a crossroads. The other roads were less foggy and looked less affected by snow, which made Lydia curse under her breath.
“Why this road?
Why the very one that led to her peaceful, quiet holiday?”
If this was Mother Nature's way of forcing Christmas down her throat, then it'd better focus on healing her than forcing Christmas on her.
Shivering lips, aching back, boots digging into the snow, Lydia hauled her bags and trudged into the thick fog. Not long after, she tripped, crashing into a pile of fallen trees. She managed to get up from the vacuuming snow but the pain on her rib and elbow increased.
“Damn it!” She threw her bag at the pile; eyes heavy, lip bruised, breath cold and shaky.
The sky had darkened, her phone was dead and her bags were covered in snow and scattered in the middle of nowhere.
She decided she'd return to the taxi. Maybe she could help the driver free the tyres so he could at least drive her to a hotel where she could lay her head for the night.
But when she got to the crossroad, it was deserted. The only sign of the driver were the deep tyre marks in the snow.
Her world seemed to crack. Cold and pain stabbed through her body. Frustration pushed tears to her eyes. She considered knocking on one of the houses, maybe someone might help, but all the homes she passed glowed with Christmas lights and trees. Overly joyful, overly painful.
Just when she had gotten to the brim of her exhaustion, headlights cut through the fog. A Cybertruck rolled to a stop beside her.
“Senora!”
A tiny, familiar voice called out.
Lydia turned,
“Sofia?” she gasped.
“And her hot dad,” she said in her thoughts.
“You seem stranded,” Sofia's dad said. His gaze steady on Lydia. “Or do you live around here?”
“I'm stranded. Really stranded. The road to my guest house is blocked, my phone is off, I don't know anyone around here and…”
“You’re cold,” Sofia's dad completed.
Lydia sighed.
“Get in. We'll offer you a bed for the night.”
- Writer
