Abbottsford is
Downshire’s administrative capital and the seat of the Downshire government, it
iss also a Cathedral City, is home to Abbottsford Town
football club and benefits from the renowned Winston Churchill Hospital.
It is also a place of learning thanks to the Downshire University,
which is where, long-time friends Abbie Musgrove and Sonja Prinsloo were in their first year.
Both girls
had rooms on the same landing in student halls and spent all their free time
together.
They were
all packed ready for the trip home for Christmas but when it snowed, they
quickly made a beeline for the park, and they were surprised to find that more
students hadn’t had the same idea.
After about
an hour and a half they were both breathless and panting, Abbie sat on a park
bench to catch her breath while Sonja scrambled around in the snow making a
snowman while chatting inanely about the best technique for the perfect
snowman, but Abbie was more focused on the speaker than her words.
Sonja
wasn’t beautiful in the way that most people considered that Abbie was, but she
thought she was only on the attractive side of beautiful by virtue of the fact
that she never wore a scrap of makeup, but she thought with a little makeup on
her pretty face she’d have looked gorgeous.
“More
gorgeous anyway” Abbie thought
She was
suddenly brought back to the moment when Sonja said
“We’d
better get moving”
“What?”
Sonja
pointed heavenward
Abbie
looked up to see the sky had visibly darkened.
“Ok” she
said “Let’s go”
They
scrambled their way back through the snow and on the most exposed part of the
park the moment the snow fell in earnest, big wet flakes, falling like fury.
“Quick this
way” Abbie said and grabbed Sonja’s hand and they ran to the nearest large tree
which offered them some protection from the snowfall, and they were giggling
like schoolgirls when they reached sanctuary and squeezed up close to the
trunk.
Abbie
looked down at the giggling Sonja as large wet snowflakes dripped from the tip
of her aquiline nose.
She giggled
again and put her head back and shook it like a dog would, and that was when
Abbie did it.
Sonja was
only 5ft tall so with Abbie’s 4” height advantage over her she was in the
unusual position of being able to kiss downwards on to Sonja’s inviting lips.
It was a
deliciously gentle kiss to which Sonja responded to in kind.
When they
had stopped Sonja looked up at Abbie and said
“I wasn’t
expecting that”
Then Abbie
kissed her again, a much more urgent, passion filled kiss altogether, perhaps
too much so, because Sonja suddenly pushed her away.
“No, no”
she said “I can’t”
Then she
ran off through the snow
“Sonja!”
Abbie called “Please don’t go, I’m sorry”
But she
just kept going and didn’t look back.
Abbie traipsed
home miserably through the snow, kicking her way through slushy puddles, and
chastising herself for her stupidity, and her haste.
“You idiot,
you stupid idiot, you’ve lost your friend now” she shouted into the snow.
She got
back to her room in halls and silently stripped off her wet clothes and dried
her hair before redressing then she switched on the kettle and got out two
mugs, but she paused and put one back.
Abbie was
just pouring the hot water onto a teabag when there was a gentle knock at the
door, so she put the kettle down and walked to the door and when she opened it,
she saw Sonja standing in the hall looking like a drowned rat.
“I don’t
want to run away” she said pathetically
“You don’t
have to baby” Abbie said “Come inside”
Her heart
swelled as she looked at the beautiful forlorn creature dripping on the carpet,
and she quickly wrapped her in dry towels.
Abbie dried
Sonja’s fine dark brown hair and when she stood there wrapped in fluffy white
towels with damp tousled hair, she looked at Abbie with her big brown eyes and
asked
“Can you
kiss me now?”
Abbie’s
heart skipped a beat and she smiled at Sonja and duly obliged her.
