The Broken Figure

         “You broke it, you fix it” said the man behind the counter. Kyle glared in his direction.

         “I thought it was ‘you break it, you pay it’,” Kyle answered. He looked at the tiny ceramic ballerina in his hand, whose leg he had just broken. It certainly was repairable, a clean break right through the ballerina’s knee. Kyle looked at the man once more, opened his hand, and let the ballerina shatter on the floor. He grinned. “Guess I can’t fix it now.” He turned his back on the man and left the store.

         The tiny bell above the door rang as Kyle walked out into the snow. He could almost feel the man’s rage in the store behind him. In his mind he could see as the old man wobbled from behind the counter, leaning heavily on his cane, trying to keep his balance as he swept up the pieces. The image made him feel warm and snug despite the bitter cold. He barely walked a few paces from the store, savoring his latest misdeed, when suddenly his thoughts were drawn far from the old man and his figurine shop.

         She was a vision. She swept past Kyle in a rustle of snow and curls. The trail of perfume she left behind her smelled sweet, like cotton candy bought in the fair in the summer. Her dark curls bobbed up and down with every step she took. Kyle stopped and turned his head, his gaze following her as she crossed the street. It seemed to Kyle that he had stepped into a fairytale; the tiny skiing village with the small cabins, lights at the doors, fires through windows, the snow swirling about him, and finally, the chance encounter with the princess. Just a glimpse and it was enough for Kyle to fall in love, for the first time in his fourteen years of life. 

         The girl walked to the store’s door and turned back to look at Kyle. Her gaze was cold, piercing. There was no love for Kyle in those eyes. Angrily she pulled open the door, making the bell jingle wildly, and kneeled on the floor to help the old man pick up the pieces of the shattered ballerina. Kyle took a few shy steps to the store’s window. He pressed his forehead against it, watching the girl take the mittens off her slender hands, carefully gathering the shards of ceramic. His breath fogged up the glass, but through the mist he could see that the girl looked at him again. Again that piercing stare, that gaze as cold as ice.

         The bell on the door jingled a third time. A tall boy had walked into the shop, one or two years older than Kyle. He was blonde and handsome, and his eyes were kind. He helped the girl up from the floor and kissed her on the cheek. Then he turned to the old man, who was back behind the counter, and left him some money on the counter. Kyle’s insides squirmed and his face contorted with rage as he saw through the window how the young couple was embracing. She smiled a smile he had never in his life seen before, the smile of a princess, the smile of something pure and white and perfect. Somehow he knew that that smile would never be directed at him.

         He lowered his gaze and began walking away from the store. As he walked away, a shimmer drew his attention from the cobblestones. A few steps before him there was a shining stone on the pavement. He grabbed it and carefully examined it. It was an almost perfect sphere of solid ice, about the size of Kyle’s fist, which glinted when hit by the street lights. He marveled at how perfect it was, how clear and pure. Just like his princess. He turned to look once again at the shop, where the girl, the boy and the old man were cheerfully talking. His heart sank. For a few seconds he weighed the sphere in his hand, and quickly took aim. He threw the ball of ice straight to the shop’s window, shattering the glass and a shelf of figurines. He heard the girl’s shriek of terror, and the old man’s angry roar, but he was already walking away.

         The boy ran out of the shop and caught up to Kyle. With a hand on Kyle’s shoulder he made him turn around. “You will never get her like that,” he said. Kyle pretended not to listen, not to know what the boy was talking about. “I saw how you looked at her through the window. I also saw how she looked at you, and already she hates you, without knowing who you are.”

         Kyle shrugged. “The villain never gets the princess anyways.” And so Kyle walked away, with the image of the beautiful, unattainable princess forever carved into his memory.