She was in love with a soldier. His name was Peter Calveen and young was she when she fell for him. He was beautiful and strong with curly brown hair and enchanting blue eyes that sparkled behind long black eyelashes. But it was not his beauty or his glory that had enticed her to love him for she was in love with his defiance. She was captivated by his valiant and cavalier air and seduced by his command and control. She craved for his confidence and slightly arrogant manner; to taste the taste of vanity and to touch the beauty of pride.
She peered out the window to see the fields covered in leaves of auburn and gold. Delicate drops of dew shimmered upon the leaves in the morning sun like tears. She quickly dressed and quietly stepped outside into the icy air. She walked down the avenue and slipped between the trees to a small bench that looked upon a pond. She did not sit but instead crouched by the frozen ice and touched its fragile surface. No scratches or marks had yet broken the cold mirror and she looked into it at her reflection. Her cheeks and nose were a gentle shade of peach caressing her porcelain skin. Her slightly parted lips kissed the mist in a beautiful passive curve as a small dimple on her left cheek pinched the slanted line of her mouth. Even her breathing took on a musical quality as she panted misty ringlets into the air. Her hair fell in elegant golden curls neatly down the crevice of her back. Her eyes sparkled in a flawless shade of hazel as tints of green tickled the edge of her pupil. She looked upon the ice past her reflection to just admire the perfection of each ice crystal.
She thought of Peter’s eyes. They were hard and cold, yet the most enticing blue like the angry sea in the early morning trying to destroy the sand in beautiful foam punches full of tortured beauty. She thought of his body broken in scars, each one seeming like a delicate stitch holding him together. She thought of his lips flavored with sin and curse but still capable of seducing even the purest of angels. Her pulse tickled her veins like laugher as she thought of his heart tired and worn but still throbbing a glorious battle of youth and honor.
She looked again at her face and then into the ice itself. Then, closing her eyes, she raised her hand over her head and drove her fist into the cold stone. Her slender delicate fingers crippled, her knuckles becoming numb and swollen, as her fingernails cracked and shattered. She rose, smiling, and walked away leaving behind her a small crack in the ice.
Clutching her bruising hand as shattered droplets of icicles fell from her eyes to stain her skin in permanent misery, she received word that Peter Calveen had died in combat. A bullet to his heart.
Said the mail boy, “I’d never seen such a beautiful girl before. One becomes so captivated by the tint of ice blue around the edges of her eyes. Winter is here.”