Alone, she sat there on the bench in the park, just as she had been for quite some time now. The days were growing shorter and colder. This is where she came to escape her own hell, where she felt safe. Anna felt like there were no worries in the world when she came here, away from the sights and sounds of the world. Here the only sounds she could hear were the rustling of leaves, the birds, and the giggles of the small children that play at the playground off in the distance.
Anna knew where she had come from, but she never knew where she was going from one moment to the next. She would try to find food wherever she could all the while staying out of the elements. The park bench offered her one constant in her life of variables. She saw different people every day, save for just one person, and today he wasn't there in his usual spot with his dog. Anna is a girl of very few words thees days, she never speaks to anyone other than herself. She never said 'hello' to the man, never petted his dog.
'It's so peaceful out here.' thought Anna. She closed her eyes and took in the cold winter air, the sounds, the smell of the tree sap dripping next to the bench where she was sitting. 'I wonder where that man and his dog went.?'
A sound stood out from the rest, to her it sounded like heavy breathing and it was getting closer. Anna opened her eyes and saw a medium sized yellow lab sitting right in front of her, panting with a green tennis ball laying on the ground in front of her feet. She noticed the dog's name 'Sven' on his collar. The dog stood in anticipation wagging his tail. She picked up the ball and threw it as hard as she could before sitting back down on the bench.
Anna heard some one calling the dog's name, and by instinct she looked around for whoever was calling for him. Inadvertently her eyes met his, she immediately looked down at the ground and sunk into the bench, a feeble attempt to make herself look smaller and less noticeable, but it was too late. Sven's owner was walking up to her, and surely he would ask her where his dog was.
Anna did not like it when people tried to talk to her. She was the girl who didn't belong anywhere and couldn't talk, the one who wore the same clothes every day. She hated it. Stuck in this never ending circle, Anna didn't want this life, but she also doesn't have the will power to change.
The man approached her, she had been expecting a barrage of words and questions, but instead her ears were met with silence, and after a few seconds she looked up to see if he was still there, their eyes meeting for a fleeting second before looking back down. Anna could almost see the question on his lips. She answers his unspoken question by pointing in the direction that his dog had run off, or rather the direction she had sent the ball. And with that he was gone. She let out a sigh of relief.
Anna smiled to herself for a second, something that was rare thees days. It wasn't long before she could hear a loud panting sound again. She opened her eyes, and there was the dog once again at her feet, staring up at her. This time however, he was on a leash. Anna followed the thin strip of leather upwards with her eyes. The man gave her a polite smile.
"Come on Sven, lets leave this nice lady alone, besides I am sure she thinks you smell like a sweaty dog." said Kristoff to Sven. He gently tugged on the leash and tried to get the dog to move, but instead he sat firmly in front of the girl.
Anna opened her mouth like she was going to say something, closing it immediately after. The man looked at her, noticing she was shivering slightly in the cold air. He took off his jacket and gave it to her. The sudden movement forced her eyes to meet his.
"I would give you the dog too seeing as he really seems to like you, but he is kind of a pain in the ass to deal with sometimes and I don't think you would like that." said Kristoff with a small smile. Inside though he was cringing at his poor attempt to make small talk, sometimes he even wondered why he would try. However much to his surprise, his remark earned him a smile from the girl, along with a very light giggle, barely audible.
Her smile faded. Anna knew that it was inevitable he would try to talk to her at some point, but at least he wasn't asking her questions that she couldn't answer. Kristoff could sense something was amiss with the young girl and felt uncomfortable.
"Come on, Sven!" said Kristoff in a more firm tone of voice and tugging the leash with a slightly greater force than before. The dog gave a faint wine as he reluctantly got up and followed his owner away.
Kristoff felt like he had done his good deed for the day, by giving the young woman his jacket and making her smile. He was sure that his actions would stave off any bad karma that might be headed his way.
"Damn. It's getting really cold out here." said Kristoff to his dog as a shiver went up his spine. Sven didn't really seem fazed by the temperature, but perhaps that is because he is covered in fur. Kristoff quickened his pace as they walked back to the apartment.
'Well, she was a quiet one for sure.' Thinking as he walked.
'The clothes she was wearing were looking a little ragged.'
'She looked rather young too.'
When he got home that evening, he was so tied up in his own thoughts, he had left the sliding glass door ajar, not much but enough for the dog to get his snout in the opening to slide it open further.
Kristoff was awakened by the door bell. "Who the hell is ringing my door bell?" he mumbled as he quickly put some clothes on. He looked out the peep hole and was taken aback by what he saw. Out side the door was a short redheaded girl and what looked to be his dog.
Kristoff quickly scanned the apartment and concluded that Sven was not in present company. The door bell rang once again, bringing his attention back to the task at hand. Slowly he opened the door, Kristoff scanned Anna from toe to head stopping at her eyes. They were watery and blood shot, but not from crying, together with the redness of her face, he reasoned that it was from the cold wind blowing on it.
"Hey, you found my dog! I didn't even realize he was missing until just a few minutes ago." said Kristoff. Anna looked down to the floor and held out the end of the dog's leash toward Kristoff, which he slowly took from her hand. Soon as he did that, Sven scrambled behind Anna's legs. He cocked his head to the side.
"Looks like the dog knows something that I don't" said the man. The dog nudged Anna forward in to the apartment. "I am really sorry about that he is usua-" Kristoff was unable to Finnish his sentence because Anna had taken off back down the hall.
"Okay." said the blond man as he nodded while staring at the door. He looked down at the dog.
"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" he said as he knelt down to take the leash off the dog, soon as he was free, Sven bolted out the door after the girl. "Sven! Dammit!" he yelled.
Kristoff stood and tossed the leash down on the floor, 'Whatever. I am going to eat something. I guess he will come back when he wants too.' he thought as he reasoned with himself.
He had been just about done cooking breakfast, when he heard a bark from the other side of the front door. "And there he is, damn dog." muttering to himself. Kristoff turned the stove off and walked to open the door for his dog, he hadn't been expecting to find the dog growling at the short redheaded girl that had brought him by the first time.
It was almost as if Sven was holding her hostage. He had her pinned against the wall with fear. "SVEN!" yelled Kristoff at his dog as he grabbed him by the collar and pulled him into the apartment. "Leaver her alone! What is your problem?"
Kristoff looked at the girl, who was visibly shaken and upset by the dog's behavior. "I am so so sorry, I don't know what has gotten in to him, here, please come in you look like you could use some help." said the man as he motioned for her to come inside.
Surprisingly she complied, either because of fear or simply because she wanted to, but either way here she was, standing in the home of a stranger. Anna looked around and marveled at all of the stuff the man had in his home. In the grand scheme of things it was nothing more than an old two bedroom apartment but to Anna, it may as well have been a mansion.
"I am going to take Sven out for a walk, um, please make your self at home and help your self, there is food in the fridge and towels in the closet right above the washing machine and dryer. Ill leave you too it." said Kristoff with a genuine smile on his face. He knelt down and put the leash back on the dog and quickly went out the door, leaving Anna all alone in the apartment.
She stood there for a moment while she regained her composure. Slowly she turned around and took in all that the small dwelling had to offer, it had been so long since she had a nice meal or even a shower, in fact she couldn't remember the last time she had. Anna fully intended on taking the blond man up on his hospitable offer. Her first stop was the closet, where the towels and washing machine were. Anna took off her clothes and put them into the wash before grabbing a towel and headed to the bathroom.
She stood there naked, in front of the mirror, looking at all of her scars. They were faint now but the pain was fresh as ever. Anna shook the thoughts from her mind and climbed into the shower. She let the warm water run down her skin as she stood there beside herself, she looked all over her body and felt some tears sneaking up behind her eyes. She was embarrassed at how far she let her self go, she looked like a cave woman. Of course being a man's house there were no tools to remedy that situation.
After her shower, she got out and dried herself with the nice soft towel before wrapping it around herself. Anna walked back over to the washer and dryer and switched her clothes. She then walked to the kitchen and saw where the man had been making, or at least attempting to make pancakes. Before too long she had finished what he had started and had herself a nice hot breakfast for the first time in forever.
As if like clockwork, right as she took her last bite of food, the buzzer for the drier went off. Anna got up and put her dishes in sink and walked over and put the towel she had been wearing around her, into the washer and started it before finally taking her own, now clean clothes, from the dryer and putting them on.
Right as she was about to open the door to walk out an idea came to her mind, she quickly searched for a pen and paper and sat down at the table and began writing the blond man a note. After she finished, Anna went around and turned off the lights and left the dwelling with a smile on her face.
After a while, Kristoff finally came home. He had made sure he was gone for a good long time so as to avoid the young woman. When he opened the door to the apartment, Sven excitedly ran inside bouncing from room to room in search of the young red headed girl. A few minutes of frantic searching, Sven walked back to Kristoff with his head hung low and tail flaccid. The dog had obviously been expecting to find Anna still there when they returned home.
"It looks like she was never here. And look she was able to salvage my pancakes!" said Kristoff. A foreign emotion was building within him.
The expression on his face turned from that of relief to one of curiosity when he saw something out of place on the table. Kristoff walked over to it and picked it up,
Sir,
Thank you for letting me get cleaned up, and get something to eat. I made sure to put everything back in its place. And thank you for the jacket you gave me the other day. And Sven is a good dog, please don't get too mad at him, I forgive him.
And I know you never asked but, my name is Anna.
"My name is Kristoff." he said softly to himself as he sunk into the chair. He sighed and a small smile came to his face. "Why not?" he said. Kristoff then proceeded to take out a pen and paper and formulate a reply.
The next day Kristoff walked to the park with Sven, he had the letter he had written yesterday in his pocket. He had even come up with a really creative way to deliver it to her.
"Here Sven, go and find Anna." he said to the dog as he tucked the letter into his collar. Sven took off galloping away leaving a grinning Kristoff behind. He was thoroughly impressed with him self for coming up with a creative, maybe even romantic way to get the message to her.
A few minutes later, Sven returned, the letter still tucked securely in his collar. Kristoff smiled hopelessly at his own stupidity. "I don't why or how I even remotely thought I would ever see her again."
Kristoff looked at his dog, "Sven, you know why I like you? Because I understand you, well for the most part. People on the other hand, I don't really understand." said the man as he and his dog made their way back to the apartment.
Anna had made a valiant attempt to not be late to the park, she hadn't realized how much that little bit of a connection she had made with the man had meant to her. Anna arrived a matter of seconds after Kristoff and Sven had turned to walk away. Upon seeing this, she felt her heart sink a little. Anna felt like she wanted something from him, like she wanted to even talk to him. As the thought crossed her mind, she immediately put her head down and shook it slightly, never in a million years would she ever talk to anyone ever again, or at least so she thought.
She felt a cold breeze rush across the exposed skin of her face and lifted the collar of the jacket, his jacket, and pushed her face into it, partly because she wanted to protect her face from the cold and partly because she wanted to inhale his scent once again. Whenever she did that, it made her life seem just a little better if even for just a second at a time.