Jack Frost first noticed the pretty blond girl with the green eyes at a Barnes and Noble bookstore on the first day of September.
He was browsing the murder mystery section, wondering if perhaps he should take a coffee break, when he smelled strawberries and noticed a blond ponytail attached to a pretty face engrossed in the synopsis of a James Patterson as she clutched some Starbucks drink in her free hand.
He turned back to the mysteries without a second thought.
The second time, he was standing near the Doctor Who table, wondering which piece of junk his friend Hiccup would best like for Christmas, when she danced by, heading into the journal section with a steaming cup in her hand. He smelled chocolate and smiled, as she picked out a leather bound notebook and happily declared it perfect before spilling hot chocolate on it and laughing while buying two.
"Isn't it lovely?" she asked him as she strolled to the cash register, smelling of strawberries and hot chocolate and fresh paper.
Jack nodded.
The third time, he was crouched on the floor, examining action thrillers when feather light blond hair brushed his arm and a girl rushed by, carrying six books in a haphazard stack.
Jack turned around, only to see the books on top slip off the stack and thump to the floor. Without a thought, he quickly picked up the book and returned it to her arms.
"Pride and Prejudice, huh?"
"Yep, it's for school!" She was bubbly and bright, and her blond ponytail danced as she nodded. "But I have to get home right away-my mother will be so upset if I'm not home in five minutes-not to mention she'll be so upset that I've gotten so many books-"
With this revelation, the girl sadly returned a book of fairy tales and a romance to one of the many shelves.
"Thank you, though," she said, before turning to the cash register to pay and disappearing through the doors.
The fourth time, Jack asked her name.
With a luminous smile and a bell-like laugh, she skipped to the children's section and picked up a book of fairy tales.
"Rapunzel," she said, pointing to the golden haired princess in the book. "They say I had so much hair when I was born that my mother had no choice but to name me after her."
Jack found himself smiling as well as he shook her small hand.
"Nice to meet you, Rapunzel.
I'm Jack."
The fifth time, he learned that she lived alone with her mother and liked chocolate croissants.
The sixth time, he took one look at her ever present cup of Starbucks hot chocolate and bought her a chocolate croissant to go with it.
After that, there were several times, and they slowly got to know each other. Jack learned that she was fresh out of a relationship, that she liked flowers and art, and yearned to be free from her controlling mother. Rapunzel learned that he hung out mostly with his volunteer friends, liked winter and the color white, and had a sister that he never talked about.
She saw how grateful he was that she didn't ask.
The eighteenth or twenty first or thirtieth time, when Jack had long since stopped keeping track, she had no cup in her hand and no smile on her face, so Jack handed an extra two dollars and eighty cents to the Starbucks cashier and a Vente hot chocolate alongside the usual chocolate croissant to the blond girl by the cookbooks.
"Rough day?" he asked, as she cracked a small smile and drank in the chocolate scented steam.
"You could say that," she said, swirling the cup. "Family problems, I guess."
Before she could say more, the phone in her hand vibrated angrily, and as she glanced at the screen, her small smile evaporated once more.
"Thank you," she said sadly, "for this. I'm sorry, but…family."
She looked dejected as she plodded out the doors, her small form hunched over and crumpled like the dead leaves outside.
She wasn't there.
Jack sat at the two person table in the Starbucks café in the Barnes and Noble that had become their table. A chocolate croissant sat at the ready in front of the chair where Rapunzel usually sat, and Jack held a gift for her. Christmas was quickly approaching, and Jack felt that the girl who had somehow become one of his closest friends deserved some token of appreciation.
He waited for a few hours, the messily wrapped present sitting silently on the table, the croissant growing stale. Finally, when it had been dark for three hours and below freezing for four, he stood up, dropped the croissant into a trash can, tucked the crinkled package under his arm, and left the bookstore.
She wasn't there the next day, either.
Or the next.
Or the next.
Or the next.
Jack grew worried. No longer was he afraid that she had just grown bored with their bookstore chats, but instead that something had happened to her. But with no phone number, address, or name other than Rapunzel, there was nothing her could do.
Except wait, and as the days wore on, slowly cease his once daily visits to Barnes and Noble.
On December twenty fourth, Jack returned to the bookstore that he had avoided for two weeks. He could have been, should have been helping his friends Aster and Sandy pass out gifts to needy children, while North played Santa and Tooth his enthusiastic elf, but Jack's heart just wasn't in it and he wandered away, only to automatically walk to Barnes and Noble.
With a sigh, Jack walked in to the warmth of the store and out of habit, slid into the chair at his usual table.
Their usual table.
He tossed the package that he had been carrying around since the beginning of December onto the table with another sigh, and watched as the only other customer in the café, a girl with short brown hair and a long purple scarf, stepped up to order.
Christmas Eve and he was sitting in a Barnes and Noble Starbucks.
He stood up to leave, throwing the package into the trash can next to him, when the girl from the counter bounced into the chair opposite him.
He nearly brushed her away, determined to wallow in his sadness, when he caught a whiff of hot chocolate and noticed the name on the cup.
Could it be-?
It was. Though mangled and misspelled, the name was clearly intended to be Rapunzel.
Jack slammed down into his chair, eyes wide and disbelieving.
"Rapunzel?"
She grinned at him, her eyes glittering emeralds, her hair short and brown, her smile sunshine and summer. Her hair was different, but it was no less her. Rapunzel.
"Hi, Jack," she said, her voice happy and sad at the same time.
"Rapunzel," he repeated stupidly, and then he was hugging her to his chest and she was crying and hugging him back and it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
"Rapunzel," he said once more as they pulled apart, meeting her watery green gaze, "where have you been?!"
"It's a long story," Rapunzel said, wiping tears away happily.
"I have time to hear it, trust me," Jack said. "But, um, first…"
With a start, Jack realized what he had done with her gift and jumped at the trashcan, reaching down and grabbing the crinkled package with one hand.
It was crumpled and wrinkled and had a cold coffee stain on one of the corners, but it was still a gift, and they sat down at their table as he slid it to her.
"Merry Christmas," he said, as she ripped the paper off with delight.
A book of fairy tales, the book of fairytales that she hadn't been able to get the third time and had used to introduce herself the fourth time.
Rapunzel smiled at him, tears returning to her eyes, and he smiled back.
"Open the cover," he said softly.
She did, and there on the inside of the cardboard cover was a letter, handwritten in blue ink.
'Dear Rapunzel,' it read,
'Although I've only known you for a few months, I feel like we've been friends for years. Your smile, your laughter, your energy…it all seems so familiar and I love it all. I know you've been having a bad time recently, and hopefully this book will make you feel a little better. Jack.'
"Oh, Jack," she began, and she rose to hug him, but he put his hand up.
"Turn to page twenty one."
She did, and a loose sheet of paper drifted into her hands, words written in the same blue ink and the same scrawled handwriting as the note on the inside front cover. The image it had been covering was of Rapunzel's prince, carrying her across thorns to a glittering castle.
Rapunzel read the words of the second note out loud.
"Rapunzel, maybe sometime you could let me take you out to dinner? Something better than a cheap chocolate croissant?"
Her lips on his was the only answer Jack needed.