The first time he lost it was to a pretty little red-haired girl with eyes the color of dewy green grass under the fresh morning sun. (341)

At only six years old, Ian Kabra knew he was not like the other kids. He played alone, he ate alone and he did his arts and crafts alone.

Neither of his parents seemed worried at the fact that their first child was so quiet and so alone, despite how his kindergarten teacher fretted and frowned at this lonely, little child with the most vibrant pair of amber eyes she had ever seen.

No one should ever be so lonely this early in life, she had urged to his parents. The tall, imposing man had barely glanced her way and the slender, sharp-eyed woman had merely smiled thinly at the parent-teacher conference. Neither said any word more or less on the subject.

But one day, something changed. The teacher sat at her desk, carefully watching each of her students as they worked on their shapes. She had held up a double-curved shape and called it a heart. This, she had told them, was the most important thing in the world. One that every person had inside them and that it was a very special thing to have.

Blue eyes gazed around the room until they came upon an unusual sight. A little red-haired girl had approached Ian Kabra. Her eyes, the color of gleaming emeralds, were wide and curious as she watched him try to mimic their teacher's paper heart.

She watched as Amy Cahill shook her head and shot him a toothy grin, before plucking the jagged-edged, odd-shaped heart he had made and softening it into a closer figure to the one on display.

The handsome boy watched how the pretty girl maneuvered the purple scissors around his paper heart, his eyes gaining more life than the teacher had ever seen since he arrived in her class.

Maybe, the teacher had thought at the end of that day as she watched the new friends play in the sand box together, their sounds of giggles and laughter intertwining and dancing like whimsical musical notes, Ian Kabra had just found his heart.