Short Valentine's Day Story - Val's Heart

Once there was a teenage boy called Val, named after Saint Valentine, the historical figure who inspired what is now known as Valentine’s Day.

Val had a good heart but a lonely soul, his shyness preventing him from finding true love.

Actually, he believed he had found true love, in a girl from school named Tracy, but she was a full year older than he, and he had no confidence to talk to her, so he only admired from afar.

One day while walking home from school Val came across a heartshaped cookie cutter. It was lying on the sidewalk in front of a bakery, and given the boy’s honest nature, he decided to return it to where it belonged. But when Val tried to open the bakery’s door he found that it was locked, and so he went around to the back. There he discovered an open door, knocked, and waited.

No one answered.

He wondered if he should place the cookie cutter in front of the door, so that whoever owned it could find it later. But then he thought it might not be seen, and that someone could accidently step on it and break it. And so Val chose to be brave and walk through the open back door of the bakery.

Inside, an old baker sat alone, sad and quiet.

“Excuse me,” Val said. “I-”

The old baker looked up, a tear falling down from his eye.

Val couldn’t say another word, his kind heart hurting for this stranger, even though he didn’t know what was wrong.

But then the baker’s eyes widened, the boy following the old man’s gaze to the cookie cutter in his hand.

“My love!” the old baker said.

A smile rose across his face.

For the next few minutes the old baker explained to Val how he had owned the cookie cutter since he was Val’s age, with the simple baking tool having led him to the most important things in his life. First his passion for baking, which eventually gave shape to his bakery, where he used the cookie cutter to make heartshaped cookies.

The old baker went on to explain how