I remember when I first laid eyes on Elliott Olson.
It was in the middle of the school year; third grade. He stood at the front of the classroom, his dark hair in a curly mess on top of his head, his clothes rumbled and covered in grass stains. A fresh band-aid was applied to one of his knobby knees.

   When Mrs. Stilton asked him to tell the class a little bit about himself, he grinned before talking about much he loved butterflies. It had earned him a laugh from his new classmates, but Elliott didn’t seem to care. That was always the best thing about Elliott, he didn’t care about what others thought of him.

Best way to describe him was wild and carefree.

    When Mrs. Stilton dismissed him, she instructed Elliott to take the empty seat beside me. Almost with a skip, he came and plopped down in the seat beside mine. At once Mrs. Stilton began the class, but I wasn’t paying attention; I was too focused on the boy.

    Now I was able to see his eyes, they were the color of storm clouds. He must have noticed me staring because he turned his stormy gaze on me. A mischievous smile played on his lips; I could see that he was missing a tooth. Some funny feeling twisted in my stomach and warmth bloomed across my cheeks. The only thing I could think to say at that moment was:

   “You’re really pretty.”
Before the warmth spread all over my body and I buried my face into my arms. Elliott didn’t think that was a weird thing to say at all, in fact he found it funny, even to this day I have no idea why he had found it so amusing.

   After that, I had thought I would never talk to him again. But Elliott had other plans in mind.

    I had been sitting, tucked under a tree during recess when Elliott dropped down in the grass beside me. His hands cupped, that mischievous smile still playing on his lips. I looked up at him, clenching my ham and cheese sandwich against my chest.

    “Wanna see what I got in my hand?” he had asked me. I had shaken my head no, but curiosity had gotten the better of me and I leaned closer to see.
    He opened his hand to reveal a big, fat caterpillar. It wriggled around on his palm, its little legs moving frantically in search of an escape.
My nose crinkled, “Gross.” And I went back to my sandwich.

    “It’s not gross. When this little guy grows up its going to be a monarch.” He pushed the little bug back to the palm of his hand. “I know about them, my momma got me a book for my birthday last year that had every picture of every butterfly in the world!”

I listened to Elliott as he rattled off facts and names of butterflies and I was absolutely enraptured by what he had to say.

    Recess was almost over when Elliott paused, his stormy eyes lifting from the yellow, white, and black bug to me.

    “What’s your name?”
A blush had creeped up my cheeks when I said, “Eleanor.”
A smile pulled at Elliott’s cheeks and with grass-stained fingers, he reached out and touched my hair.

    “I like your hair. It’s the same color of a Queen butterfly. I think you’re pretty too.”

   Before I had been able to say anything to him, the bell rang. Elliott let the caterpillar crawl from his hand into the grass before running to the line that was starting to form. He left me to sit under the tree, millions of butterflies fluttering around in my stomach.

   At the time I had no idea what it was that I was feeling for this strange butterfly boy, but as time went by, the feeling I had felt that day was like.