Flash Fiction / Young Cupid

He smelled of strawberry fields in the springtime, and he shared his crayons with me. Our desks were interconnected; separated by a metal bar that divided his cubicle from mine. I’d catch him borrowing objects from my cubicle; a three-sided ruler or a stubby pencil, but I didn’t mind. He had a way of looking at me through spider-like, thick eyelashes that made me feel warm inside.

We started kindergarten that fall. When other kids were mean to me, he would shove them to the ground. When I broke my arm and had a cast put on it, he would carry my backpack for me. He was my miniature manservant, and I was his princess.

His mother worked at a factory in town and his father stayed at home. My father worked and my mother stayed at home. We were opposite sides of the same coin. We were inseparable.

At mid-year, he gave me his crayons for safekeeping. He said he felt better knowing that I had them. I placed them inside my cubicle, knowing that he could access them at any time. It seemed like the right thing to do.

I started sharing my lunches with him. It was a cookie or an apple at first, and later it was my entire lunch. I didn’t mind, though. I wasn’t hungry when he was around. Just looking at him was enough for me.

Other girls wanted to share their crayons with him, but he never took any of theirs. I tried upgrading to markers once, but he said he didn’t like them. The markers made streaks and smudges on his papers, and he was a clean-lines kind of guy. I liked that about him.

He’d make me laugh, too. He’d make funny faces behind the teacher’s back, do a pratfall, or pull on the pigtail of the mean girl sitting in front of him. His comedy was refreshing in its simplicity. He was willing to make fun of himself and others in order to keep me entertained.

At year-end, he told me he was moving with his parents to another town. I was devastated. My knight in shining armor was leaving me a damsel in distress. He patted me on the shoulder and told me it would be all right. I knew better.

He let me keep the crayons as a memento of our time together. I didn’t use them, though. I kept them in a pencil box for safekeeping, in case he returned someday. He never did.

On the first day of class in the first grade, I unpacked the crayons and put them into my new cubicle. They felt oddly comforting there. I glanced across the desk and noted the new boy who was seated next to me. He was thin and he wore eyeglasses, but he smelled, oddly enough, like strawberry fields in the springtime.