The Butterfly Effect

Chapter 1

The butterfly effect is the phenomenon whereby a minute localized change in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere. But, my butterfly effect was different, she was tall with green eyes and so beautiful she put the stars to shame at night. My butterfly effect is Ruthanne Mariposa Flores, who went by her middle name Mariposa because her mother's name was also Ruthanne. Mari was so, so different. She had this way about her that even if you didn't know her, she made you feel like you were her best friend.

Day One

I didn't really think much of her at first. She didn't really hang out with my group of friends. All my life was about was baseball until the day Mari sat next to me in Anatomy and Physiology 101 my senior year of high school. I honestly didn't know she existed until that day, but she was only a junior.

"Aiden, right?" She leaned over the shinning silver bar holding the desk to her chair. Her algae green eyes glimmered as she smiled and whispered to me.

"Uh, yeah that's me." I shrugged at her and I now realize how my stupid ass would have ruined the best thing that's ever happened to me.

"Um, okay. Do you mind if I sit here?" She was so polite it agitated me.

"Yeah, sure, whatever." I rolled my eyes and slumped back into the chair, tilting my head back to look at the pasty white ceiling tiles.

"All right class, welcome back!" Mrs. Hartman bellowed to the chatting class. She leaned confidently against the top right corner of her wooden desk, smiling showing her coffee stained teeth.

"I'm sure you all have had a spectacular summer, but today you're in school so we're going to get to work." She turned on the projector to the Promethium board that shined a sky blue.

"How was your summer Mrs. Hartman?" My friend Richard, who we call Rocky, leaned up against his desk trying to suck up to Mrs. Hartman. Rocky was your average jock, cocky, didn't care about anything. His black hair was shaved in perfect parallel lines around his features. He kind of resembled Taylor Lautner, I guess you could say.
Mrs. Hartman swiveled around to face Rocky, throwing her long blonde highlighted hair behind her frail shoulder.

"Rocky, my summer consisted of working in and out of my chiropractic clinic, so I guess you could say it was a good one." She winked and turned back to face the chalkboard, writing the pages the chapter is on in our book. I leaned down to grab my notebook and pencils out of my bag when I noticed I had forgotten to put my pack of pencils in my bag this morning.

"Here." Her soft voice lingered for a second after she actually vocalized. She handed me a 0.7 lead pencil and still smiled at me even though I was a complete ass to her.

"Oh, um, thanks. I'll give it back after class."

"Don't worry about it, I have plenty more."

She turned back to Mrs. Hartman's lecture. I have to say, I may have been the biggest creep because for the rest of class I couldn't keep my eyes off of her. I guess you could say this is where I actually noticed and paid attention to her. This was the start of everything. I could see the tiny gemstone in the side of her nose glistening in the fluorescent lights. Her very long straight dark brown hair she occasionally pushed back showing her ear decorated with a line of gemstones going from the lobe all the way to top part of the cartilage, and a few here and there inside her ear that looked like it was probably painful. She was wearing jean shorts with white converse and a plain v-neck navy blue shirt that made her olive skin appear to glow. Her eyelashes fluttered every couple seconds and she had this crease in her forehead every time she would look down to write notes in her notebook. Every few minutes she bit her light pink lush bottom lip and intertwined her pen in between her fingers. The world was silent, all I could see or hear was her. It was until she got up and grabbed her green messenger bag that I noticed class was over.