He simply sat beside me.
Sometimes he talked.
Sometimes he didn’t.
Years later, when I failed my first driving test, Noah showed up with two ice creams.
“One because you tried,” he said.
“And the other?”
“Because you drove terribly.”
When I wanted to quit art after someone laughed at one of my paintings, Noah stole the ugliest dinosaur picture I had ever drawn and taped it inside his locker.
“Why would you put that there?”
“Because you can’t quit yet.”
“Why?”
He studied the drawing.
“Because your dinosaurs still look like potatoes with arms.”
That was Noah.
He never tried to fix everything.
He just stayed until things hurt less.
So when senior prom finally arrived, there was never really any question about who I wanted beside me.
But Noah still formally reminded me.
One afternoon, he appeared at my locker.
“Do you remember first grade?”
I pretended not to.
His face dropped.
Then he held out his pinkie.
And suddenly I remembered everything.
The raisins.
The dinosaurs.
The cruel classmate.
The promise.
“Prom?” I asked.
“Prom.”
Then he smiled.
“I already bought the bow tie.”
“When?”
“November.”
“Noah, prom is months away.”
“Stores run out of things.”
“They were not going to run out of bow ties.”
“You don’t know that.”
And just like that, our twelve-year-old promise became real.
PART 2
On prom night, Noah arrived carrying a corsage.
I was halfway down the stairs when I saw Mom open the front door.
Her expression changed the second she looked at him.
Noah stood there smiling in his navy suit, his ridiculous bow tie perfectly straight.
In one hand was the corsage.
“What kind of flower is that?” I asked.
“Rosemary,” Noah said proudly.
“Why rosemary?”
“The florist said it means remembering.”
He grinned.
“And I remember promises.”
Behind me, Mom made a strange sound.
When I turned around, her eyes were wet.
“Mom?”
“Come upstairs.”
“What? Noah’s waiting.”
“I know.”
Once we entered my bedroom, she closed the door.
Then locked it.
“You’re scaring me.”
“You can go with Noah,” she said. “But I need one promise first.”
I immediately became angry.
“If this has anything to do with Noah having Down syndrome—”
“It doesn’t.”
“Then what?”
Mom sat on my bed.
“Do you remember when your father left?”
I frowned.
“What does that have to do with tonight?”
“You were twelve.”
Then she said something that caught me completely off guard.
“You stopped eating lunch.”
My arms fell to my sides.
“How do you know?”
“Noah told me.”
I stared at her.
