PART 1 — The Promise
On prom night, my mother locked my bedroom door.
That was when I knew something was wrong.
Downstairs, Noah was waiting for me in a navy suit and the bow tie he had been talking about for months. I could hear him laughing with my aunt through the floorboards.
Mom stood between me and the door.
“You can go with Noah tonight, Christina,” she said quietly. “But first, I need you to hear something.”
My heart tightened.
“About what?”
Her eyes dropped to the floor.
“About Noah.”
Then she looked at me.
“And about me.”
For the first time that night, I wasn’t thinking about prom anymore.
I was six years old again.
Noah and I had met in first grade because we both hated raisins.
Our teacher handed everyone little red boxes of raisins during snack time. I was secretly pushing mine underneath my napkin when a boy beside me leaned over.
“That’s smart.”
I looked at him.
He was hiding his raisins too.
“You hate them?”
He nodded seriously.
“They’re old grapes.”
I laughed.
And somehow, that was the beginning.
By lunchtime, we were inseparable.
Noah had Down syndrome, but when we were six, I didn’t think about that.
I thought about how he cheated at dinosaur trivia.
I thought about how he laughed at my terrible drawings.
And I thought about how he always saved the chocolate cookies for me because he knew they were my favorite.
One afternoon, a boy in our class pointed at Noah and said, “Nobody will ever marry you.”
Noah’s smile disappeared.
I stood up.
“Someone will love him.”
The boy laughed.
“Then you marry him.”
Later, I found Noah sitting alone behind the playground.
“Chrissy?”
“Yeah?”
“Would you love me?”
I didn’t understand the question.
Not really.
So I shrugged.
“Maybe.”
His face immediately brightened.
Then I remembered hearing my older cousin talk about prom.
“But first, we’d have to go to prom.”
“What’s prom?”
“A big dance when you’re almost grown up.”
Noah held out his pinkie.
“Promise?”
I hooked my pinkie around his.
“Promise.”
I forgot about that promise within a few days.
Noah never did.
Twelve years passed.
We survived changing schools, awkward teenage years, family problems, first crushes, bad grades, arguments, and the complicated process of growing up.
Noah loved baseball statistics.
I loved art.
He could talk for an hour about pitchers.
I could talk for an hour about paintings.
Neither of us understood the other’s obsession.
But somehow, we understood each other.
When my parents divorced when I was twelve, I changed.
Dad moved out.
Mom cried when she thought I wasn’t watching.
I stopped eating lunch at school.
I stopped laughing.
I stopped wanting to go anywhere.
Noah noticed.
He never asked me to explain.
He simply started sitting beside me during lunch.
Sometimes he talked.
Sometimes he didn’t.
He just stayed.
Years later, when I failed my driving test, Noah showed up with two ice creams.
“One because you tried,” he said.
“And the other?”
“Because you drove terribly.”
