I laughed so hard that I almost dropped the ice cream.
When I wanted to quit art after someone mocked one of my paintings, Noah secretly took the ugliest dinosaur drawing I had ever made and taped it inside his locker.
I stared at it.
“Why would you put that there?”
He shrugged.
“Because you can’t quit yet.”
“Why?”
He looked at the drawing.
“Because your dinosaurs still look like potatoes with arms.”
That was Noah.
He never tried to fix everything.
He simply stayed until things hurt less.
So when senior prom finally arrived, there was never any question about who I wanted beside me.
But Noah still reminded me.
One afternoon, he appeared at my locker.
“Do you remember first grade?”
I pretended to think.
“No.”
His smile disappeared.
Then he held out his pinkie.
I stared at it.
Suddenly, everything came rushing back.
The raisins.
The dinosaur drawings.
The cruel boy.
The promise.
“Prom?” I whispered.
“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.”
I laughed.
Our twelve-year-old promise had finally become real.
And I thought the hardest part of the night would be finding a dress.
I was wrong.
PART 2 — My Mother’s Condition
On prom night, Noah arrived carrying a corsage.
I was halfway down the stairs when I saw him standing at the front door.
He looked so proud.
Navy suit.
Perfectly straight bow tie.
Shiny shoes.
And a small corsage in his hand.
“What kind of flower is that?” I asked.
“Rosemary.”
“Why rosemary?”
“The florist said it means remembering.”
He smiled.
“And I remember promises.”
Behind me, Mom made a strange sound.
When I turned around, tears were already forming in her eyes.
“Mom?”
“Come upstairs.”
“But Noah is waiting.”
“I know.”
She took my hand.
We walked into my bedroom.
Then she closed the door.
And locked it.
My stomach dropped.
“You’re scaring me.”
“You can go with Noah tonight,” Mom said.
I frowned.
“Then why am I locked in my room?”
She sat on the edge of my bed.
“Because before you leave, I need you to hear something.”
“What?”
“Do you remember when your father left?”
My expression changed.
“What does that have to do with Noah?”
“You were twelve.”
I nodded slowly.
“You stopped eating lunch.”
I stared at her.
“How do you know?”
Mom looked down.
“Noah told me.”
My heart skipped.
“What?”
She explained that during the worst part of the divorce, Noah had once found her crying alone in her car in the school parking lot.
She had thought nobody had seen her.
But Noah had.
“He asked me if you were broken,” Mom whispered.
My throat tightened.
“Why would he ask that?”
“Because you weren’t eating. You weren’t laughing. You were sitting alone all the time.”
She wiped a tear from her cheek.
“He noticed.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him you weren’t broken.”
