At 6, I Promised My Best Friend with Down Syndrome We’d Go to Prom Together – 12 Years Later, Mom Said I Could Go with Him Only on On
“Still looks like a potato with arms.”
I laughed despite myself.
That was Noah.
He never gave speeches.
He just stayed long enough for whatever hurt to become bearable.
And when my first boyfriend dumped me three weeks before junior homecoming, Noah showed up with chocolate ice cream.
He sat beside me on the porch while I cried.
He just stayed long enough for whatever hurt to become bearable.
After 10 silent minutes, he finally spoke.
“I told you he was an idiot.”
I looked at him through swollen eyes.
“No, you didn’t.”
“I thought it.”
“That doesn’t count.”
“It should.”
I laughed so hard I nearly choked on my ice cream.
Noah still tells that story.
I still threaten him every time.
“I told you he was an idiot.”
So when senior prom came around, there was never really a question about who I wanted to go with.
But Noah apparently believed there was.
One afternoon in February, he found me by my locker.
“Chrissy.”
“Yes?”
“Do you remember first grade?”
I pretended to think.
“No.”
His face dropped.
“Seriously?”
“Do you remember first grade?”
“Noah, I’m kidding.”
He glared at me.
“That’s not funny.”
“It was a little funny.”
“No.”
Then he held out his pinkie.
And suddenly I was six again.
Raisins.
Dinosaurs.
A cruel little boy.
A promise I had forgotten that afternoon and somehow spent 12 years keeping anyway.
And suddenly I was six again.
I hooked my pinkie around his.
“Prom?”
Noah nodded.
“Prom.”
Then his entire face lit up.
“I already bought the bow tie.”
I blinked. “When?”
“November.”
“Noah, it was November.”
“Exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Stores run out of things,” he said.
“I already bought the bow tie.”
“They were not going to run out of bow ties.”
“You don’t know that.”
That was how Noah officially asked me to prom.
***
On prom night, I was upstairs fighting with an earring when the doorbell rang.
My aunt called up.
“Chrissy! He’s here!”
“Tell him two minutes!”
“Chrissy! He’s here!”
From just beyond the front door, Noah’s voice filtered in.
“She said that 15 minutes ago!”
Traitor.
I finished the earring and checked myself in the mirror.
Pretty dress.
Hair curled.
Makeup that had taken my aunt almost an hour.
I was nervous.
Not about Noah.
About everything else.
I was nervous.
Prom had always seemed like one of those things that happened to older people.
Then suddenly I was the older person.
I grabbed my purse.
Before I reached the stairs, I heard Mom open the front door.
Then silence.
Not normal silence.
