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 One Condition

“Why two?”

“One because you tried,” he said.

“One because you tried.”

I smiled.

“And the other?”

“Because you drove badly.”

I threw a pillow at him.

At 16, when I told him I wanted to quit art because a girl in my class had laughed at one of my paintings, he stole the ugliest dinosaur drawing I’d ever made.

“Because you drove badly.”

The next morning, I found it taped inside his locker.

“Noah!”

“What?”

“Why is that there?”

He inspected it.

“Still looks like a potato with arms.”

“Then take it down,” I demanded.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because you can’t quit yet, Chrissy.”

“Why not?”

“Because the dinosaurs haven’t improved.”

“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.