He handed me one.
“This one is because you tried.”
“And the second?”
He took a bite.
“Because you were terrible.”
I laughed so hard I nearly dropped mine.
Another time, I came close to giving up painting after someone at school laughed at a piece I’d worked on for weeks.
The next morning, I discovered that Noah had taken one of the ugliest dinosaur drawings I’d ever made and taped it inside his locker.
I stared at it.
“Why is that there?”
“So you don’t quit.”
I pointed at the drawing.
“Noah, that dinosaur is awful.”
He nodded thoughtfully.
“Very awful.”
“Then why keep it?”
“Because if you stop drawing now, your dinosaurs will always look like potatoes with arms.”
That was Noah.
He didn’t fix my problems.
He didn’t pretend pain wasn’t real.
He simply refused to disappear when things became difficult.
So by the time senior prom arrived, I didn’t need to think about who I wanted to go with.
Noah still decided to remind me anyway.
One afternoon, he appeared beside my locker with an unusually serious expression.
“Chrissy?”
“Yes?”
“Do you remember first grade?”
I decided to tease him.
“Not really.”
His face fell so quickly that I immediately regretted it.
Then he slowly raised one hand.
His pinkie was extended.
And suddenly everything came rushing back.
The raisin boxes.
The playground.
That boy’s cruel comment.
Our promise.
I stared at his pinkie.
“Prom?”
Noah grinned.
“Prom.”
I hooked my finger around his.
Then he added proudly,
“I already bought my bow tie.”
I blinked.
“When?”
“November.”
I laughed.
“Noah, prom wasn’t even close in November.”
He shrugged.
“Stores run out of things.”
“They weren’t going to run out of bow ties.”
He gave me a suspicious look.
“You don’t know that.”
And just like that, a childhood promise I’d almost forgotten became our actual plan.
Part 3 — Rosemary
Prom night arrived faster than either of us expected.
I was halfway down the staircase when the doorbell rang.
Mom opened the door.
Noah stood on the porch wearing his navy suit and the famous bow tie.
It was perfectly straight.
In one hand, he held a small corsage.
The second I saw him, I smiled.
Then I noticed Mom.
Her expression had changed.
She looked at Noah as though she were seeing him differently for the first time.
