I came down another step.
“What’s the flower?”
Noah lifted the corsage proudly.
“Rosemary.”
I laughed.
“That’s not exactly a traditional prom flower.”
“I know.”
“So why rosemary?”
He smiled.
“The florist said rosemary means remembering.”
He paused for dramatic effect.
“And I remember promises.”
Behind me, Mom made a strange, broken little sound.
I turned.
Her eyes were shining.
“Mom?”
She quickly wiped beneath one eye.
“Christina, come upstairs with me.”
I frowned.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“But Noah’s here.”
“I know.”
Noah looked between us.
“I can wait.”
I gave Mom a confused look but followed her upstairs.
The second we entered my bedroom, she closed the door.
Then she locked it.
My irritation immediately turned to worry.
“Mom, you’re freaking me out.”
“You’re going with Noah.”
“You already said that.”
“I need one promise from you first.”
That made me defensive.
“If this is about him having Down syndrome—”
“It isn’t.”
“Then what is it?”
Mom sat on the edge of my bed.
For several seconds, she simply looked down at her hands.
Then she asked,
“Do you remember what you were like after your father left?”
I stared at her.
“What does Dad have to do with prom?”
“You were twelve.”
“I know.”
“You barely spoke. You weren’t sleeping well.”
She looked at me.
“And you stopped eating lunch.”
I went still.
“How do you know that?”
Her answer came quietly.
“Noah told me.”
I stared at her.
“Noah?”
Mom nodded.
Then she told me something I had never known.
During one of the hardest weeks after the divorce, she had parked outside my school one afternoon and cried in her car.
She thought she was alone.
She wasn’t.
Noah saw her.
“He came over to the car,” Mom said. “He knocked on the window and asked if I was okay.”
I sat beside her.
“What did you say?”
“I lied and told him I was fine.”
Despite everything, I smiled faintly.
“He probably didn’t believe you.”
“He didn’t.”
Mom took my hand.
“Then he asked whether you were broken.”
The word hit me strangely.
“Broken?”
“He’d noticed you weren’t eating. He’d noticed you weren’t laughing. He knew you had started sitting by yourself.”
My throat tightened.
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him you weren’t broken.”
Mom’s eyes filled again.
