Twelve Years Later

Twelve years is a long time.

People change.

Friends drift apart.

Childhood promises disappear.

But somehow, Noah and I stayed close.

When my parents divorced at twelve, he never asked me to explain why I was sad.

He simply sat beside me.

When I failed my driving test, he showed up with two ice creams.

“One because you tried.”

“And the other?”

“Because you drove badly.”

I threw a pillow at him.

When I wanted to quit art after another student laughed at one of my paintings, Noah secretly took my ugliest dinosaur drawing and taped it inside his locker.

“Why is that there?”

“Because you can’t quit yet.”

“Why?”

“Because the dinosaurs haven’t improved.”

I laughed.

That was Noah.

He never gave me huge speeches.

He just stayed.

When my first boyfriend broke my heart, Noah brought chocolate ice cream.

After ten minutes of silence, he finally said:

“I told you he was an idiot.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I thought it.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“It should.”

I laughed so hard I nearly choked.

So when senior prom arrived, there was never any question about who I wanted beside me.

But apparently Noah had been thinking about it for much longer than I realized.

One afternoon in February, he walked up to my locker.

“Chrissy.”

“Yes?”

“Do you remember first grade?”

I pretended to think.

“No.”

His face dropped.

Then I laughed.

“I’m kidding!”

He held out his pinkie.

And suddenly I remembered.

Raisins.

Dinosaurs.

The promise.

“Prom?”

I hooked my pinkie around his.

“Prom.”

His face lit up.

“I already bought the bow tie.”

“When?”

“November.”

“Noah, that was four months ago!”

“Stores run out.”

“They weren’t going to run out of bow ties!”

“You don’t know that.”

And that was how my six-year-old promise became a twelve-year-old plan.

I just never imagined that my mother would try to stop it.