Part 1 — The Promise He Never Forgot
On the night of senior prom, my mother shut my bedroom door behind us and turned the lock.
That was the moment I realized something was wrong.
Downstairs, my best friend Noah was waiting in the living room in a navy-blue suit. He was wearing the bow tie he had talked about for months, and I could hear his laughter drifting up through the floor as he chatted ali with my aunt.
I looked at Mom.
“Why did you lock the door?”
She didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, she took a slow breath and looked at me with an expression I couldn’t read.
“You’re still going to prom with Noah,” she said. “I’m not stopping you.”
“Then what’s going on?”
She hesitated.
“But before you leave, I need you to hear something.”
“About what?”
Her gaze flickered toward the door.
“About Noah.”
My stomach tightened.
Then she added softly,
“And about me.”
I had no idea that the conversation we were about to have had actually begun six years earlier.
And in some ways, twelve years earlier.
Back when Noah and I were six years old and our friendship started over a shared hatred of raisins.
We met in first grade during snack time.
Our teacher passed out little red boxes of raisins to everyone in class. I opened mine, stared at the shriveled things inside, and immediately began trying to hide the box beneath my napkin.
A voice beside me whispered,
“Good idea.”
I turned.
The boy sitting next to me was doing exactly the same thing.
“You don’t like raisins either?”
He shook his head solemnly.
“They’re grapes that got too old.”
I stared at him.
