Then I laughed so hard that our teacher told us both to settle down.
That boy was Noah.
By lunchtime, we had decided we were best friends.
At six, I didn’t care that Noah had Down syndrome.
What mattered to me was that he cheated whenever we played dinosaur trivia, told terrible jokes with absolute confidence, and never made fun of my drawings even when my T. rex looked like a potato with teeth.
We were just two children who liked each other.
Then one afternoon, another boy in our class said something cruel.
He told Noah that nobody would ever marry him.
I still remember watching Noah’s smile disappear.
Something hot and angry rose inside me.
“Someone will love him,” I snapped.
The boy laughed.
“Then you marry him.”
Later that day, Noah found me alone near the playground.
He stood beside me for a few seconds before asking quietly,
“Chrissy?”
“Yeah?”
“Would you love me?”
At six years old, I had absolutely no understanding of how big that question was.
So I shrugged.
“Maybe.”
His entire face lit up.
Then I remembered something my older cousin had been talking about for weeks.
Prom.
“But we have to go to prom first,” I said.
Noah frowned.
“What’s prom?”
“A fancy dance you go to when you’re almost an adult.”
He considered that very seriously.
Then he held out his pinkie.
“Promise we’ll go?”
I hooked mine around his.
“Promise.”
Five minutes later, I was probably thinking about crayons or recess.
Noah remembered that promise for twelve years.
