My mother would call from the kitchen, “Noah, you’re staying for dinner, right?”
Dad sometimes joked that we should start charging his family rent.
And Lily?
Lily adored him.
She could hear the squeak of his bicycle brakes from inside the house and somehow always knew it was him before I did.
By sixteen, I had begun imagining something I never admitted to anyone.
I imagined marrying Noah someday.
It seemed almost inevitable.
He was my best friend. He knew everything about me. Our families were intertwined. He was protective of Lily.
Sometimes he stayed on our porch long after everyone else had gone inside, and we talked beneath the porch light about college, work, and what our lives might look like someday.
I thought those conversations meant something.
Maybe they did.
Just not what I assumed.
Years passed.
Noah kept the childhood promise and took Lily to her senior prom.
She wore a pale blue dress and insisted on having her hair curled twice because the first attempt “didn’t look fancy enough.”
Noah arrived wearing a suit and carrying a tiny wrist corsage.
When Lily came downstairs, he smiled at her as if she were the only person in the room.
“You look amazing, Lil.”
She practically glowed.
I took at least fifty photographs before they escaped.
At the time, I thought Noah was simply being Noah.
Kind.
Loyal.
Protective.
I didn’t understand that something deeper had already begun.
The Ring in His Hand
I was twenty-three when Noah appeared at my parents’ house one Sunday afternoon.
I happened to be visiting.
He knocked instead of walking in, which immediately felt strange.
When I opened the door, I saw a small ring box in his hand.
For one foolish, wonderful second, the world stopped.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
After all those years, I thought.
