At 6, I Promised My Best Friend with Down Syndrome We’d Go to Prom Together – 12 Years Later, Mom Said I Could Go with Him Only on One Condition
***
So when senior prom came around, there was never really a question about who I wanted to go with.
But Noah apparently believed there was.
One afternoon in February, he found me by my locker.
“Chrissy.”
“Yes?”
“Do you remember first grade?”
I pretended to think.
“No.”
His face dropped.
“Seriously?”
“Do you remember first grade?”
“Noah, I’m kidding.”
He glared at me.
“That’s not funny.”
“It was a little funny.”
“No.”
Then he held out his pinkie.
And suddenly I was six again.
Raisins.
Dinosaurs.
A cruel little boy.
A promise I had forgotten that afternoon and somehow spent 12 years keeping anyway.
And suddenly I was six again.
I hooked my pinkie around his.
“Prom?”
Noah nodded.
“Prom.”
Then his entire face lit up.
“I already bought the bow tie.”
I blinked. “When?”
“November.”
“Noah, it was November.”
“Exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Stores run out of things,” he said.
“I already bought the bow tie.”
“They were not going to run out of bow ties.”
“You don’t know that.”
That was how Noah officially asked me to prom.
***
On prom night, I was upstairs fighting with an earring when the doorbell rang.
My aunt called up.
“Chrissy! He’s here!”
“Tell him two minutes!”
“Chrissy! He’s here!”
