Part 2: The Friend Who Stayed
Growing up didn’t pull us apart the way people often assume childhood friendships will.
We changed.
Our interests changed.
Our schedules changed.
But somehow, Noah and I kept finding our way back to each other.
He became obsessed with baseball statistics.
I became obsessed with art.
He could talk for half an hour about batting averages and pitchers.
I could spend the same amount of time discussing color, brushwork, and paintings he insisted all looked “unfinished.”
He dragged me through baseball conversations.
I dragged him through museums.
Neither of us ever convinced the other that our hobby was better.
When we were twelve, my parents divorced.
That was the first time Noah saw me become someone quieter.
Dad moved out.
Mom tried to hide how much she was hurting, but sometimes I would walk past her room and hear her crying.
At school, I stopped eating much.
I spoke less.
I avoided friends.
Most people asked questions.
Noah didn’t.
He simply started sitting next to me at lunch.
Some days, he talked about baseball.
Some days, he complained about homework.
Other days, he said almost nothing.
He never demanded that I explain why I was sad.
He never tried to convince me everything was fine.
He just made sure I wasn’t sitting alone.
Years later, when I failed my first driving test, Noah showed up at my house holding two ice creams.
I looked at the cups in his hands.
“Why two?”
He handed me one.
“This one is because you tried.”
“And the second?”
He took a bite.
“Because you were terrible.”
I laughed so hard I nearly dropped mine.
Another time, I came close to giving up painting after someone at school laughed at a piece I’d worked on for weeks.
The next morning, I discovered that Noah had taken one of the ugliest dinosaur drawings I’d ever made and taped it inside his locker.
I stared at it.
“Why is that there?”
“So you don’t quit.”
I pointed at the drawing.
“Noah, that dinosaur is awful.”
He nodded thoughtfully.
“Very awful.”
“Then why keep it?”
“Because if you stop drawing now, your dinosaurs will always look like potatoes with arms.”
That was Noah.
He didn’t fix my problems.
He didn’t pretend pain wasn’t real.
He simply refused to disappear when things became difficult.
So by the time senior prom arrived, I didn’t need to think about who I wanted to go with.
Noah still decided to remind me anyway.
One afternoon, he appeared beside my locker with an unusually serious expression.
“Chrissy?”
“Yes?”
“Do you remember first grade?”
I decided to tease him.
“Not really.”
His face fell so quickly that I immediately regretted it.
Then he slowly raised one hand.
His pinkie was extended.
And suddenly everything came rushing back.
The raisin boxes.
The playground.
That boy’s cruel comment.
Our promise.
I stared at his pinkie.
“Prom?”
Noah grinned.
“Prom.”
I hooked my finger around his.
Then he added proudly,
“I already bought my bow tie.”
I blinked.
“When?”
“November.”
I laughed.
“Noah, prom wasn’t even close in November.”
He shrugged.
“Stores run out of things.”
“They weren’t going to run out of bow ties.”
He gave me a suspicious look.
“You don’t know that.”
And just like that, a childhood promise I’d almost forgotten became our actual plan.
