When I was six years old, I made a promise to my best friend that seemed almost impossible to break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We would go to prom together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the time, I didn’t even fully understand what prom was. I only knew it was a special dance people went to when they were almost grown-ups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His name was Noah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Noah and I became best friends after discovering two important things\u2014we both hated raisins and loved dinosaurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Noah had Down syndrome, but that was never what defined him to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was funny, stubborn and incredibly confident. He could remember baseball statistics from years ago, and he never hesitated to tell me exactly what he thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once, he looked at one of my drawings and told me it looked like \u201ca potato with arms.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I never let him forget that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One day, our teacher told the class she was getting married.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While everyone discussed wedding cakes and music, Noah proudly announced that his wedding would have chocolate cake and absolutely no \u201cslow, boring songs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A boy nearby laughed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWho\u2019s going to marry you? Nobody will.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Noah’s smile disappeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I immediately defended him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat’s stupid. Somebody will love Noah.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He looked at me seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWould you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I didn’t know how to answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So instead, I said, \u201cMaybe. But first we have to go to prom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He didn’t even know what prom was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I explained it was a dance when we were almost grown-ups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then he held out his pinkie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPromise?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I hooked my pinkie around his.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPromise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The years passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We survived different classes, my parents’ divorce, his endless attempts to teach me baseball and my first heartbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When my relationship ended, Noah showed up with ice cream and told me:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI told you that guy was an idiot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n By then, going to prom with Noah wasn’t about an old childhood promise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He was simply my best friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So when prom finally arrived, I couldn’t imagine going with anyone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That evening, Noah arrived wearing a suit and bow tie, holding my corsage and smiling like he’d just won the World Series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then my mother opened the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And everything changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The moment she saw Noah, her smile disappeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She stared at him for several seconds before telling him I was almost ready.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then she came upstairs and closed my bedroom door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou can go with Noah tonight,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I laughed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat’s the condition? Be home by midnight?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her hands were trembling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou have to hear the truth I owe you first.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I immediately became serious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat truth?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She sat beside me and took both my hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAbout him\u2026 and about me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then her eyes filled with tears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She took a shaky breath and began to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And what she revealed about Noah and the past was something I had never seen coming.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The story provided ends at this cliffhanger and does not reveal what the mother’s confession was, so the specific \u201cshocking truth\u201d shouldn’t be invented as fact.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I was six years old, I made a promise to my best friend that seemed almost impossible to break. We would go to prom together. At the time, I didn’t even fully understand what prom was. I only knew it was a special dance people went to when they were almost grown-ups. His name…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=394"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":396,"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394\/revisions\/396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alirthmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Promise<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Twelve Years Later<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Mom Suddenly Looked Terrified<\/h3>\n\n\n\n