Noah did not do it.
During the next twelve years, our friendship survived different social classes, changes in interests, the difficult stage of adolescence, and everything else that growing up brought us.
Noah loved baseball statistics.
I loved art.
He dragged me through endless conversations about pitchers.
I dragged him through the museums.
Neither of them convinced the other.
When my parents divorced when I was twelve years old, everything changed.
Dad moved out.
Mom cried when she thought I wasn’t looking at her.
I stopped eating much at school and became quieter.
Noah realized it.
He never demanded an explanation.
He simply sat down next to me.
Sometimes he would talk.
Sometimes he didn’t.
Years later, when I failed my first driving test, Noah showed up with two ice creams.
“One, because you tried,” he said.
“And the other one?”
“Because you drove terribly.”
When I wanted to quit art after someone laughed at one of my paintings, Noah stole the ugliest dinosaur drawing I had ever made and taped it inside his locker.
“Why would you put that there?”
“Because you can’t quit yet.”
“Because?”
He studied drawing.
“Because your dinosaurs still look like potatoes with arms.”
That was Noah.
He never tried to fix everything.
She stayed until the pain subsided.
So when prom finally arrived, I never had any doubt about who I wanted by my side.
But Noah formally reminded me.
One afternoon, he appeared at my locker.
“Do you remember first grade?”
I pretended not to.
His face darkened.
Then he extended his little finger.
And suddenly I remembered everything.
Raisins.
