I frowned.
“What does that have to do with tonight?”
“You were twelve years old.”
Then he said something that caught me completely off guard.
“You stopped eating lunch.”
My arms fell to my sides.
“How do you know?”
“Noah told me so.”
I stared at her.
She explained that, during the worst part of the divorce, Noah found her crying alone in her car in the school parking lot.
She thought no one had seen her.
But Noah did.
“He asked me if you were broken,” Mom whispered.
I got a lump in my throat.
“Because?”
“Because you weren’t eating. You weren’t laughing much. He noticed you were sitting alone.”
“What did you say to him?”
“I told him you weren’t broken.”
Mom squeezed my hand.
“Then Noah said something that I have remembered for six years.”
“That?”
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“He said, ‘Fine. Because I don’t know how to fix people. I only know how to stay.’”
I couldn’t speak.
Suddenly, all those peaceful lunches came flooding back to me.
Noah sitting next to me.
No questions asked.
No pressure.
Presence only.
Then Mom revealed the secret she had kept for six years.
“I asked Noah to promise me that he would take care of you.”
I stared at her.
“Did you ask him that?”
“I was falling apart. Your father was gone. You barely spoke to me. Noah was the only person who could still make you smile.”
According to Mom, Noah hadn’t hesitated.
He had simply said:
“Well.”
Then Mom looked embarrassed.
“But after that, I started making mistakes.”
“What mistake?”
“For years, every time you stood up for Noah or changed your plans because someone excluded him, I worried that you were sacrificing too much for him.”
I remained silent.
