face dropped.
“Seriously?”
I laughed.
“Noah, I’m kidding.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It was a little funny.”
“No.”
Then he held out his pinkie.
Suddenly, I was six again.
Raisins.
Dinosaurs.
A cruel little boy.
A promise I had forgotten almost immediately and somehow spent twelve years keeping anyway.
I hooked my finger around his.
“Prom?”
He nodded.
“Prom.”
His entire face lit up.
“I already bought the bow tie.”
I blinked.
“When?”
“November.”
“Noah, it was November.”
“Exactly.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Stores run out of things.”
“They were not going to run out of bow ties.”
“You don’t know that.”
That was how Noah asked me to prom.
On prom night, I was upstairs fighting with an earring when the doorbell rang.
My aunt shouted from downstairs.
“Chrissy! He’s here!”
“Tell him two minutes!”
Noah’s voice floated through the entryway.
“She said that fifteen minutes ago!”
Traitor.
I
