My mother locked my bedroom door on prom night.<\/p>\n
That was when I stopped laughing.<\/p>\n
Downstairs,\u00a0Ethan Harper<\/strong>\u00a0was waiting for me in a navy suit, wearing the bow tie he had apparently purchased four months too early.<\/p>\n I could hear him talking to my aunt through the floorboards.<\/p>\n Mom turned toward me.<\/p>\n Her name was\u00a0Eleanor Bennett<\/strong>.<\/p>\n And her hands were shaking.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can still go to prom with Ethan.\u201d<\/p>\n I stared at her.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m glad we\u2019ve established that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSophie.\u201d<\/p>\n Something in her voice made me stop.<\/p>\n \u201cBut before you leave,\u201d she continued, \u201cI need you to hear something.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAbout what?\u201d<\/p>\n Her eyes moved toward the locked door.<\/p>\n Then back to me.<\/p>\n \u201cAbout Ethan.\u201d<\/p>\n My stomach tightened.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat about him?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd about me.\u201d<\/p>\n She sat on the edge of my bed.<\/p>\n Then said:<\/p>\n \u201cI owe both of you the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n We were six years old.<\/p>\n Our first-grade teacher handed everybody those tiny red boxes of raisins during snack time.<\/p>\n I was trying to hide mine beneath a napkin when the boy beside me whispered:<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s smart.\u201d<\/p>\n I looked over.<\/p>\n He was doing exactly the same thing.<\/p>\n \u201cYou hate raisins too?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re old grapes.\u201d<\/p>\n I considered that.<\/p>\n Technically\u2014<\/p>\n he had a point.<\/p>\n \u201cOld grapes are disgusting,\u201d Ethan said.<\/p>\n By lunch, we were best friends.<\/p>\n Dinosaurs made it permanent.<\/p>\n Ethan knew an absurd amount about them.<\/p>\n I liked drawing them.<\/p>\n Badly.<\/p>\n The first time I drew a Tyrannosaurus rex, Ethan stared at the page.<\/p>\n Then asked:<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA T. rex.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n He pointed.<\/p>\n \u201cIt looks like a potato with tiny arms.\u201d<\/p>\n I shoved him.<\/p>\n He laughed so loudly our teacher separated us.<\/p>\n Ethan had Down syndrome.<\/p>\n At six years old, that fact mattered much less to me than the fact that he cheated at dinosaur trivia by memorizing answers before asking me questions.<\/p>\n Our friendship was easy.<\/p>\n Until somebody else decided it shouldn\u2019t be.<\/p>\n Our teacher announced she was getting married.<\/p>\n Every child immediately became a wedding expert.<\/p>\n Chocolate cake.<\/p>\n Flowers.<\/p>\n Music.<\/p>\n One kid insisted weddings required trampolines.<\/p>\n Ethan raised his hand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MY BEST FRIEND WITH DOWN SYNDROME WAITED 12 YEARS TO KEEP OUR CHILDHOOD PROMISE TO GO TO PROM TOGETHER. BUT…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1010,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mealtips.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mealtips.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mealtips.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mealtips.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mealtips.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1009"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mealtips.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1011,"href":"https:\/\/mealtips.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009\/revisions\/1011"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mealtips.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mealtips.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mealtips.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mealtips.delicedcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}ETHAN AND I BECAME BEST FRIENDS BECAUSE WE BOTH HATED RAISINS<\/h2>\n
ONE BOY TOLD ETHAN NOBODY WOULD EVER MARRY HIM<\/h2>\n