At 6, I Promised My Best Friend We’d Go to Prom Together — 12 Years Later, Mom Said I Could Go With Him Only on ONE Condition Ethan became my best friend in first grade after we discovered we both hated raisins and loved dinosaurs.

Mom cried when she thought I couldn’t hear her.

I pretended I didn’t notice.

And at Willowcrest High School’s feeder middle-school campus, I slowly stopped eating lunch.

I didn’t consciously decide to.

Food simply stopped feeling important.

Ethan noticed.

He never asked me to explain.

He just sat beside me.

Sometimes he talked.

Sometimes he didn’t.

Once, he spent fifteen straight minutes explaining why Bellmere’s baseball team desperately needed a better relief pitcher.

I understood almost nothing.

It helped anyway.