“Maya,” I replied, sitting cross-legged on the floor so we were eye-level.
That was it. From that moment, we were inseparable.
The orphanage had routines: breakfast at 7, school at the local public building, chores, dinner, lights out at 9. But between those lines, we carved out our own world. We’d race down the hallways—Noah pushing his wheels with surprising speed, me running beside him. We’d hide in the library corner and read adventure books aloud. He loved stories about explorers and inventors; I loved anything with families that stayed together.
“You’re my best friend,” he told me one night during a thunderstorm when the power went out and we huddled under blankets in the rec room. “Even when we grow up, we’re sticking together.”
“Promise?” I asked, my voice small.
“Promise.”
We kept that promise through everything.
---
The years blurred. We turned 12, then 15. Puberty hit us differently. I grew tall and lanky, developed curves that made some of the older boys stare. Noah’s body stayed smaller, his shoulders broadening slightly from pushing his chair, but his legs remained largely immobile. Doctors came and went; new braces, experimental therapies that never quite worked. He never complained. Not once.
We protected each other. When bullies targeted him for his wheelchair, I stood in front of him like a shield. When a mean house parent criticized my “attitude,” Noah would crack a joke that diffused the tension. We shared everything—meager allowance money for candy, secrets about our fears, dreams about the future.
“I’m gonna be an engineer,” he said one summer evening as we sat on the back porch watching fireflies. “Build things that help people like me. Better chairs. Exoskeletons. Stuff that actually works.”
“I want to be a teacher,” I replied. “Or a social worker. Someone who actually listens to kids like us.”
