A high school student and her best friend have spoken out against bullies with an inspiring and heartwarming photo message.
Mikenzy Snell and her friend Matt Pliska, who has Down's Syndrome, held up a sign reading "Real friends don't count extra chromosomes" at their school prom, which they attended together.
The pair had been planning their special night for an entire year, after Pliska asked Snell the go with him straight after the previous year's prom.
The inspiring teens became friends after being paired up on a school trip when they were 10 years old. "From then on out, I knew he was going to be a forever friend," Snell told The Huffington Post.
She went on to say his positivity along with his "very handsome smile" had affected not only her life, but the lives of many others.
"He's such a positive person," she told WRIC. "He always has a smile on his face."
The sign they held is a reference to the cause of Down's Syndrome, when an individual is born with an extra copy of the 21st chromosome.
"Some of her best times had are with Matt," Snell's mother Carmen told Yahoo. "They see movies, go out for dinner and go to watch high school sporting events together."
Snell currently coaches their school's Special Olympics basketball team, while Pliska manages the boys' hockey team and girls' football team.
"When you have a child that has a disability, they tell you they’re not going to do this, you’re not going to do that," said Pliska's mother Flonnie. "Then you turn around and you watch when they’re growing up."