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go to the bathroom, which we all knew was a lie; clearly I was going to look for Max. We had a
positive car ID. He was in the house. The only question that remained was: where?
I got my answer walking down the hallway that ran past the den. There he was, sitting on the
Petersons' modular sofa talking to Jeremy and two other seniors, Michael Roach and Greg Cobb.
Just as I walked by, Max turned his head toward the open door and brushed the hair out of his
eyes. And then he saw me. And I saw him see me, and he saw me see him see me, and it was like
all those months and years of flirting suddenly exploded or something. I swear to God you could
have powered all of Westchester County on the look that passed between us.
Max raised an eyebrow at me and gestured to the empty spot on the sofa next to him, and I went
over and sat down without either of us saying a word. Then I sat there listening to him and the
three other coolest guys in the senior class argue about whether Franz Ferdinand or Wilco is the
band that's more likely to
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leave an enduring musical legacy. (At first I didn't actually realize they were bands--I thought
they were people, and that Wilco was a guy who went by a single name, like Mado
Beyoncé.)
During a particularly heated exchange between Jeremy and Michael, Max turned to me.
"Do you know these bands?" Max is a lot taller than I am, but the couch was the kind you sink
way down into, and we were both leaning back, almost reclining, so his mouth was only an inch
or two away from my ear.
Normally I would have tried to come up with some witty way to avoid admitting I hadn't even
realized they were bands, but there was nothing normal about this night. So I just said, "No."
Max stood up. "Hey, Jeremy, you got any Wilco in your room?"
Jeremy was leaning forward, telling Michael he was starting to sound like a guy who listens to
smooth jazz. He looked over at Max, gave him a quizzical scowl and said, "Is the Pope
Catholic?" before turning back to Michael.
Max reached his hand down to me. "Come on," he said. His hand was warm, and when I stood
up, he intertwined his fingers with mine.
He took me through the den and up a narrow flight of dark stairs. Without saying a word, he
crossed the hall
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and entered a room, pulling me in behind him before closing the door. Then he turned on a small
desk lamp and ran his fingers down a stack of precariously balanced CDs.
"God, what a loser," he muttered, pausing at one of them and laughing a little to himself. I'd
barely had time to look around Jeremy's room and take in the unmade bed, the open closet with
clothes on the floor, the poster over the desk from an antiwar protest, when Max popped a disc
into the CD player and turned off the lamp. Before my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, I could
feel him standing next to me.
"Like it?" he asked.
My heart was pounding. It took me a minute to focus on the music, an almost atonal series of
notes played by different instruments.
"Too early to tell," I answered. "Give me a second."
"Sure," he said. He'd taken my hand again, and now he took the other one. We stood there for a
long moment, neither of us moving. "Well?" he asked finally.
A man with a husky voice started singing. I couldn't make out the lyrics, but I liked his voice, the
way the instruments seemed to find and hold a melody around it.
I could see Max now in the dim light of the digital display. "Yeah," I said. "I like it."
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He leaned down so slowly I could barely tell he was moving. "I'm glad," he whispered. And then
we were kissing, and I was thinking about how amazing it felt to be kissing him and how soft his
lips were and how perfect it was to wrap my arms around his waist and then to run my fingers
through his dark, silky hair.
But you know what I should have been thinking about? I should have been thinking about the
girls in those novels. Because if I'd thought a little more about them and a little less about Max's
hair and lips and how it felt when he put his hands on my face and said about our kiss, "I've been
wanting to do that since I met you," then maybe I wouldn't be thinking about them now, five
months later, having just been informed by the love of my life that we'll be better off as friends.
Maybe then I wouldn't be thinking that I, like them, could actually die of heartache.