Kissing Max Holden
Katy Upperman
FOR CLAIRE … CHASE YOUR DREAMS, SWEET GIRL.
1
THE POUNDING AT MY WINDOW COMES LATE, and it scares me shitless.
A second knock quickly follows, rattling the glass in its pane and my heart in my chest. There’s such force behind the rapping, I’m half expecting a bloodied, glass-encrusted fist to poke through my curtains.
Our house is silent and inky dark. The last of the trick-or-treaters have called it a night. My parents have stowed the leftover Snickers bars and checked the locks; they’ve been asleep for hours.
Another knock. More subdued, but still resolute. There’s comfort in its persistence. Someone with deviant motives would be sneakier, more cunning. Fear gives way as curiosity blooms, and my stuttering heart resumes a steadier beat.
This knock, his knock, is familiar.
It’s been years since Max visited me at night. Years since I let him crawl through my window and sprawl out on my carpet and talk himself gruff until early morning. It’s been ages since we’ve talked at all, really, but I can’t ignore him. It’s not in his DNA to give up—he’ll keep knocking and eventually he’ll make enough noise to wake my dad, who’ll come to investigate. Max is little more than a peripheral figure in my life these days, but Dad’ll be pissed if he finds the neighbor boy lurking outside my window like a creeper.
I flip on a lamp and slip out of bed, straightening my skewed pajama pants as I pad across the carpet. I catch a glimpse of my disheveled reflection in the mirrored closet door and pause to adjust my tank top and smooth my ponytail. I jump when he knocks again, an agitated pummeling of the glass, like he’s sensed my ill-timed vanity.
He’s there as I draw the curtains back, peering up at me from the poorly lit side yard. The sad slope of his shoulders and the hard set of his jaw do terrible things to my heart.
Max Holden used to be equal parts zesty and sweet, like lemon meringue pie. Bright and jovial, so brilliant I once had to squint when I looked at him. Now, his dazzle has dulled, flattened like a biscuit that refuses to rise. Still, I can’t help but hope for his once-trademark grin, the one that says, I knew you’d come.
Of course I’ll come. He’s Max and I’m Jillian, and that’s how it’s always been.
But he doesn’t smile—he barely makes eye contact. He looks tired, defeated, and deeply unhappy.
I unlock the window and push it up. I don’t officially invite him in, but he braces his hands on the sill and hurdles through the opening like a cat burglar. He stretches to his full height—several inches taller than my five-seven—and I look him over, one eyebrow lifted in unconcealed shock: I’ve never seen him so eccentrically unkempt.
His feet are shoved into tattered moccasin-style slippers—castoffs of his father’s, probably—and he’s thrown on faded McAlder High sweats, ratty things he wears to wash his truck, another hand-me-down from Bill. His torso is draped in a blousy white shirt with a black, jagged-edged vest over it, a skull and crossbones embroidered over his heart. His dark hair is spiked in every direction, like he recently ditched a too-tight hat. He runs a hand through it when he notices my scrutiny. And his eyes, a gray-blue so deep they’re capable of drowning the unsuspecting, are rimmed in liner, thick and black and smudged.
Max isn’t a makeup kind of guy.
I stare, perplexed. I look away. Then, because I can’t help myself, I peek again.
“What?” he asks.
“Um. You’re wearing makeup.”
He shrugs. “And you’re not.”
“It’s the middle of the night, Max. What are you doing here?”
He sinks wearily—and without answer—to the floor. He leans against my bed, unfolding his long legs across the eggshell carpet my stepmother, Meredith, had installed a few years ago. His eyes fall shut. His breathing is shallow, disturbingly irregular.
I stand over him. Now that his eyes are closed, I regard him again, turning over the facts I’ve collected. He’s likely drunk. He went to Linebacker Leo’s Halloween party, like the rest of our school’s population, and from what I heard, his girlfriend, Becky McMahon, accompanied him. Who could blame him if he drained a keg to tolerate her presence?
A draft eddies in from my open window. It doesn’t appear to bother Max, but I’m cold in my thin pajamas. I’m also self-conscious in my thin pajamas, which is absurd. It’s not as if he hasn’t seen me dressed for bed. We’ve been neighbors for ten years and our parents are close. When I was thirteen, I spent a week with the Holdens while my dad and Meredith honeymooned in Maui. But this—this—is different. We’re seventeen, and we’re alone.
The air suddenly seems gelatinous. Does he sense it? Probably not. He’s slouched against my bed, eyes still shut, features pinched in a scowl. He looks seconds from sleep in his wacky getup.
My brain cranks into overtime.… Max Holden is in my bedroom, shouldering an air of gloom like heavy armor. The gloom isn’t implausible or even surprising, but what is surprising is that he’s come here. Though I’ve tried plenty of times, he hasn’t willingly engaged with me—with anyone, as far as I know—in months.
Shivering and desperate for practical action, I step over his idle legs and push my window shut. He’s staying, at least for now.
He opens his eyes to the quiet click of the window latch, gazing up at me from beneath heavy lids. “You let me in,” he states thickly, as if he’s just now realizing.
“You didn’t give me much choice. You would’ve woken my dad if I’d left you out there beating the glass, all drunk and disorderly.”
He smirks. “You’re glad I’m here.”
He doesn’t deny the drunk or the disorderly, I notice. “You think so? I was in bed. We have school tomorrow, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Is that why you weren’t at Leo’s? ’Cause it’s a school night?”
Leo, a huge middle linebacker whose father owns the Chevrolet dealership in town, is one of Max’s closest friends, and I wasn’t at his Halloween party for a variety of reasons. First, I hate the limited selection of costumes available to girls my age (slutty nurse or skanky angel … no, thank you). Second, I hate social gatherings that include more than my core group of friends (Leo invites half the school over anytime his parents go out). Third—and probably most significant—I hate watching Becky paw Max like he’s a scratching post.
I don’t feel compelled to explain any of this, though. Max and I may have been close in another lifetime, but I don’t owe him anything now.