As the night wore on, we continued our small talk, and each of our respective groups of friends faded away until I insisted that we go and find them. Max agreed but asked for my phone number first, and I obliged. He then said, “Don’t leave without saying goodbye.” I caught up with my friends just as they were heading out, so I didn’t have a chance to find Max. Yes, I was intrigued, but he was an actor. Besides, he had my number…if he calls, he calls, I told myself. As I walked in my door that night, my phone was ringing. I picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Hey, this is Max. You left without saying goodbye.”
I smiled.
“Can I come by and say good night to you?”
Hmmm, is this guy going to chop me up into pieces? As polite as I could muster at 1:40 a.m., I answered, “Oh, I don’t think so. It’s pretty late.”
“I won’t even stay five minutes. I just want to see you,” he persisted.
In hindsight, maybe it was not the smartest idea, but for some reason I agreed. At least if I was murdered by this guy, they could trace my last phone call back to him. No less than 10 minutes later, I heard a knock on my door. When I opened it, there was Max. We stood there, looking into each other’s eyes, smiling. And there it was again, that sci-fi lightning bolt connecting us.
“Well?” I finally said to cut the tension. Then he went in for the kiss. A perfect, showstopping, drop-your-glass kiss, with a jolt of electricity so intense between us, I am pretty sure we lit up the entire solar system the second our lips touched. It rendered me speechless.
Max pulled away and said, “Now that’s how you say good night!” As he stepped back, he took off his red wool beanie and handed it to me. My thoughts were a jumble: What’s this for? A souvenir? I remained quiet while he turned on his heel to walk back to his car. I knew I looked confused. Looking over his shoulder with the confidence of Ryan Gosling, he shrugged and said, “I guess you have to see me again…you have my hat.”
And with that, he got back into his car and drove away. True to his word, this all went down in the span of five minutes. Well, I thought, that was something. What the actual fuck?
Excerpted from WE’VE DECIDED TO GO IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION (Essays) by Tess Sanchez. Copyright © 2025 by TESS SANCHEZ. Reprinted by permission of GALLERY BOOKS, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.