In Real Life: My Journey to a Pixelated World

  Chapter 16

  Long Distance

  Twelve weeks after Sam ditched me, I got a text from him. Hey random question. Are you going to VidCon?

  That wasn’t a random question at all. Of course I was going to VidCon. By that point it had grown to be a huge event for any YouTuber. But more important, why was he writing to me now, out of nowhere? I’d spent the past few months trying to get him out of my head and not even think about dating. Instead, I focused all of my energy and resolve on my videos. I decided to ignore the text, but that lasted all of about forty seconds.

  Yes. Are you?

  I was going to, but it looks like all the passes are sold out . . .

  So that’s why he was getting in touch: he wanted to use me to get tickets. I was angry for a minute, but I decided to get over it. I didn’t want to let him get to me, and being spiteful would just end up making things worse. Plus, I had to admit to myself that even though I knew he was just taking advantage of my access, I still kind of wanted to see him. All those months of not knowing what I had done wrong had left me confused. I was hoping that if I saw him, I could at least get some kind of closure. So I gave him the e-mail address of a contact I knew could hook him up.

  VidCon was overlapping that year with another conference that I desperately wanted to go to—the Anime Expo. I’d recently become friends with a really cool girl named Kalel. We bonded over our love of cosplay, and she got major bonus points in my book for changing her name from Kristin to the same one Superman was originally given on Krypton. We had been planning our costumes for the Anime Expo for weeks. I was going as Nintendo’s Kid Icarus, and she was going as Snow White.

  I was also going to be spending most of VidCon with two YouTuber friends from England, Jim and Tanya, filming stuff from the conference on their channel with them in addition to attending a bunch of panels and going to parties. I just wanted to enjoy my time at the convention without getting dragged into Sam’s life again.

  I decided to rent a hotel room with Cat at a Hilton near the convention center in Anaheim so we wouldn’t have to keep driving back and forth each day. I arrived a little late on the first night, and after dropping my stuff off in the room, I went to a party hosted by District Lines, a company that makes merchandise like tee-shirts and tote bags for YouTubers. The event happened to be taking place at our hotel, so all I had to do was go downstairs to one of the conference spaces. The room was dark, illuminated only by pink and blue lights that streaked up the walls from the floor. The music was deafening, and everyone was wearing glow necklaces and dancing.

  As I stood there letting my eyes adjust to the dark, a familiar-looking guy walked right up to me. It took a second for me to recognize him as Mike, a gay vlogger from Ohio whom I’d met briefly at another YouTube conference not too long ago. He was cute—shorter than me, with blondish brown hair that he wore swooped up off his face.

  “Hey, Joey, good to see you!” he shouted over the music.

  “You too! Where’s the bar in this place?”

  “I’ll get you a drink. What do you want?”

  That’s sweet, I thought. “Um, a tequila sunrise.” I’d just turned twenty-one and loved the freedom to order whatever I wanted.

  “Coming right up.”

  I chatted with a few YouTube friends I hadn’t seen in a long time, but right as Mike came over with my drink, I spotted Jim and Tanya across the room. “Thanks, bye!” I said as I ran off to greet them. Not very nice, I know, but I was starting to think that maybe Mike liked me, and that made me so nervous I didn’t know what else to do. I hung out with Jim and Tanya for about an hour before the party ended and we had to leave. I decided to just head to my hotel room and prepare for the next day’s craziness, so I said my good-byes and made my way toward the door when Mike suddenly appeared beside me. “Hey, what’s your number?” he asked. “We should hang out while I’m in town!”

  “Sure,” I said. I still couldn’t tell for absolute sure if he was hitting on me or if he genuinely just wanted to hang out, but he seemed really nice so I figured it couldn’t hurt either way.

  It was a good thing I went to bed early. From the moment I stepped into the convention center the next day, it was a nonstop tornado of screams and bright lights and crowds. I met lots of viewers who kept coming up to me wearing tee-shirts with my name on them. One of them gave me a cute Soot Sprite stuffed animal from Spirited Away. Another bunch of girls serenaded Whitney, Cat, and me with the lyrics Luke and I had written to our Hunger Games/Britney Spears video parody. I got proposed to and given an actual ring by a really sweet girl at a Mega Meet Up panel. I signed hundreds of autographs. It was all so much fun that it made it easy to put the whole Sam mess out of my mind once and for all. I didn’t need someone like him in my life when I had so much love and support coming from all these other people.

  Oh, who was I fooling? In the back of my head, I was totally hoping that he would text me and want to hang out. I kept thinking it would be so cool to have someone special to share all of this with. But Sam never reached out. I began to wonder again if maybe Mike was a possibility, and I kept an eye out for him the whole time, but I didn’t see him until the end of the second day.

  I was hanging out with Whitney at our overpriced hotel bar with a bunch of other random vloggers, trying to figure out what to do that evening, when I saw Mike strolling across the lobby with a bottle of vodka tucked under his arm. I nudged Whitney and pointed. “Maybe he’ll share with us.”

  “Hey, Mike!” I shouted and waved. He was with a few friends, and they all came over with him.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “We’re going to a room party. Come with us!”

  I glanced at Whitney and could tell she was feeling the same way I was. We’d spent the whole day surrounded by strangers, and we preferred to be with a smaller group at that point.

  “Bummer,” I said. “We were just going back to our room. You should stop by before you go and bring that bottle!”

  Everyone in his group seemed a little tipsy. They were taking pictures and spinning off into their own little groups, so he shrugged. “Sure. Lead the way!”

  Once in the room, we poured drinks and put on some music, danced around, and caught up on our VidCon experiences.

  “Someone proposed to me today,” I shouted over the music.

  “Guy or girl?” he asked.

  “Girl.”

  “Lucky bitch.”

  Whitney rolled her eyes. “I gotta go. My sister is waiting up for me. Have fun, boys.”

  As soon as she was gone, I lowered the music and sat on the side of one of the beds. Mike fell back and then suddenly sat up cross-legged on the other.

  “I wish a girl would propose to me,” he pouted.

  “You’re gay,” I said.

  “Aren’t you too?”

  “No! I mean, well, I’m bisexual. That’s why I never talk about it on my channel. Everyone just assumes that I’m gay and I have some friends who think the bisexual thing is just a cover. But it’s not. So I choose not to discuss it at all. It’s not hard for you, being out on your channel?” I asked.

  “I mean, there will always be asshole commenters, but I couldn’t care less about them. I’m happy with who I am. I don’t want to hide that.”

  I stood up and the room swam out of focus. “Whoa, I think I drank too much.” I ran to the bathroom and gulped down three huge glasses of water. When I got back into the room, I was stumbling.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, standing up.

  I waved my arm as if to shoo him away. “I’m fine. I just forgot to eat dinner.”

  “We should get some food in you,” he said.

  “It’s the middle of the night.”

  “There’s an IHOP down the street. Come on. You need to eat. You look like you’re about to fall over.”

  I let him lead me out of the hotel and to the restaurant, where we slid into a corner booth. “Scrambled eggsssss and toast, please!” I said to t
he waitress.

  “Nothing for me, thanks,” Mike said.

  We flicked a wadded-up piece of napkin back and forth across the table at each other until the food arrived. I took one look at the pale yellow quivering mass on my plate and felt my stomach roil. “Ugh, no thanks,” I said.

  “What?” He laughed. “We came here because of you. Come on, you have to eat!”

  I shook my head. “Not hungry anymore.”

  “At least have some toast.”

  I took a few nibbles to placate him and then slapped a few crinkled bills on the table. “Let’s go back to the hotel.”

  When we got to the room, he flopped down on the bed, and I sat on the other side, wondering if I should lie down next to him. Even though I hadn’t eaten much at the restaurant, all the water I’d guzzled and our walk through the night air had finally sobered me up.

  Screw it, I thought, and stretched out beside him, making sure to inch my body closer to his so that our hands were almost touching. I glanced over at him and saw that he was looking at me. I quickly averted my eyes, and I could feel my face growing hot. It was the closest I’d ever come to being able to read someone’s mind. I knew that this guy wanted to kiss me, and I couldn’t believe it might actually be about to happen. He reached his arm over and started massaging the top of my head. I closed my eyes and smiled, it felt so incredible and safe. I opened my eyes and turned my head toward his. He started to lean in.

  Cat suddenly burst into the room. I rolled away and sat up so fast it made my head spin. She gave me a suspicious look from the doorway. “Am I interrupting anything?”

  “No, of course not,” I scoffed.

  “Nope,” Mike said, sitting up. “Actually, I should get going. It’s really late.”

  I glared at Cat, who just shrugged and flopped on the other bed. I couldn’t blame her. We were sharing the room, after all, and it was almost dawn.

  “I’ll walk you to the elevator,” I told Mike.

  As we walked down the hallway, I wished it would start stretching out forever, like some sort of cheesy nightmare special effect from a scary movie. I didn’t want him to leave. I thought for sure I was going to have my first kiss that night, and it was ending before my eyes. When we got to the elevator bank, he hit the down button and turned to me.

  “Well, that was fun,” he said. Here it comes, I thought. My first kiss.

  And then he hugged me. That’s right. A hug.

  He stepped away and smiled, and before I could stop myself, I said “What, no kiss?”

  He grinned and leaned in and gave me a peck on the lips. He pulled back, and then gave me another just as the elevator doors opened.

  “Bye.” He grinned as he got in and the doors shut.

  My first thought was, Well, that was a super-lame first kiss. My second thought was, Whatever. I’ll take it!

  I practically skipped down the hallway back to the room. Cat took one look at the giant stupid grin on my face and asked, “Did you guys kiss?”

  I threw myself face down on the bed. “Yes!”

  She jumped on my bed and threw her arms around me.

  “That’s awesome! How does it feel?”

  “Amazing. I mean, it wasn’t like a real kiss. It was pretty innocent. But he did it twice. That still counts, right?”

  “Of course it counts! When are you going to see him again?”

  “I mean, soon, I hope. He has to go back to Ohio. We only have a couple of days here.”

  It turned out that I didn’t have to wait long at all. When I woke up, Cat had already left but there was a text from Mike, asking me if I wanted to meet him in the lobby for breakfast. I felt gross and hungover, not to mention all of the butterflies in my stomach from the thought of just being near him, so I wasn’t sure I could handle keeping up a conversation all by myself. I wrote back Sure and then immediately texted Whitney and asked her to meet us so I wouldn’t have to be alone with him.

  When I arrived, they were bright and awake and alert, and I felt like a total zombie next to them. They teased me about my constant groaning about how sick I felt. But the truth was that my stomach butterflies were brought on more by how strange I felt around Mike. He seemed totally fine, like nothing had happened last night, but I kept stealing glances at him and thinking, You were my first kiss! In the light of day, it was hard for me to fully accept, because even though I was finally able to talk about my feelings with my friends and Nicole, I was still partially removed from that part of myself.

  We all split up afterward to go our separate ways, and I hugged him good-bye. “You’ll be at the Maker Studios party tonight, right?” he asked.

  “I have to head home and get my costume ready for the Anime Expo tomorrow,” I said. “But maybe I’ll stop by anyway!”

  I checked out of the hotel room since I’d only booked it for two nights, and then met up with Kalel in her room so we could discuss our costumes and our plan for the next day’s expo. Even though we’d never met in person, we felt like old friends from the first second.

  “Ugh, I can’t actually hang out right now after all,” I told her. “I didn’t get anywhere near enough work done on my costume. I have to go back home and work on it.”

  “That’s silly. Just go get it and bring it to my hotel room. I’ll help you finish it up!”

  I knew that she was staying with her boyfriend, Anthony, from Smosh, one of the biggest channels on YouTube. It was basically the equivalent of being at Comic-Con and having Stan Lee’s spouse ask you to come hang out in their room. She didn’t have to offer twice.

  I drove back to my apartment to pick up all of my Kid Icarus materials. The costume involved a white tunic, angel wings, gold laurel leaves for my hair, and a double-blade sword. It was pretty involved. Kalel and I worked hard all afternoon crafting the headpiece and painting the papier-mâché weapon, but the costume still wasn’t complete before it was time to go to the party.

  “You should just stay here tonight,” Kalel offered. “We’ll take the sofa cushions off and make a bed for you on the floor, and then we can finish up the costume first thing in the morning.”

  “You’re sure Anthony won’t mind?”

  “Of course not!”

  I thanked her, and we headed downstairs. The event was being held in the same conference room the District Lines party had been, but it was a much more formal affair. People were wearing ties, and only wine and beer were served. I spotted Mike the second I walked in, and we hugged. I introduced him to Kalel, and we all made the rounds, mingling with industry people and dancing a little, but I was still beat from the previous late night and knew I’d have to get up early for the Expo.

  “You should just stay in my hotel room,” Mike said, when I told him I was thinking of going back up to Kalel’s. “That way you won’t have to sleep on the floor.” I knew he was sharing his room with another friend, so nothing could really happen. But because he was sharing the room with someone else, what he was really offering was for me to sleep in the same bed as him. But Mike hardly seemed like the type to try and force himself on me in the middle of the night or anything. He was a good guy, and that was a lot of what made him attractive to me. There was nothing shady about him. He was a sweet, old-fashioned midwestern kid—the kind who probably made his mom breakfast in bed on Mother’s Day.

  I explained the change of plans to Kalel and promised to meet her first thing in the morning, and Mike and I headed upstairs. As soon as we got into his room, all of the exhaustion and lack of sleep from the last few days crashed down on me.

  “Do you mind if I take a shower?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” he said. He rummaged through his suitcase on the floor and tossed me a pair of gym shorts and a tee-shirt. “Here, you can wear these to bed.”

  “Thanks. Ugh, I wish I had a toothbrush.”

  “Just use mine. I don’t care. It’s the blue one in the cup by the sink.”

  I thought that was kind of weird and gross, but I figured it was bette
r than nothing.

  When I finally got out of the bathroom, I walked out shirtless. “My turn,” he said, peeling off his own shirt. My eyes nearly popped out—his abs looked as if they were cut from marble. I prayed that he’d still have his shirt off when he got out of the bathroom so I could get a second peek.

  Those prayers were answered. He flicked off the lights and crawled into bed with me. We both stared at the ceiling, our arms to our sides.

  “Have you ever had a boyfriend?” he asked.

  I started laughing. “Um, no. I’ve only ever been on one date before. And you were my first kiss.”

  He bolted upright. “Wait, what? Are you kidding?”

  “Nope.” I ended up explaining the whole Sam disaster to him.

  “That sucks. No one should ever treat you like that,” he said. He scooted back down and turned on his side so that he was facing me.

  “Yeah, well, I guess I had to start somewhere,” I said.

  He leaned in and kissed me. Only this time it wasn’t a peck. He really kissed me. Ooohhhh, I thought. So this is what a kiss is supposed to feel like.

  Maybe I actually should have practiced on a cantaloupe like the Wing Girls had suggested. I had no clue what I was supposed to be doing with my tongue, and instead of just enjoying the kiss I began to get terrified that I was doing everything wrong. It was all happening so fast. Suddenly a conversation I’d had with Whitney before my disastrous date with Sam flashed through my head. We’d been talking about what to do if he kissed me.

  “I had no idea what to do the first time a guy made out with me,” she’d said. “It was scary, but I just sort of mimicked everything he did. I followed his moves, and it seemed to work.”

  So I started doing that, and she was right. Things got easier and I let myself relax and enjoy it. But after a little while, I started to get all flushed and felt like my chest was going to explode, so I pulled away.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. This was all happening so fast and felt overwhelming. “Yeah,” I said. “I think I just need to break for a minute.” He massaged my shoulders a little, and after a while, my breathing returned to normal and we started making out again. Then it was his turn to stop and pull away.