In Real Life: My Journey to a Pixelated World

  Really sorry, he texted. A casting came up and it’s super important. You guys go on without me.

  But the whole point of the day was for him to meet everyone. I grew depressed and called off the whole thing. I didn’t feel like going to the beach anymore. I also lied to Luke and Whitney and said that Preston had gotten sick. I didn’t want them to have a bad impression of him, but not telling them the truth also meant that I had no one to commiserate with.

  I texted him later that afternoon to see how the casting went, but I didn’t hear back from him until the next day. That’s when I knew I was in trouble. I had fallen hard for a guy who was pulling away before anything had even really had a chance to start.

  When he finally did answer me, I decided to be direct. I have to be honest, I texted. I was worried that you had canceled because you had lost interest in me.

  If I had, I’d tell you, he wrote. And then I didn’t hear from him again for another two days.

  In retrospect, it seems pretty classic. Everyone has that first time that they fall for the wrong guy and get hurt. The difference is that most people experience that for the first time at a fairly young age, so by the time they’re in their early twenties, they have a set of coping mechanisms to help them deal if it happens again. But I was operating with nothing. I had zero experience, and so when it came to Preston, I felt like one big exposed raw nerve. He’d still text with me, but it would take hours and hours for him to answer even a simple little hello or question. And during those hours, I’d drive myself insane, imagining all sorts of scenarios of him making out or even sleeping with other guys. I’d work myself up into a total frenzy until I’d finally hear back from him, and he’d have some excuse, like he’d left his phone at home or its battery had died.

  After a couple of days of my barely holding it together, he finally asked if I wanted to come over to his house and hang out. I felt a massive flood of relief. If he wanted me to visit, I reasoned, then he must really have feelings for me.

  He lived up in the Hollywood Hills, and I had to park on a winding road near a gate that guarded his driveway and then call his cell so he could let me in. He rented the guest cottage of someone else’s house, so he didn’t have a proper front door. It was like he was barricaded in some fortress. It wasn’t the kind of home you could just show up at unannounced. You had to be expressly invited.

  He met me at the gate, and we walked to his little studio behind the main house. It was sparsely decorated—just a bed, couch, coffee table, and a half-empty bookshelf. The kitchen was basically in the same room as his bedroom and living room. The whole house was strangely boring and vanilla, except for a Jacuzzi out back. No personal flourishes marked the space as his own—basically the exact opposite of how I like to live.

  We talked a lot that night. I opened up to him about my relationship with my mom, and later he suggested we go for a hike up in the hills. I filled him in more about my life as we wandered around, finally ending up at a lookout point with a stunning view of Los Angeles. We were both silent, taking in all of the lights below us, when suddenly a bunch of red and blue ones started flashing behind.

  A police car had pulled up, and the officer informed us that this particular lookout point was closed after dark.

  “Sorry, we didn’t know,” I started to say, but the cop interrupted me. “Sit down on the curb, both of you.”

  I was terrified and did what I was told. Preston sat down too, but he was much calmer. “Officer, we’re sorry. We were just on a walk and didn’t realize how late it had gotten.” His voice sounded so innocent.

  “I’m still going to have to give you a ticket,” the cop said.

  “Is that really necessary? We were just taking in the view. I mean, how beautiful is that?” He gestured to the vista behind us and flashed the cop a huge smile, showing off all of his gleaming white teeth.

  The cop gazed over our shoulders, and then back down at Preston. “Well, all right,” he grumbled. “Get on out of here. And remember that these lookout points are off limits once the sun sets.”

  We scurried down the hill and back to Preston’s house, cracking up the whole way. The fact that he had just charmed our way out of a fine made him seem even hotter to me than before.

  When we got back to his house, we started making out on his bed and cuddling. All of my frustration about him ditching my friends dissolved. It was just a casting, I told myself. We all came to LA to succeed, and you have to be driven in order to do that. I told myself that he was just being dedicated to his craft. And now that we were hanging out again and having so much fun, I was becoming more hopeful.

  “I like having you in my bed,” he said after pulling away for a moment. “You’re good at cuddling.”

  “Thanks. I like being in your bed too,” I said.

  He rolled on top of me and started kissing my neck. I had no idea anything could feel so amazing.

  After a couple of hours, I finally got up to leave. I wasn’t ready to sleep over yet. Although I felt better about things between us, I knew that I needed to wait a while before sex came into the picture. It might seem old-fashioned, but it’s a really big deal to me. I didn’t want to waste my first time on someone who wasn’t head over heels in love with me.

  “So when do you want to hang out again?” he asked as I put on my shoes.

  “Tomorrow?”

  He laughed. “Wow, someone’s eager.”

  I shrugged. “I like hanging out with you.”

  “Well, I have an acting class tomorrow, but I could probably do Tuesday.”

  And that’s basically how the whole relationship operated from there on out. We’d see each other every few days, and I’d wait in agony for him to return texts on the days we didn’t see each other. My attraction to him was about more than just his good looks. Preston’s lack of communication fed a curiosity in me that, looking back, was pretty unhealthy. His refusal to open up and fully let me into his world just made me want him more. He was a mystery I desperately wanted to crack. His aloofness made him seem especially cool, and I wanted to be a part of that world. It’s classic, really. The heart tends to want exactly what it can’t have.

  Whitney was at my house one night when he came over, and she decided that she didn’t like him. “I don’t know. There’s just something a little off about the way he acts,” she told me after he’d left. “It’s as if he isn’t really there. And wasn’t he also wearing a deep V-neck tee-shirt that first time we met him at the Abbey? He likes his chest an awful lot.”

  “He has a nice chest,” I said defensively, but she was right. If he wasn’t wearing a revealing tee, he wore a button-down shirt with the top three buttons undone. Whitney started calling him Deep V from then on. How’s Deep V treating you? You seeing Deep V tonight? Joey and Deep V sitting in a tree . . .

  Over the next few weeks, our make-out sessions went further and further, but I still wasn’t ready to go all the way with him. It was torture, but I knew that the trust had to be 100 percent there, and it wasn’t. It’s not that things were bad, but he still seemed to be keeping me at arm’s length, making me wait hours before ever returning a text or phone call.

  I knew that his birthday was coming up, and that gave me some hope. Birthdays are milestones, and special days are supposed to be spent with the people you love and care about. I couldn’t wait to find out if I was going to be included in anything he had planned. But he never brought it up, and so on the actual day, I texted him a happy birthday message and asked if he had any plans.

  Thanks, he wrote. I don’t think I’m going to do anything, but I’ll let you know if I do.

  I didn’t hear from him for the rest of the day or night. When I texted him the following day to see how his birthday had been, I had to wait the usual three hours before getting a response. I was tired. I just ended up getting a drink with Alex at a bar and then going home early, he wrote.

  Can I take you out for dinner tomorrow to celebrate? I asked. He agreed, but I was still
hurt.

  “He could have asked me to meet them out,” I moaned to Whitney. “He really doesn’t like me.”

  “Who cares what Deep V thinks?” she said. “You can do better. Let’s go out tonight. You can flirt with some guys. It’ll make you feel better.”

  So we went to the Abbey but I wasn’t really feeling it. (At least Edgar and Stacey weren’t there.) We eventually ran into an actor we knew named Tim and started chatting with him. While catching up, he mentioned that he’d recently gone on a casting for a pretty big show on Fox.

  “Oh, I heard about that,” I said. “My friend Preston went to that too, but he didn’t get it.”

  “You know Preston?” Tim asked, surprised. “How funny. I was just at his house last night.”

  I felt this weird adrenaline feeling shiver through me, and it was hard to even hear myself think due to the rushing sound in my ears. The noises of the bar seemed to recede.

  “Wait. What?”

  “Yeah, it was his birthday. He had a party.”

  “Excuse us,” I said, and dragged Whitney away. “What the hell?” I said once we were safely in a corner. “Why didn’t he invite me? He lied to me!”

  “You need to have an actual talk with him about you two,” she said. “You’ve been dating for almost two months but he’s keeping you at bay. You need to know if he is seeing other people.”

  “That’s such an awkward thing to ask,” I groaned.

  “But you have to!” she said. “Joey, you could get really hurt by this guy. You need to know what his deal is, and the sooner the better, so you can decide if you can handle dating him.”

  “I can’t believe I told him I’d take him out to dinner.”

  “You’re too nice to him. Promise me you’ll clear things up with him tomorrow. Find out once and for all if you guys are even really together, or if it’s just a casual hook-up thing.”

  I’d made a reservation at Maggio’s, an Italian restaurant at The Grove. He texted me to meet him on the bridge there, and when I approached him, the whole scene felt straight out of a Disney movie. He was alone on the bridge, and there were sprays of water from fountains bubbling up all around him in the background. He was wearing the usual unbuttoned shirt, but I didn’t care. I was just happy to see him. We hugged hello before sitting down, but Preston was already acting distant. He was fidgeting with his napkin and kept glancing around the room. I wanted to acknowledge right off the bat that I knew he’d lied to me.

  “So, I went to the Abbey last night,” I started.

  “Yeah? Did you meet anyone?”

  That wasn’t what I was expecting at all. He said it in a way that obviously meant he was asking if I’d hooked up with anyone. And it was mischievous, as if he wouldn’t have cared at all if I had.

  I plowed on anyway. “I ran into Tim. He said he went to a birthday party at your place.”

  Preston didn’t even blink. “Oh yeah, after we went to the bar, Alex invited him back to my place for a nightcap. It was hardly a party.”

  His answer was too slick, but I was relieved that he didn’t try to outright deny it.

  “How come you didn’t invite me?” I asked.

  “It was late, and they were only over for, like, half an hour. Seriously, it was no big deal.”

  I didn’t have any choice except to believe him, and I couldn’t bring myself to just ask him if he was seeing other people. The rest of the dinner conversation was stilted and awkward, but at least we ended up making out in my car at the end of the night, which gave me hope that things were still good. The next few days were filled with the usual texts followed by long silences, though, and I was in absolute agony. So I was caught off guard when he ended up inviting me over to his house a week later.

  “Sure, but is it okay if I come by in about an hour?” I asked. “I have to finish filming a video for tomorrow’s post, but it shouldn’t take long at all.”

  “No problem. I’ll see you in a little bit,” he said.

  But finishing the shoot took a lot longer than expected, and then I got stuck in horrendous traffic trying to get to his place, so by the time I arrived, it was over two hours later.

  I parked near his gate and texted him. I’m here!

  Ten minutes went by.

  Sorry, I’m so late, traffic was awful.

  Still nothing.

  I called his cell, but it went to voice mail. I sat in my car, wondering what to do. Almost half an hour passed and I was getting ready to just give up and drive home when he finally called.

  “Nice of you to show up,” he said in a cold tone.

  “I’m so, so sorry, it was the traffic.”

  “It’s fine,” he sighed. “I’ll be right down.” It was like he was doing me the biggest favor in the world.

  A few minutes later, he unlocked the gate and led me to his studio. I tried to apologize again, but he just sort of waved his hand at me.

  “Do you want some sangria?” he asked once we got inside.

  “Sure,” I said. He poured us each a glass and sat down on the bed near me. I kept trying to make small talk, but there was too much awkward tension in the air. Finally he just blurted out: “Do you want to go in the Jacuzzi?”

  “Okay,” I said, and he tossed me a bathing suit. We changed quickly and went outside. Once we were inside the tub, things started to relax between us. He glided through the water so he was sitting next to me and we started kissing. But things got too steamy—literally, there was too much steam coming out of the water and it got really hot—so we went back inside.

  We crawled into bed and he said, “This is fun.”

  But instead of agreeing, I was finally calm enough to just say what was really on my mind. “What exactly is this, though?” I asked. “What are we doing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you seeing other people? I just need to know. I can’t go any further with you if you’re seeing anyone else. I need to protect myself.”

  He sighed and rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. I watched his profile, holding my breath.

  “I just moved here,” he said. “And it was for my career. I don’t want to get into a relationship yet.”

  “I don’t want us to see other people,” I told him, trying to hold it together.

  “I can’t make that commitment,” he said.

  I knew in my heart that was what his answer was going to be, but it still stung. I rolled over onto my back and peered at the ceiling too, trying to figure out what he was focusing on up there.

  “What are you looking for?” he asked.

  “I want a relationship with someone, and I really like you. And I’d like to know that you haven’t been hooking up with anyone else this whole time.” I couldn’t make eye contact with him as I spoke.

  He didn’t say anything. I guess he didn’t have to.

  “Well,” he finally sighed. “I guess we’re not compatible.”

  “Is that your final decision?” I don’t know why I was torturing myself like that. It was clearly over.

  “I mean, things could change.”

  More silence.

  “So are we breaking up?” he finally asked.

  I leaned up on my elbow and looked at his face. He was so handsome that it actually hurt. “I don’t want to, but this is really hard for me,” I said. “I guess I don’t have much choice.” I got up and found my clothes. “I’m going to head out.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you later. I guess.”

  “Of course, we will,” I said. “I mean, we’re going to stay in touch, right?”

  “Yeah,” he mumbled in a way that I knew really meant not so much. He got out of bed and walked me to the door, where we kissed one last time before I left.

  I was fine the first day. Whitney came over and helped boost my self-confidence by continuously making fun of Deep V. I can find someone else, I thought. Someone better, who actually wants a relationship. I deserve to be treated better.

  I crashed twenty-four
hours later, though. Preston never got back in touch, and I thought about him nearly every day. I kept an eye out for him every time I went out to the bars, but it was as if he had disappeared from the face of the earth. I wondered if he moved back home. It took all of my strength to not call or text him, despite being desperate for some sort of closure. I wanted at least to know that we could still be friends or to be able to see him in a different light, one that didn’t shine up at him on a pedestal. Because despite how he treated me, I still thought he was the perfect guy. I figured that if he didn’t want me, then there must be something wrong with me.

  The breakup fed into a secret insecurity that I usually kept pretty buried—that I was just some random kid from Massachusetts who didn’t deserve to be in Los Angeles; didn’t have what it takes to really make it (even though in reality I was doing pretty great). The fact that he could handle sleeping with other people and I couldn’t made me wonder if I was being naive about what it means to date people. Maybe I needed to be less sensitive and toughen up.

  But that’s not who I am. I believe in love and being exclusive with someone you’re intimate with. I wanted to hold on to those beliefs.

  Eventually I moved on. I even casually dated a couple of other guys, but nothing serious. Preston haunted the back of my mind, and I secretly compared every guy I met to him. But things got a little easier every day, especially once I got the opportunity to embark on the adventure of a lifetime.

  Favorite Love Songs of All Time

  “Young and Beautiful” by Lana Del Rey

  “Still into You” by Paramore

  “Numb” by Marina and the Diamonds

  “Time to Dance” by Panic! At the Disco

  “This Is How It Feels” by the Veronicas

  Top Five Sappy Movies

  Any time that I feel like I need a good cry or a reminder that love really does exist, I just watch one of these tearjerkers.

  A Walk to Remember

  Stepmom