Fake It Until You Make It

Chapter 19: The Ones before the One

It is important to me that you understand what I'm about to tell you, mostly because I need you to know that no matter how messy you'll think I dealt with the whole Lisa-situation, you should know that inside, I was messier. So here it goes:

When I was thirteen-years-old I was shooting the second season of the first television show on my acting career, on Disney Channel. I played a Hispanic girl who terrorized the main character and in that particular season my character started an arc that involved her feeling sad and angry over her realization that, because she always came on too strong and was kind of mean to people, no one would ever love her and, unlike the other girls in the show, she would never have a boyfriend. Until, of course, they introduce a character played by Jimmy Kempner.

Jimmy Kempner was my age, adorably blonde with dark brown eyes and overly excited about getting his first big role in Hollywood. At the time, it was all he wanted. Jimmy stayed on the show for about six episodes, which means about six weeks, time in which our characters became each other's first love and kissed, having a 'very serious relationship' (or, you know, as serious as it gets on Disney Channel) and then they ended his arc and participation on the show using the excuse of his character's parents having to move to Hawaii.

In real life, the first time our characters had to kiss was also the first time I ever kissed anyone ever. And no, there's no need to point out the irony in the fact my first kiss ever was a fake kiss, thank you very much. Wanna know what else is ironic about it? After we shot the first kiss scene, both Jimmy and I decided we liked each other, so we kept on kissing, even when we weren't shooting, and we started dating seriously (you know, as serious as it gets when you're thirteen). So there you go, turns out Lisa is not my first fake-relationship turned real. As I said, Jimmy only stayed in the show for six weeks, and after that, our love didn't survive the distance and we broke up (see the irony here too? Good). I heard from old friends from the cast he now lives in Boston and, after graduating from Boston College, has been managing a hotel in the area – he gave up acting by the time he got to high school. Maybe he was up to something...

Since I was homeschooled, I didn't really know a lot of people beside the ones I met in Disney, and after Jimmy the next time a boy kissed me was after I had left the show for High School. At first everyone thought I was lame for being an immigrant and from Disney, it was tough getting a cute boy to like me, so this next kiss happened in social circles outside of school, when Irene and I went to Comic Con, where we met a lot of people and I ended having a two-days 'relationship' with an Anakin Skywalker cosplayer. I remember his name was Ted, but I still like to refer to him as Anakin.

After that, the movie came out and people seemed to think I was a bit cooler than they had previously asserted, phenomenon I was able to blatantly avoid until the senior prom bug came to bite me in the ass. Irene kept talking about how all of it was stupid and dumb and how she was happy to stay home and binge watch Gilmore Girls, but I was excited. And when Aiden Jackson – the linebacker for the football team - asked me to be his date not only did I proudly accepted, but I started to wear his varsity jacket around every day until the prom. Irene was kind enough not to judge me and to help me pick a dress, but when the day came and he drove us to the beach after the party was over to try and have sex with me, the whole thing kind of lost its magic and I saw what Irene did: a dumb tradition and a childish jerk. I gave him his jacket back, took his hand out of my tight and walked down the street as I called Irene to come and pick me up, which she did and, as the good friend she is, she heard me roast Aiden Harper for about an hours before making me shut up so we could watch Gilmore Girls for the rest of the night.

The next boy who kissed me was different. Both because he was kind and caring, and because he wasn't just a kid or a jerk, he was my good cousin Leo. Leonardo was two years older than me when I went to Brazil to help my parents get settled back home. At the time, when I was 17, fresh out of high school, I had just finished my first Broadway run and was longing to move to New York definitely with Irene, having started to realize the tool on me over an industry that got to me way earlier than it probably should have. So I decided to step away. Go to college. Be normal. So before classes started in September, as my parents made the definitive move back, I ended up seeing Leo a lot more than usual.