The show that was created for me was called "Ladders", and it was about a middle school boy who was trying to gain popularity. He was a nerd and teacher's pet, and he had a total of about two friends. One of which was his mom. That character was me.
I got to wear crisp button-up shirts that were always tucked in, clip-on ties, neon suspenders, and horn-rimmed glasses with fake lenses. My hair was combed with a part instead of up in my usual style, and I wore an unholy amount of hairspray. The tube socks and the dress shoes were my personal favorite accessories.
At the start of season one, my character was a total loser. He had a mouth full of braces, and he talked like there was too much saliva in his mouth. He even had a nerdy name. Norman. I felt like he could have been me in an alternate universe, one where I didn't act.
This whole show was a bunch of cliches. It wasn't until after Ladders finished that I understood that the point was to make fun of all these stereotypes. Norman was the picture definition of your stereotypical nerd, except that I wasn't white, and I didn't have bad acne. Norman was extremely awkward, and he panicked if he couldn't get to class with at least sixty seconds to spare. I wasn't perfect for the role, but I do think that I nailed it.
The idea was that the episodes were "rungs". Something would happen in each episode that made Norman move up or down the school's social ladder. There were a few setbacks, but mostly, he was going up.
The finale episode of the entire show involved Norman getting together with the school's cheer captain. When I saw the script, I started to panic.
By that point, at fourteen years old, I had acted a lot of different things. There wasn't much that I wasn't comfortable with. But, in that script, highlighted in neon ink, was a kissing scene.
The girl who I was supposed to kiss, Allison, was fine with it, which made me even more nervous. The kiss was only supposed to be a solid second, not a full-on makeout session. Still, it would be my first kiss. I tried to act professional during our table read, but I was sweating through all the layers of my clothes.
I ended up kissing someone before the big filming day, but it wasn't Allison.
It was a quiet day on set- one of those days where the tech people took ten hours to set everything up while the actors sat around doing nothing. It was supposed to be a long day, so a lot of crew members brought their kids to hang out here. One of the kids happened to be a sound guy's adorable son.
The kid was probably a couple years younger than me, but he was cute. His blond hair and piercing blue eyes made him look like a doll. He seemed extremely likable, making friends with anyone the second that he started talking to them. Since I was fairly introverted off-camera, I kept waiting for him to approach me. When he didn't, and I got tired of waiting, I dragged my pathetic ass to my dressing room.
As soon as the door was shut and locked, I pulled out my phone and called Logan on speed dial.
"Logan, there's a cute boy on set today."
"And that was important enough for you to call me during a funeral?"
"Are you really at a funeral?" I asked.
"Nope, but what if I had been?"
"Then you shouldn't have answered." I leaned back in my chair and propped my feet up on a counter. "Anyway, since you picked up the phone, you get to hear about this cute boy."
"Joy," Logan grumbled, but I heard shuffling, so I knew he was looking for a place to sit. "So let's hear about about your new crush."
"I don't like him!" I looked up into a mirror, and sure enough, I was blushing. "I haven't even gotten to talk to him. He's just cute, and I really want to."
"So why are you talking to me, then?" As always, Logan had a point.
"You may be right, but you're very unhelpful."
"I know. So who is he?"
I set my phone down and put in on speaker. "One of the sound guys' kids."
"Scandalous."
"Shut up."
"So go flirt with him," Logan suggested.
"I can't do that!" Thank goodness for soundproof walls. "He looks twelve."
"So do you."
"But sound kid might actually be twelve."
"And you're what, fourteen? It's still legal."
"Logan!"
"Go get your man, Cam."
"Never say that again," I told him.
"I regretted it as soon as you did."
I laughed. "I guess I can go stutter in front of him for a few seconds."
"Dude, you've literally never stuttered in your life. Look, you're an actor, yeah? Okay, so your character is a version of you that isn't nervous. Then, talking to what's-his-face is like improv. Say whatever seems natural to keep the dialogue going."
"Thanks, Logan."
"All your problems, man. Now go get your-" He groaned. "Oh gosh, I almost said it again."
"I'm just gonna... leave now."
"You do you, boo."
"Why are you like this?"
I hung up on him before he could answer that.
I decided that since I would probably never see cute sound kid again, I had nothing to lose. With that in mind, I switched off the lights and opened my dressing room door.
Suddenly, there was another face smashed against mine.
It took a moment for me to realize what was happening. My lips. Other lips. Touching.
I jumped back, and a pair of blue eyes were already staring at me. It was the cute sound kid. Oh boy.
"Sorry!" I managed to squeak out before pushing past him and power walking away.
I went inside an empty dressing room. My heart was pounding, and my mind was screaming. I slid down against the door until I was sitting on the ground, and I picked up my phone again.
"Logan..."
"It's been, like, barely a minute since you just hung up. You'll seem desperate if you keep this up."
I bit my lip. "I made a mistake..."
He sighed from his end of the line. "You make a lot of those. You're gonna have to be a little more specific than that."
"I kissed him."
"YOU DID WHAT?!" It was kind of funny to me how Logan immediately knew what I was talking about.
"I swear, it was an accident!" I tried to convince him. Or myself, I didn't know.
I could pretty much hear Logan rolling his eyes. "Uh-huh. And tell me, Cam, how do you kiss someone by 'accident'?"
"I ran into him outside of my dressing room. And we're the same height, which means-"
"Your mouths lined up, got it."
"I don't know why he was right outside my dressing room in the first place."
"Maybe he wanted to talk to you," Logan suggested, which didn't make me feel any better. "It was finally your turn, so he came to find you. And then, before he could say anything, you guys touched lips and you ran away because you didn't know how else to respond. I'm right, aren't I?"
My silence told him all he needed to know.
"You did! Oh my gosh, you absolute failure. What am I gonna do with you?"
"I hate you," I moaned. "I'm never leaving this room again."
"Wait... So if that happened outside of your dressing room, and you ran away, does that mean you're in someone else's room now?"
"Uh..."
I looked around. Boy band posters on the wall. Pom-poms. A rack of cheerleader outfits. Oh no.
"If you're in Allison's dressing room, I'm gonna laugh at you."
The door opened, and I wanted to die.
"Cameron?" Allison stood there, looking very confused. At least she wasn't the kind of person to care much about privacy. "Did you need something?"
"No?" This was just adding another layer of embarrassment to my entire situation.
"Okay... why are you in my room? Did you want to practice kissing or something?"
I didn't know whether she said that as a joke, but I wasn't about to stick around and find out.
"I'm good, thanks. I'll let you know if I ever wanna take you up on that." With that, I bolted out of there.
With cute sound kid nowhere in sight, I hurried back to my own dressing room. When I was secure by the comfort of a locked door, I remembered that Logan was still on the line.
I held my phone up to my ear. "Logan? Please tell me you didn't hear all of that?"
He burst out laughing. "Oh man, you're a hot mess today."
"I'm not sure which interaction I should be more traumatized by," I said miserably.
"Probably all of them."
"Thanks. I'll just die of embarrassment now. Looks like you'll be going to a funeral today after all."
"Referencing my own joke to me, that's such a sitcom thing. You've been spending way too much time on set. When's your next day off?"
"Tomorrow, I think."
"Tell you what," Logan said. "You can come over to my house, and I'll hold you as you cry about cute sound guy and Allison. Then, I'll make you feel awful as I tell you about my own, much less embarrassing, girl problems."
"You're the best," I replied with half-trying sarcasm.
"I know. I'll ask Mom to buy you some ice cream."
And then I was dead-serious. "I frickin' love you."
"I guess I don't hate you." After years of phone conversations with Logan, I knew the exact tone of voice he used when he was smirking.
"Logan..." I whined.
He sighed. "Fine, love you too, weirdo."
I never got to talk to cute sound guy. I hid inside my dressing room until lunch, and I texted Allison to grab me some food so that I wouldn't have to go outside. Later on, we did a little bit of filming, and since I was in all of the scenes, I didn't get much downtime. I used that as my own excuse to not go talk to cute sound boy, but I knew that he was watching me from the side. I could feel his blue eyes judging me every time I messed up.
I did end up explaining to Allison the story of how I ended up in her dressing room. I left out a lot of details, so she thought I kissed one of our girl co-stars. I decided not to clarify that fact. She still thought it was the funniest thing ever.
The kissing scene was filmed a few days later. We had to haul all the equipment through the woods until we reached a clearing. By the time everything was set up, everyone just wanted to go home. It was starting to get dark, and mosquitoes were appearing. Everyone was getting bitten, and no one had thought to bring repellent.
We did the entire scene in one take. The world saw that as my first kiss, and everyone who watched it on TV (or streamed an illegal pirated version off the internet) thought it was "awkwardly adorable". I wasn't uncomfortable because it was my first kiss; it was because of the mosquitoes. Plus, it was in Norman's character, so awkward was okay.
The moment when I kissed Allison would forever be burned into my brain. Not because I got to kiss a beautiful girl, or because I was proud of that one-take kissing scene. It was because the moment our lips touched, I felt so guilty for thinking that her soft lips weren't the ones I wanted to feel.