If you need to brush up on the story you can do so here.

I left off last at Christmas Eve and B had tickets to the Seahawks game while I was very, very sick. I begged him to say home with me. If he went to the game I would be home all day by myself on Christmas Eve, extremely sick. Did he go to the game?

Of course he did. And it was one of the worst days of my life. I was SO SICK. We’re talking like, puking up bile. It was really, really, really, really bad. At one point I had to crawl to the bathroom because I couldn’t even walk, I was so weak. I couldn’t keep anything down. I stayed home all day on Christmas Eve, by myself, sick as a dog. But, oh well, I made it. I’m alive.

After this incident, I pretty much had convinced myself that I was wasting time with a person who didn’t care about me how I cared about him. I wanted a lot more out of my life than I was getting from the 5 years we were together. But, I told myself maybe it will get better. After all, what was I going to do? I was living in Dallas, practically alone. And I thought I loved the guy.

After getting back into Dallas, things were normal for the next few days. Then, on New Years Day 2006 I was chatting with an online friend who was a photographer, and he was telling me about this other photographer in the area who was this awful guy that “everyone hated”. I had heard a lot before about this notorious awful man. The thing that always struck me as odd was that none of the stories I had heard about this guy ever added up. There was always some obvious discrepancy in each story I heard about this person. It was very intriguing actually. I wanted to know what it was about this guy that made everyone hate him so much. The person I was chatting with asked if I had ever seen him before. I said no. So he linked me to this persons myspace profile.

Now, like I said, I had never seen this person before. Everyone had always told me how “ugly” and “disgusting” he was saying he was “fat” and “gross”. When I clicked the link to view the myspace profile, I thought he had actually given me the incorrect link. Sitting on my computer screen was an extremely handsome, sexy man. Not some fat, ugly, disgusting creep like I had heard about. At that point I knew something was up. Something was not right. I was hearing all about this person but none of it added up. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t form an opinion on someone or something until I hear all sides of the story. I really wanted to chat with this guy and get his side of the story to see what was going on. It was curiosity.

Now, the person that I was chatting with was a photographer, like I mentioned. I had posted on a message board that is frequented by photographers and models about a photographer I was going to shoot with. Some people didn’t like this particular photographer either, but you hear so much he says she says that I decided on my own that I was going to shoot with this person and so I posted about it.

Are you still with me?

So, this same day that I had seen the profile of the guy everyone hated (aka: Preston) a girl messaged me telling me that she had read that I was going to shoot with so and so and that I shouldn’t because she knew him personally and wanted to talk to me about him. So I talked to her a little and she mentioned that she was currently doing some administration work for “the guy everyone hated”. At that point I was pretty interested in talking to this guy and casually asked her “Doesn’t he live in Houston?” because that is what I had been told. She informed me that he actually lived in the Dallas area now. So I asked her to have him message me because I wanted to talk to him. Maybe 30 seconds later he messaged me.

So now what do I do? I have “the guy” on my computer screen, saying hi to me in an instant message, what do I say? This might not seem like a big deal, but I’m telling you this was “the guy” you didn’t want to be affiliated with. He was apparently that bad. Which made me want to chat with him even more. HA! What is it with girls and “bad guys”?

Anyway, we started to chat and I was not even surprised that he was completely normal and nice. We talked for hours online and then on the phone and he told me his side of the story on all the things that I had heard about him. I wasn’t the slightest bit surprised to hear that nothing I had been told about him was true, according to him of course. It had all been twisted around, mostly by one guy who started all the “issues” with Preston to begin with. It’s like one person of power (and I used that term very lightly) gets pissed off and then starts all this stuff and next thing you know, Preston is the worst person on the planet.

Of course, maybe I’m just brainwashed.

So, Preston and I decide that we might want to do some work together. I was a model, he was a photographer, so we decided to meet for lunch the next day at Chipotle. B agreed to me going because quite frankly I honestly don’t think he gave a rip. I’m sure there was a football game or something on that was much more interesting than his girlfriend going off to meet some random guy from the internet.

It’s January 2nd, 2006. I pull into Chipotle. I call Preston to see if he was there yet, and he said he would be there in a second and told me what he was driving. I watched him pull up and park. Before I had a chance to see him I sat there in my car, waiting. I was really nervous, thinking that I’m completely stupid and this was such as stupid, stupid, stupid idea. What was I thinking meeting up with “the guy” that I had heard so much about?! I have a boyfriend! Wait, it’s just a talk about business. It’s okay. No big deal. Everything is fine. Get out of the car. He’s waiting.

So I get out of the car. I am still looking down, afraid for some reason of what I might see if I look up and face this guy…

I’m crossing the parking lot of Chipotle and I finally get the nerve to look up while I’m walking. I nearly stopped dead in my tracks at what I saw.

“Ooooh. Shit.” Is what was going through my head at that point.

To Be Continued. . .