I want to tell you a story.

I know I've written a lot of random crap here, and mainly I try to avoid mentioning names unless it's in a positive light. If I wrote as much as I wanted to on here, every single person I know would be furious. Cause, you know, this year has not been exactly been what I was hoping for.

And lately, especially, these past couple of weeks, I have tried to muster the will to write something positive for everyone because I'm not the only one going through hard times. Pretty much everyone is dealing with something always. So, you know, in the grand scheme of things, writing positive shit is the better alternative to broadcasting some really delicate situations that have been very trying lately.

I wrote a post once, very recently and then deleted it after it had been up for maybe 24 hours, because I was so vague and included a photograph that I maybe shouldn't have. It turned into a big misunderstanding.

But it made me even more hesitant about posting anything even mildly personal.

Until now.

Like I said before, I want to tell you a story.

I'm going to ask you all to close your eyes while I tell you the story. I want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to yourselves.

I want to tell you all something that I haven't really been open about until now. My family and I have kept on the down low in an effort to move on and wash our hands of an unusual and ridiculous situation. When the news first broke, I wrote about it vaguely. I even went as far as using fake names. To this day, I'm not sure if anyone had any idea what was going on. But I want to clear the air now.

The events of this past week, the first week after Nicole's passing, have exhausted me to the point or agoraphobia. I haven't had the energy to be angry or to make myself clear. It's just been a fucking whirling dervish of crap, flying at me, all fists and elbows. Today, is the first day I feel strong enough and sober enough to address any of it.

"I am Jack's smirking revenge."

Frank is a liar and a manipulator. I should've known right away, but hindsight is always 20/20 and it really snuck up on us. After I discovered his enormous web of lies, I was just completely and utterly dumbfounded. I've never known anyone as desperate for attention as he is.

When the funeral was approaching and he was openly grieving on his own blog, I couldn't help but feel so angry at him all over again. All of his readers poured out their sympathy for him and he ate it up like a greedy bastard. They don't know the real Frank. They don't understand the sorts of things he's capable of. I thought for a while that maybe he had some sort of a mental disorder. His lies were so great in size and number, that it seemed no sane person would be capable of it.

But I'd really hate to give him such an easy out. The fact of the matter is that he's a liar and for at least two solid years of all our lives he made Nicole look like the crazy one.

Nicole was very close with all of us. She was like another sister to me and Val and Abi. And her untimely death has been nothing short of tragic. The heartbreak is unreal. I still can't wrap my head around it.

"You have very serious emotional problems. Deep seated problems for which you should seek professional help."

Frank and Nicole were the closest things to mortal enemies that I have ever known. I don't think a lot of people understand why. I've been an active part of that; I just wanted it all to be over. But now I want everyone to know how fucking crazy and selfish he is, because he's gotten all too good at making it appear otherwise.

Maybe he did cry for her and maybe he is sorry that he caused her so much frustration over the years. And all for what? For the love and attention from a girl he still obsesses over. It's sad, really.

He stews in his own bull shit so much that he'll probably believe it forever.

I am fairly certain that he attended her funeral. I was given a heads up that he might, but I didn't receive it in time. I was too busy grieving the loss of Nicole. She was freaking hysterical, ps. She was my favorite kind of person, no bullshit, let's you know where you stand kind of girl. I loved her like a sister. It was hard not to. She was over our house constantly and she and Val were attached at the hip. It was kind of like, when we were little and we'd pick teams for kickball or something and there'd always be some pair of girls who would lock arms and announce that they "came as a package". Do you know what I'm talking about?

Val and Nicole were like that. They came as a proverbial package. So, we saw her all the time. My family loved her. Abi and I loved her.

But for a two year stretch of time, we questioned her. She kept looking at us, shaking her head and saying, "Frank is a liar. He's so full of shit. He's obsessed with Val and he'll do anything to get her attention. Trust me. I've known him forever. He's an asshole."

But Abi and I would look at her like she told us monkeys were flying out of our butts. Every single time Nicole warned us about Frank and his capacity for being a selfish bastard, we brushed it off. We'd agree to disagree and move on. And, I guess, in a way, I kind of feel like Nicole right now.

But i tell you what, Nicole hated Frank. He made her life hell. When Frank and Val were dating (each of the three times, on and off again...) Nicole would get pushed to the side. Val likes to do what I do and multitask, even when seeing different friends. So, when she'd want to go to the movies, Frank had the unspoken invitation and Val would call Nicole.

VAL: Wanna go to the movies?
NICOLE: Is Frank going?
VAL: ...yeah.
NICOLE: No thanks.

And it was all because she couldn't stand him the way that Abi and I can't stand him now. Once you've been crossed by someone in a certain way, it's hard to let it go.

"I am Jack's raging bile duct."

And the thing is, I've tried to understand Frank's motives. I haven't bothered to hear him out, because as far as I'm concerned, the ends do not justify the means and he'd probably feed me some more of his bull shit anyway.

But still, I've tried to wrap my head around it all:

Why make up a person?

Why make up a band?

Why lie about your involvement in said make believe band?

Why set up myspace pages for both?

Why use the other imaginary friend to communicate with Abi and me when you were supposed to be in the hospital and/or suicidal?

Why produce this mess?

Because of all of the shit he's made up, I have no idea whether or not to believe that he has/ever had cirrhosis of the liver or that he almost lost his mother to suicide. Twice. I have no idea if anything he's ever told me was anything but a lie.

I think I have the answer to all of the other questions though, because it's the same answer to the following: Why put a rift between Val and Nicole and consequently, between Nicole, Abi and I?

Because he hated when Val's attention was on anyone/anything other than him. I hope it was worth it to him for a while, because he fucked with a lot of people's heads.

It might seem like an over simplification because things got so out of hand. But that was his fault. He started lying and making shit up, so he just had to continue lying.

He told us he was writing lyrics for his friend's band. Lie. Val got excited, so he sent her the lyrics he was "working on". Not his lyrics. Lie.

She loved the lyrics, so he sent her some songs they were recording. Total bull shit. Not his songs. Again...lie. Nicole looked at us and laughed. "You guys," she said, "Frank is so full of shit. I can't believe you're buying all this crap about the band. That can't be real. No way."

But we ate it up.

Magically the band got signed to a little label and flown to L.A. to record their debut album. Lie. He's never been to L.A.. But, holy hell did he have stories. Every time I called him it was one thing after another. They played a bunch of shows, had a nice hotel (that was probably just his dorm), went with the guys to bars and partied in hotel rooms, got into a street fight, got his ribs beaten in with a baseball bat, ended up in the hospital, thought he was gonna die, left me a breathy voicemail on his way to the "hospital". He was probably just done jogging or something. He called me and left another panicked voicemail about punching out his mirror after speaking to Val. He used to call me and threaten to kill himself and ramble on and on and fucking on about how horrible his life was.

"This isn't a real suicide-thing. This is probably one of those cry-for-help things."

And I sat there and I listened and I tried to get him through it. It was seriously, just like a movie. Things would be shitty for him (supposedly) and then BAM--he's kicked out of school and then he was suing the school, and now he's apparently going to the school again. And, god knows what else.

When he was suicidal, I used to email back and forth between "Adair", this friend he had who was probably real at some point, but was no longer real. He had become another voice for Frank to speak through. Adair was kind of like a virtual marionette that Frank would speak through, posing as a concerned friend, but really, it was not Adair. It was Frank pleading for his own life. It was the most bizarre thing I have ever been a part of. And it wasn't like it only lasted a few months. It lasted close to a year.

Somewhere along the way, Frank must've gotten sick of keeping up with all of his lies, because Adair "died". He totally killed off his BFF in his own little twilight zone and I was upset as hell. Here I was losing a friend, who I thought was a totally different person. When, in fact, it was just Frank pretending to be this other person. He was Tyler Durden. But I didn't find out until later.

The lie that finally got him caught (with Val, at least) was absolutely ridiculous. He was getting all too confident in his double life, that, ps, he probably fabricated from the basement of his mother's house.

"You had to give it to him: he had a plan. And it started to make sense, in a Tyler sort of way."

He lied about another song, but this time, Val caught him in his lie. He claimed that he co-wrote/helped inspire a song by Something Corporate called "She Paints Me Blue". She went looking for the song and found it rather odd that the publication date was years before and called him out.

Nicole smiled knowingly. Val was pissed. She cut him out. Stone cold. It was over. But Val didn't broadcast it and we'd been subject to all of his other lies for so long that we didn't bother to question the rest of it.

When Frank claimed his mother was near death in the hospital, Nicole saw his mother in Frank's yard and called us up. And, again, we thought Miller was crazy. It's a pretty huge accusation to put on someone: you're mother is not dying. You made it up. Who says that? Miller did. She hated liars. And that's why she hated Frank.

When Abi and I finally made our own discoveries, we gave him an earful and he calmly and quietly hung up the phone with no shred of remorse. That night, Abi and I marched over to Nicole's house and apologized. She laughed. "I've been telling you guys for years what a piece of shit Frank is. He's the devil."

Now, I wouldn't flatter him, even for a second and compare him to the devil. But, he is full of shit. He manipulates for attention. It's sick. Really, it is. This has been years in the making. Fucking, long, weird ass years. There were whole stretches of weeks when I'd spend hours on the phone with him, talking him down from the proverbial ledge. And for what? He was fine. I should've just hung up the phone and gotten some sleep because the bastard seems to be doing just fine now. Somehow, magically, he's fine. There are no more threats of suicide.

"I am Jack's cold sweat."

"I can't believe you. All the shit you've said, for...god--forever, Frank." I was so angry with him. For a few solid minutes he was silent on the other end of the phone. I stopped to take a breath. I shook me head.

He just, very matter of factly said, "Ok, well, I'm gonna hang up now."

Who the fuck does that? Who fucks with your head for YEARS and then just says, "I'm gonna hang up now"? Frank does. He loves himself more than he'll ever let on, because then you wouldn’t feel sorry for him anymore.

When I heard that he was upset about Nicole's death, my first thought was, "Since when do you care?" He treated her like shit for so long, that I can't remember a time when Miller didn't say to me on a somewhat regular basis, "God, I hate Frank. I wouldn't even want that freak at my funeral."

Those are important words to remember, because they were the second thought that popped into my head. There he was making his plans to come home, blogging like there's no tomorrow about how sad he feels over all the shit he put her though. And you know what? I don't fucking believe him. I am completely, one hundred percent convinced that he did this for himself. If he respected her wishes at all, he would've shut the fuck about it, or at least been honest about how much shit he put her through. Because if you knew, if you really tried to grasp it all, you would be as appalled as I am that he had the balls to drive back here in the first place.

It's just insane. He's insane.

"I am Jack's complete lack of surprise."

The latest chapter has been my whole reason for writing this. Apparently, he has misunderstood an email he received from one of my sisters. She was asking (essentially telling with harsh words), and we all were, really, for him to stay the fuck away. He didn't care about her at all. If we had spoken up sooner about all the shit he put her through, everyone would've known and he wouldn't have even thought about showing his stupid.

But we tried to put it behind us. We didn't want him to get any more attention, so we said our piece and we moved on. But then, when he was trying to act like the bigger person by showing up and paying his respects, I was furious. It's just another thing for him to write about, another thing for him to whine about so people will feel sorry for poor Frank who never catches a break. Bull shit.

She would've never wanted him there. And that was the sole purpose for that email, although he tried to make it seem as though it was about the three of us, or rather, him.

It wasn't. We cared enough about her to honor her wishes. He didn't. He never cared and he never will about anyone but himself.

this scar is a fleck on my porcelain skin

My head has been spinning this past week. Just spinning and spinning in a fog that may or may not leave in the forseeable future. I'm trying to sort through a number of things, but really just one thing. It's just that, that one thing opens a proverbial flood gate and then I'm spinning/drowning again.

So, here's the thing...

No. Wait. Let me back up.



When I was a freshman in high school, my mother bought the first computer we ever owned. It was one of those very colorful macs that came out while we were partying like it was 1999. Probs cause it was 1999. The mac was purple, like candy. We got AOL. Do you remember AOL? I do. Anytime I hear of someone still having AOL I think to myself, why? Why would you still want AOL?




Anyway, my mom instructed us on the dangers of the interent. There are creep ass grown men who will use this magical thing called the interweb to pretend to be young girls/boys to lure us like the witch did with candy. Except, they'll use acronyms instead of candy. But the computers all look like candy because this is America. So, you know, whatevs. Hello New Millenium! That's what we were told.

The internet really did kind of scare the shit out of me then. So my mother's plan worked. I def did not give out personal information. In fact, I lied a lot. Told people in chat rooms (remember those?) I was older/younger all of the time. I don't think i was ever honest. Ever. It was easy. Through the magic of the interweb, some wires and floating molecules, like in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, I could be whoever I wanted to be and no one would know the difference.





About a year ago I met a friend through a friend. We'll call him Adam. Cause God picked that first and what have you. It's a good name. So, I met Adam through a friend I had already known for years. We will call friend "B" Cain. Cause that's what Adam named the son he had that did a very bad thing and set a whole mess of shit into motion. He was the shifty son, if you will.




(Has anyone noticed how much I've mentioned the B-I-B-L-E in the last paragraph? Who's proud that I retained all that and that the computer did not light on fire when I wrote it? Yep.)

So I met Adam, sort of. Followed his band and Cain to LA, proverbially of course. I followed on my end of the telephone and the interweb sitting in my two bedroom Detroit apt. typetypetyping "love the new songs guys" etc. etc. etc.

A lot of shit went down in LA. I heard about all of it in great detail. Sat in the same apt. wishing them well, hoping it would all turn out alright. I listened to Cain; I was his shoulder. He listened to me; he was my shoulder. We laughed. We cried. It was better than CATS. We have weathered many storms in this past year alone and I never, ever thought it would end the way it did.

My head started spinning about a week ago.

I was in Rori's apt waiting while she did her hair. Music was spilling from her iPod, trying and failing to drown out the sounds of the most annoying cat that has ever lived. The music swelled and I started to feel a little down.

You see, Adam died about a month ago and the lead singer pleading from her iPod reminded me a hell of a lot of Adam. I was very sad the week after I learned he passed. In fact, I wrote about it here, on the interweb.

The spinning, the drowning started right.....there.

I was instantly reminded of an email Val sent me, warning me of a discovery that I would make if I did a little research. "Search [redacted] on iTunes. You're not gonna be happy." That's what she sent me. I did not heed her warning. Truth is, I wasn't near my own computer and completely forgot about it.

Until I was standing over the iPod staring at a playlist that was more than a little familiar. It was all a lie. Adam, the band, the friendship, LA, the record deal, the music, the stories, oh the countless stories. They were all fucking lies, fabricated by Cain, the boy I used to regard as a brother.

Spinning. Spinning. Spinning.

I sat on it for days, not knowing what I wanted to do with it. Why? I thought. Why the fuck would someone do that? And then I didn't want to know. Because the ends have certainly not justified the means.

There's no feeling quite like learning that you mourned the death of a person that never really existed. They may have existed on some level, but certainly not on the level that I was led to believe. I felt stupid and then I felt angry. And now I feel nothing, except maybe confused.

It's all so very surreal, the thing that dreams, or rather nightmares, are made of. Cheesy music videos and poorly written films end the way this friendship feel like it has. "It was all just a figment of your/his imagination." That's basically what it feels like. But it's not. This reality, or hyper-reality, or interweb-reality, or god knows what. It's real. It happened.

The lies were epic, legendary, if perhaps something would've been gained from all of the effort. Instead, a lot was lost, friendships were shattered, trust: a thing of the past.

I'll tell you what, I have told some pretty crazy lies in my day. But this, this is way beyond me. I don't know that I'll ever understand it. I don't think that's possible.

So, really, here I am. Mourning the death of another friend who was actually the same friend. Whether or not he actually goes through with it this time is completely irrelevant. Because it's over.