An Elaborate Lie: The Complete Confession

Have you ever told such a big lie that you thought it would swallow you whole? I have. Believe me there were times during the course of the big façade that I thought I was going insane. I could not determine what was fact or fiction. The lines were too blurry to decipher anything anymore. How could such a small lie explode to something huge?

It started as a simple ruse during my freshman year to keep the high school wolves at bay. Trying not to look like a rusted penny in a jug full of shiny quarters. The genesis of the scam began after I broke up with my first boyfriend Paul. It was such a horrendous experience that I thought I'd never recover. Of course, nobody in my life allowed me the necessary breathing room I needed to nurse my broken adolescent heart. I even had supposed friends hedging bets as to who was going to rebound the quickest. (Guess who won obviously. He did with a girl ten times hotter than me.) It stung like hell to learn my friends put me on the "un-dateable" list. I know I have high standards but I'm not a complete leper. I never was a typical high school girl. My mind was always full of stories, and this idea was no different. Obviously, the exception was that my life was the story.

I got the initial idea from a trick someone played on me and grew from there. The hypothesis was to create a fictional boyfriend so that people would leave me alone. I wanted to be normal so badly that I went to extremes by creating a fake name, email address, life story, etc. It was totally ridiculous, but it seemed to work. My friends started asking about Jack McCoy. (Yes, like the Law & Order character. I went through an L&O kick at the time.) I gave him a look (6 foot 1, black hair, blue eyes); style (motorcycle, jeans, and a black leather jacket); and a sunny New Yorker disposition. I made him into the guy I always wanted but could never have, because he was not real.

There were times I forgot that for brief moment, because I wanted to believe that there were people out in the world without an ulterior motive. Sadly, the only ones one hundred percent purely devoid of hidden agendas were my parents. I was tempted to give up the lie when the stories, or dates, grew more and more convoluted. I nearly blew my cover a few times when I made plans with people when I was supposed to be in New York visiting Jack. It was embarrassing fumbling the cover ball repeatedly. It got to a point where I staged an email break-up just to loosen the knots choking my stomach.

Unfortunately, my "ex" was not always a part of my story waste paper basket. I had to bring him out for one more occasion in my junior year when a real-life ex would not let go of the fact we were really oil and water personalities. We did not mesh well at all. It was either that or he could not accept the fact I was the one to end things. A typical alpha male wanting to be the one on top. I took Jack out of retirement to drive into Terry, the clingy ex-boyfriend, that he was not the one for me. Terry was all about his dreams, his visions, and none included me.

Another downer was that he was an unemployed slacker. He did not even have a car! I would had to have picked him up for dates. No thanks, Finally, the lie known as Jack came to good use as stalker deterrent. Instead of mace, I pretended to be an insensitive witch for rebounding so quickly. The lesson I learned from the last go-around was not to flaunt him in everyone's face so that no one asked questions. My plan was to keep cool until my high school graduation, which I did.

The resolution of my lie did not end with a scandal of any kind. No one publicly exposed me in the auditorium during an assembly. It ended without any fanfare. I simply graduated high school drama free and was tired of living a lie. I never told anyone the truth, but I decided to put Jack to rest once and for all.

The fundamental life lesson I now practice religiously is to keep fact and fiction in separate hemispheres of my life. Never allowing them to intersect again. Even though it is still had to determine whether Jack was a figment of my imagination, or my life is a complete fabrication in itself. Depending on the source it could be either one.

Fortunately, I have not had the need to use him again. Hopefully, I never will. It was not fun to keep up appearances that way. The story is less interesting when the main character is completely miserable, even a reality made up in story form.