Tucker #14: Hello? Is It Me You're Looking For?

HELLO? Oh, Lionel. Who hurt you? WHO HURT YOU LIONEL RICHIE?

(Guest post alert! Everybody say hi to Blake, welcome him to the blog, and listen up as he tells you HIS side of the story)

Here I am!

Oh, wait, there I am.

Hold up, where the hell am I?


Is this Kansas, Texas, Florida, or Michigan?

It seems like I have been popping up in more random places than the elusive Carmen San Diego, yet I haven’t even left my safe and secure nest, tucked away right here in Northwest Georgia.

Wow! Where to begin? I am truly blessed to have not had to explain and relive this story, as my Michigan girlfriend, Kay, and her talented, artistic, writing abilities took care of all that for me. Seriously, y’all, who isn’t impressed by her skills? She could have been writing about Grimace and the Hamburglar stealing another Big Mac, and we would have all been glued to the edges of our seats. Just as you all have been so patiently following this tale, one that seems closer to folk-lore than truth, I too was floored by the events of the past 8 weeks. I mean, how would you react?

Most of my friends didn’t really seemed to be that amazed or surprised. Apparently “stuff” just happens to me – it’s hard to explain, but I’ve been told drama just seems to find me, particularly in the relationship department. But, not this kind of stuff! This is the kind of story that Lifetime fabricates for their ridiculous movies about love and heartbreak and the crazy circumstances in between, not the stuff that happens to real people in real life. Even I didn’t believe all of this at first. When I read Kay’s message, I was skeptical and interrogated her like a job interview for hours before I finally believed she was for real, and gave her my phone number. It all seemed too crazy to be true. Who would pretend to be someone else for that long?

The day that the hunt for Tucker was finally over, the day that I was eventually “tracked” down, was the single most nerve wracking, gut wrenching day of my life. Yea, you think you can relate? I gave myself an ulcer within 12 hours, and was literally sick for 2 days. I didn’t know if I should call the cops on the cute psycho from Michigan, who was professing her ever so growing love for me (well, the “fake” me, I guess). Or, did I report the person who had literally stolen everything about me, except my financials, thank God…that was the first thing I checked. Like a kid at Christmas, I did not sleep a wink that night, terrified that I was going to be cut up into tiny pieces and eaten. For every noise I heard, I got up and squirmed, and felt sick to my stomach. I spent my sleepless night crafting my own investigation, and research. I had to find out everything I could about this girl in Michigan, so that I could identify every logical possibility why she was wrong, and prove the girl I knew here in Rome, was not behind all this. The one thing I couldn’t get over was why Hannah had chosen ME. Why was my life worth stealing? I couldn’t figure out why I was the one who had gotten roped into all of this, and why I had to now deal with all the circumstances in front of me. Why me? WHY me?

By the time I got to work on Monday morning, I figured since I made it through the night uneaten, I was going to be safe and I had better start taking control of the situation. I talked to Kay time and time again, via text, and phone, so that I knew everything she knew. By this time, she had completely convinced me, through all the details of the story, reverse phone number searches, and her knowledge of the connection between Hannah and William that she was not psycho. I was trying to find a hole in her story to prove to myself she was making this up, but unfortunately, she was entirely out of this world truthful with me.

As Kay mentioned, Hannah’s brother in law is one of my closest friends. Now that I knew this whole disaster was true, I was face to face with one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do…confront my friend about his sister in law’s crazy extracurricular activity on the internet. All I could do was tell him the truth and hope he didn’t hit me or think I was crazy. I sat there in front of him and began the story just as it was told to me. I was nervous, and tried to recall all the details as Kayleigh had told them to me. He stared at me blankly, obviously trying to put together everything I was rambling about. The look on his face wasn’t just confusion though, it was different, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

He stopped me about five minutes into my story and made a confession. Tucker’s family had already confronted them about the situation. The two families were already connected, because of Hannah’s niece and Tucker’s brother’s relationship. My friend had already been told what was going on, and heard the whole story. What he didn’t know, and the reason for his disbelief, was that the person behind all the photos was me. He couldn’t believe the crazy connections between everyone in this twisted story went even further than they already had, and here he was looking at the person his sister in law had been impersonating for years.

Telling the story was helpful. It was good to get it off my chest, and to someone who knew Hannah and could somewhat understand the situation better than someone who wasn’t involved at all. I’d made it through what I thought was going to be the hardest part, except I realized that just because I’d told my story, didn’t make it go away. This thing wasn’t over, and I was still facing multiple hurdles in the days or weeks to come. There were still a lot of people I needed to talk to, and I still had a lot of questions, mostly for Hannah. There were a lot of dead-ends that Kay couldn’t totally explain, and it bothered me that I didn’t know all of the answers. I had finally come to grips with the situation, but realized for one of the first times in my life I had absolutely NO clue what to do next.