Frank carefully took the box over to his bed and began to slowly empty the contents out over his white bed sheets. Eliese's camera was placed on the night stand safely while he emptied the box out. There weren't actually that many notebooks, it only appeared that way because there were an uncountable amount of journals under them. Frank's heart jumped up into his throat, it pounded in his ears as his stomach fell into his butt. He slowly picked up the first brown leather journal and opened it to see the year written on the front 1995. Frank and Eliese were fourteen years old then. She's been keeping journals since then. Frank felt like it was invading her privacy but he found it nice, like having one last conversation with her. He learned so much about her as he went on to read her journals. This was her world behind her world, the world nobody got to see; not even Frank. Every name she was called by Tom or someone at School was in there, every 3am conversation with her mom was in there, every moment of her life; every revelation and tormented thought was written into these journals. He even read about the moment she fell in love with him, it was like he was reliving it.
Frank sat on his bed for days just reading her journals. Frank didn't drink or self-medicate; he drank tea and tried to stay awake. The more and more Frank read into the journals the more he realized that she really was an amazing writer. It made him sad because her amazing work will never be known, she will never be known.
Frank sighed heavily when he finally came to the last page of the last journal entry before she died. He could feel himself falling back into his depression but something stopped him.
August 10, 1999
Dear Frankie,
If you're reading this then I'm already gone, if you're not reading this; well then, I'm dead anyways. So I suppose it doesn't matter if you see this or not but I hope you do.
Okay; I know that you're like, majorly depressed right now; don't you fucking lie to me, I know you Frank Anthony Iero Junior, you're severely depressed because I died. All I gotta say is: Stop it. Right now, fucking stop it. Don't be depressed, don't be crying; I want you to feel fucking blessed. You're not in my place, you're so fucking lucky; so stop being a shit head and being depressed about it. If I had the choice to live while you died then I'd rather be dead. You have so much to offer this world, I don't understand how you can wish you were dead; it baffles me, really.
Frank, you have the world at your fingertips; you have a life to live. I know, I know, you're saying 'well so did you.' I did and I lived it. Jimmy told me once that someone can live 80 years in less than 20 years and I did that. I believe I fulfilled my purpose in life. You always used to say that I was an angel sent down from heaven to help you and that's what I did but I also helped other people too. I may not have written a book but I wrote my life story as it happened.
Now if you're going to be depressed about my death then I'm going to be very upset in the afterlife. Do you want that? Do you want to theoretically hurt me in my afterlife? No? I didn't think so. I know I made you sad because I kept something like this from you while I told my family. I couldn't bring myself to break you by telling you that I was dying. I found out the day that I got really drunk at the gig and we fell asleep in the back of my, your van. I was sad for a few moments but then I was happy. So I want you to do everything to be happy. Maybe you could, oh I dunno, ask Jamia Nestor out on a date. Yeah, remember, I told you to do that and you agreed to do it? I want you to become a rockstar, play huge festivals and concerts! I want you to get married and have babies, lots of them. I want you to get old and grey with your girl, watch the sunset while the Grandkids are playing; y'know the cliché shit. I want you to die happy because you deserve it. Tell Jimmy that I died happy. He needs to know that.
Chapter 30: A Ghost in the Snow.
Start from the beginning
