So how we got here, I'm not quite sure. But Tucker has been, reliable, helpful, considerate, engaged and involved with the kids and me. I am both endlessly appreciative, and freaking furious. Since Thanksgiving, we've mostly been staying at my parents house, Tucks been here every day. Usually he's here when I come down to start breakfast, the coffee is already ready and waiting, and sometimes he's even started breakfast meal. I come downstairs to find Tuck and Turo both in the kitchen, waiting for the kids and me to arrive. He's being a friend, a good friend, but we're only a few weeks into our new friendship, and I am nowhere near trusting him yet.

Almost everything he told me he'd do the night of the funeral, he has been following through on. I know I'm crazy to remember that conversation so many months ago. But he's been consistent in what he says and how he acts. Whether it's his words that night so many months ago, the letters he's sent me since rehab, or even our conversation a few weeks ago.

It's so sweet seeing how close he is again to his parents, Brad and Cora missed him, and were so angry with him before. Mel and Cora have both told me some of the conversations they've all had, and it seems like Tucker is taking full responsibility for being a jerk. No excuses, no blaming, just accepting what his family had to say, listening to their feelings and anger, apologizing and more importantly, showing them his love.

He's tried to talk to me about our past issues but I keep trying to delay it, I don't want to revisit that hurt. It was a really dark time for me, losing Tucker and his friendship all the while I was seeing his social and sex life play out in the tabloids and online. It's not like Tuck and I were a couple then, and we aren't a couple now. We aren't being romantic, we're not kissing, not sleeping together or dating. We are working on a friendship, that's it, because in all honesty, that's all we've ever been, just friends. He maybe saying he wants more, but right now, we're what we always were, just friends.

I'm afraid to have the conversation where we go over all the hurts and the anger. Because I have quite a bit of both anger and hurt. I thought I'd processed it, moved on and away from the early years after he left. But now that he's here, he's in my face and he wants to talk about it, now all over again everything seems fresh and kind of raw, all the old ugly feelings are resurfacing.

After Tuck left, my life was normal, except for the very distant association I had with the band, my brother was involved with them, but I wasn't. I lived my life like any other normal girl does, except when I went to concerts, I had great seats, that's about the only difference.

I finished out high school, I had fun, I had a few boyfriends, and I did a great job with my grades and my sport. I got into my dream school, NYU and I excelled in the big city. I had two very serious relationships, and if I'd said "yes" to my last boyfriend, I'd be married right now.

I'm not sure why I told Lucas no when he proposed. I truly loved him with all my heart, and when we broke up, even though it was my choice, I was really sad. But when he asked me to marry him, I knew right then, that I didn't love him enough. He was a sweet and good boyfriend, he checked all the boxes, and he did everything right. But when it came down to it, I knew he wasn't the one.

I got a job that I am very excited about, I'm proud of the professional accomplishments I've achieved. Up until almost a year ago I had a great family that I was very close to. I have really close girlfriends that are more like sisters, so I think as far as personal relationships go, I'm successful.

I don't think that I was harboring any lingering hopes or dreams about Tuck and I riding off into the sunset. He hurt me several times, I mourned the love and friendship that we had, and then I moved on. It took me awhile, but I think that was because I really felt his loss, so it took a long time to get past it. As painful as it was seeing the crap about him online and in the media, it also helped me realize he was not the boy I'd known and loved. That boy disappeared the day he left home.

The man I saw with all the actresses, models and rockers, the party guy, the sex tape king, that man wasn't in any way the boy I'd known. He wasn't the kind of person that I wanted to know. When I looked at the pictures (and I honestly tried not to do that too often) the look in his eye wasn't one I recognized. He was a stranger to me. I don't know if it was because he was drunk or drugged in those pictures, but he didn't resemble the sweet and happy Tucker Holloway I'd known.

So now that I've finally gotten past those darker days, and Tucker has only been kind and wonderful. Why does he want to drudge all that ugly back up? I don't want to hurt again, and honestly I don't want to throw it all back at him, and make him relive the hurt. He's in a good place, working with Ike and Turo, working on his sobriety, why do we have to go back to the ugly parts?

Can't we just leave the past in the past and move forward and start fresh? Just start a relationship as adult friends, not as the kids that we were, but adults where we each have a separate past, not a past of conjoined pain and anger.

He's been patient, but I know he wants to get this out in the open, as he said, "purge it". He told me that he was claiming our family, and that we're going to start a new friendship and even relationship. I thought he was being helpful and a kind friend. I just think he snuck the beginning of the relationship part in when I didn't realize it. I was so busy making dinners and doing laundry with the kids, I didn't realize that our movie, pizza and park times were really his way of starting our dating relationship.

Everything has been going smoothly. Well as smooth and easy as it can for be for three broken hearted people to leave their loved ones behind them and move on into the future without parents. I'm so fuckin proud of Sky, she stepped into the role of mom flawlessly. The kids are into a new routine, in a different house, their parents are gone, but I see them look to Sky for everything, they don't even pause.

Fuck it, I look to Sky for everything, I don't pause, at least I won't until I show her that she and the kids are everything to me. I don't want to push her too fast, but fuck, I still plan on making her my wife.

Since Thanksgiving, I've been here every day, all day. I play with the kids, keep them busy while she works, we hang with my mom and Jase, or Mel and Jase come over to Skys house. I'm never with the kids alone, I know that Sky isn't ready to trust me with them yet, but she, my mom and Mel all see that I'm good with them. I make sure I'm in the kitchen in the morning before Sky wakes up. I start the coffee, breakfast, Turo and I hang around with them until they kick us out.

Basically I'm trying to show her that I am indispensable, that not only does she count on me and my help, but she can honestly depend on me for everything. I am going to erase any bit of doubt that she has about my devotion to her and our kids. Yeah, our kids. The moment I saw her in the church at the funeral, comforting and loving the twins, I felt the same need and desire to love and care for the kids as I felt to do the same for Sky. I might have been totally fucked up for the five years before that, but even in that fucked up state, I knew that she was the goal.

She doesn't want to talk about the past, but Ike says we have to acknowledge and absorb and learn from the past in order to start fresh with the future. I get that we're in a good place now, we don't talk or reference past sadness, but I know that we can go deeper, we need to go deeper to have the best relationship that we can, friendship or other. Sky is honestly a fuck ton cooler than I would be about not throwing past mistakes up to me. I'd be fuckin raging if I were her and I'd had to see all the shit on the internet about me and fucked up things I got into. But Sky doesn't bring it up, she steps over and around the shit pile of my past. Unfortunately it doesn't just stay in my past, my ugly deeds continue to live in my present.

We were in a diner with the kids last week, and a couple of girls from our high school years came up and were trying to pick me up. I was sitting at the table with Sky and the kids at 5:30 pm and these three chicks were acting like we were in a club at last call. They were dropping phone numbers, trying to touch me and showing leg and cleavage, all the while not so subtly knocking Sky with rude comments like, "It's so cute you guys are friends still, you were always like brother and sister, no wonder you didn't think Sky was hot, you had all those sexy models and actresses." Sky didn't even react, she just took the kids to the bathroom and told me, "If you want to go with these girls, go ahead, I've got the keys to the car, we'll catch up tomorrow or later in the week." While she was in the restroom with the kids, I was real clear with the skanks that I didn't want them anywhere around us. I think Sky was both surprised and relieved when she returned and saw it was just me waiting for her.

It's been years since she depended on me as a friend. Despite my feelings for her at the time, she never knew that I loved her then, that she was "it" for me then, now and forever. I've been going slowly with her, letting her set the pace, not pushing conversations or boundaries. But now I think that it's time for me to fully pursue her, let her understand that she and the kids are mine, and I'm theirs. If she doesn't realize by now that I care about her, that I love her, then it's only because she's ignoring the obvious. In order for us to get to the next level though, we need to clear up the past. Despite her unwillingness to confront the past, that's exactly what we're gonna do.

Deciding that there is no better time than the present, I call my mom to see if she and dad can come over and watch the kids a night this week. Ike said the conversation should take place in a 'safe' space, so we'll talk in his office, and we can get as honest and raw as we need to without our families or strangers being able to hear.

Mom has become my ally in my pursuit of Sky, though she is as protective of her and the kids as Kell is, she is also willing to offer some advice and insight into the woman. Though I know the Sky of 5 years ago, she grew and changed and experienced a lot that I wasn't around for. When I think of all that she's accomplished, I'm so fucking impressed with her. The girl makes goals and fuckin owns them, every thing she's ever wanted to do, she has done. I know that I'm in a successful band, but honestly, Jake and my brother started it, did the dirty years with it. I just slid in when they needed a drummer. I know I'm a kick ass musician, I'm really fuckin talented, but I lucked into my role, I didn't create or design it. But Sky, she imagined and dreamed her world, then she went out and achieved it.

Since I went to rehab, I've been in therapy. The ugly kind of therapy, where you have to open yourself up, search deep inside and be honest. It fucking sucks, but if I want my life with Sky and the kids, then I'm gonna do whatever I have to do to achieve my goal. And believe me, this shit is painful. My parents, Kell and Mel have gone with me to a few of the appointments. We've been working on the family counseling so that I can really heal myself, and consequently all of my family relationships. Hearing my parents talk about how scared they were, when they'd see the fucked up videos where I was flying on drugs, talking about shitty stuff, doing even shittier things. That was the worst. Also, hearing your parents describe how they tried to avoid seeing my sex tapes, or my naked videos, how it was pretty much impossible for them, until they stopped looking at a newsfeed on me. They were so past proud, that they had to jump into avoidance. My mom telling me that she prayed every night that when she woke up I'd still be alive.

Kell and Mel have stood by me, but they haven't given me a pass. I never realized how awful I'd been to Mel, my nephew used to cry whenever he heard I was going to be around, because he was afraid of the shit I'd throw at his mom. He didn't necessarily understand the words I was spewing, just that the end result was his sad mom and angry dad. So yeah, I've been working hard on repairing all the crap that I made my loved ones live with.

The final and most important piece of the "repairing all my relationships" puzzle is Sky. Because when it comes down to it, I humiliated her, hurt her, lied to her and then ultimately abandoned her. I never told her how much she meant to me, how much I loved her, or that the only future I ever dreamed of was with her. Like everything else in my life, I took her and all that she was for granted. I assumed that she would always be there, waiting for me to grow up, stop fucking up, hell, stop fucking every willing hole that offered.

So in order to prove to her how much I need her to see she is my future, my life. I have to hear how much I hurt her and let her down. Ike, my counselor, said that we need to get all the baggage out on the table, acknowledge it, dissect it, accept it and digest it, only then we can move on to our future.

Sky seems to think we can just forget it and leave it in the past. One of the problems with that is, I don't know all that I did, so much of my behavior I was on drugs or drunk. I'm not using that as an excuse, because I'm fuckin copping to every fucked up thing that my parents or Kell tell me I did. But I can't know my history unless my family fills in the blank spaces for me. Sky told me she doesn't want to "regurgitate" the past, but Ike says that the ugly comes out, one-way or the other. I much prefer that it come out the healthy way.

Sky isn't acknowledging verbally that she is ready to move forward in a relationship with me, but I help her every day, all day with the kids, I'm doing work on the house, on her car and when the school called to let us know Colt had thrown up all over the playground, it was me Sky asked to pick him up.

She has begun to trust me and to rely on me, I don't even think she realizes how much I've woven myself into the fabric of their daily life. From our meals together, to the chores we do, to the fuckin afternoons at the park, I'm there. Story times, bath times, meal times and fun outings to parks and restaurants, I'm driving the car, helping Sky, doing whatever she wants. Because the truth is, that all I want, all I really need is to be with them, in their orbit, listening to their knock knock jokes, and to Sky singing songs. I'm kind of amazed at how the simple things in my world now, like the honest day to day stuff, that fills my world and my soul in a way that touring with the band and sold out concerts never touched.

All the wild sex stuff I was into, that I did without a thought, it was so fucking hollow. I knew at the time I was bored, just kind of acting out the rock star life, but also pushing envelopes because at the heart of the matter, I was so fuckin empty and bored. I've never had sex with someone I cared about, and never once had a moment where we held eyes and connected. The only part of me that had a connection during sex, was my dick to whatever part of the body it was cumming in.

The first time I fucked was an orgy in an after party room full of people following my first concert in New York, people were watching the live sex show and then most began participating. When I look back it's crazy and fuckin gross, the first time I had sex was a goddamn old fashioned orgy. So it really isn't surprising that I've never had any kind of meaningful sex. Not ever with a partner that I cared about. Sex has been kind of a hollow and one sided experience for me.

That first night was also the first time I took drugs other than pot or alcohol. After that, I took whatever people gave me. I drank top shelf booze and smoked or took any kind of fucked up drug. I tried to stay away from the opiates, I never really looked for them, but I've taken them when people were randomly handing out drugs.

For the most part I was on the X, ludes and cocaine train. I freaked out after a bad acid trip once so I actively avoided the hallucinogenics after that. So for about 5 years what I did was try to anesthetize myself and hide in sex, drugs and liquor.

The people I hung out with were interchangeable faceless partiers and sex partners. Didn't matter if it was in New York, California, London or Rome, I'd fuck, and drug with whomever was around. Didn't care to know their names, remember their faces, or feel anything for them beyond the momentary orgasm I got.

The closest I had to friends were a couple of guys I saw regularly, some are in other bands, or somehow in the music industry. A few are models or actors that I'd run into fairly often, others I'd just see in whatever bar or hotel I was in at the time.

Nolan was a guy I used to call a friend, but he was just one of the few I saw most often. He knew the kind of drugs I liked, that I preferred anonymous sex, preferably in a hotel, club or somewhere other than my house. Nolan has everyone in LA in his phone, drug dealers, party girls, rockers and models. He was fun and a cool enough guy to hang with, and he always brought the party. Since I've been home I haven't heard from him once.

After the funeral I sent him a quick text saying I had family shit, and I'd be out of touch for a couple of months. Not a problem, we were only party friends so we'd go weeks sometimes months without talking. I've spent quite a bit of time with him the during the past 5 years, we've talked, fucked the same girls at the same time, drank and took whatever drugs were around. Not once in the past few months has he called or texted me, and not once have I missed him.

So, obviously we weren't real friends, if neither of us has thought about the other. He is the perfect example of the people I filled my life with. The reality is that in the past 5 years the only person I had a semi on going friendship with, was my kind of drug dealer, party arranger, sex partner finder. That really shows the kind of life I was leading, no wonder I am so ready to fix my past and move on with Sky and the kids. I'm not leaving anything but empty trash behind me. Not to say that everyone else was trash and I was just a poor misunderstood paragon of virtuous loneliness, nope, I was the poster boy of the trashy hedonistic party lifestyle.

So tonight, I need to set the appointment with Sky. We'll go to Ikes, and she's gonna tell me how I've let her down and hurt her. She's gonna say all the shit that she found out about me on ththe internet, sex tapes, drug parties, all the shit that was filmed because I was too fucked up to care about it or stop it. She's gonna vent her hurt, her tears, her anger, and I'm gonna take it all, and then I'm gonna spend the next 60 years proving to her it's all in the past.

I'm gonna hear about her life for the past few years. Her school, jobs, friends, and all the great things she's done and accomplished. Then I'm gonna work like hell for the rest of our lives showing her that I'm a risk worth taking.