Ghost of You

40

I tried to prove to myself that I was already someone in the world because of all the girls that fawned over me. I had them each in the palm of my hand because I was a rockstar and they would be honored to get to share a bed with me. I didn't know their names and certainly wouldn't recognize them if we ever crossed paths again. It wasn't even casual sex, it was just reckless abandon. I'd feel so disgusted with myself that I'd drink until I didn't remember my name.

Ashton, who was like a dad to me, realized that I was spiraling and tried his best to talk to me. I was so far gone at this point that I wouldn't hear him out. Then one night I got so trashed that we had to cancel a show and that was the last straw for him. He turned to my mum, Liz, as a final effort to get through to me.

I'll admit tears were shed on both lines of the phone as we talked about the person I had become. It was incredibly difficult to listen to the woman who raised me tell me that I was not the son she knew and loved. It broke my heart to think of all the people I'd disappointed: the fans, the band, my friends, my family, and more than anyone else - myself.

It scared me to realize that everyone was so worried about me so I did what I could to help them understand where I was coming from. I told them about how lost I felt and how I was just trying to cope with what it meant to be the lead singer of a band that was on a world tour. The pressure to be charismatic and make the crowds love me was suffocating. I pleaded for them not to worry about me and to just let me finish the tour despite their suggestions that therapy and rehab might be my only hope.

They gave in, the tour ended, and I found myself back in my Australia where I was born and raised. Things were better there. I helped my mum out around the house and caught up with my brothers. They all seemed so happy. They had grown up and found love and happiness, while I had remained just a dumb kid trying to live the dream of being a rockstar. I felt like even more of a disappointment and the small mundane country life I had once lived was no longer enough for me. I had felt the warm glow of city lights all over the world and they called to me.

So to my mother's disappointment I moved back to Los Angeles. She worried about me leaving the safety of her care, but I reminded her that I was clean. She eventually gave in. She drove me to the airport and despite her warm wishes of good luck, I saw her crying in the window as they closed the plane door.

I moved in with Ashton at first to have someone keeping me grounded as I became reacquainted with the city that I both loved and hated. We had a really great time and I felt like I was finally comfortable with myself again. I built up the confidence to get my own place as I longed to prove that I could be independent. The house was much bigger than my childhood home in Australia and it simply felt empty with just me in it. I realized that it wasn't just the house that was empty, it was me. I longed for companionship, someone to wake up next to and go out with, someone to cook for and then order food because I know how to make like two meals, someone to hold me and tell me things were going to be ok.

So I set out in hopes of finding love. Little did I know that it becomes a lot more difficult to find someone who genuinely loves you when the majority of people have growing their number of Instagram followers as their top priority. I was naive and gullible, and I fell right into the trap set out for me. It was a one sided relationship where I would give everything only to be used and discarded. It lasted longer than it should've because my soft heart kept telling me that things would turn around one day. Of course they didn't.

She drew me back into the party scene, the last place someone turning around their life like I was should be. Drugs, alcohol, money, and sex were everywhere and despite how hard I tried I couldn't keep away from them. She knew how to manipulate me, which was probably karma for having used people in my own day. And after I had lost all the progress I had made in cleaning myself up, she cheated on me.

Not only was I sickened by the fact that I had let her control me for so long, but I also felt completely worthless because after all that I had sacrificed and committed to this woman she still felt like she needed more. Like she needed someone better. I was an absolute mess. I only sunk from the pit I had already fallen in. Everyone thought I had already hit rock bottom, but the truth was that after the breakup rock bottom got a whole lot deeper.

In my reckless attempts to ease my pain, I ended up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning. It was honestly a miracle that it hadn't happened sooner. After almost dying, I woke up to my band mates standing around my hospital bed. They all began apologizing to me at once, and my spinning head couldn't understand any of it. Basically, they were sorry that they hadn't been there for me when I needed it most and they had decided that they were going to commit to helping me turn my life around.

Against my will I was put in a rehab program. Despite my utter hate for the boys at first, it really helped and sooner than I thought I was clean and ready to be discharged. I knew I couldn't go back to living on my own so I put my place up for sale and temporarily stayed with Ashton. I felt better with him there, but I knew I had to get out of the city, which seemed to be a toxic place for me, at least until I was certain that I could handle it.

One morning when I was grabbing coffee, I stumbled across a newspaper ad for a place in a town consisting of mostly suburbs just outside the city. It was close to the boys, but far enough from the temptations of Los Angeles. It was exactly the lifestyle change I needed. Of course I didn't know that it would be the little yellow house that belonged to a beautiful young woman that would steal my heart.

Flashing forward to a few weeks ago, I finally had to discuss the inevitable with boys. With the new album coming out, we were going back on tour and I couldn't help but be scared out of my mind that I would fall back into that same hole. I was scared of leaving Kennedy and in turn losing her. She deserved better than a guy that she would hardly see for the next year. I didn't want her to suffer by herself, waiting on me while I lived out my dreams. After a long and frank conversation, the boys and I came to a consensus on what would be best for all of us.

And now we had to give Kennedy the news. I felt extremely unsettled because I wasn't sure how she would react. It would certainly put our relationship to the test, whether we would make it out alive was yet to be known.