Stone - Eat, Pray, #FML

Eat, Pray, #FML

Copyright 2019 by Gabrielle Stone

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the writer.

This is a work of creative nonfiction. While all the stories in this book are true, some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.

Cover Design Copyright 2019 by Gabrielle Stone

All rights reserved.

Cover Design by Murphy Rae, www.murphyrae.net

Cover Photography by Johanna Siegmann

Back cover photography by Jonathan Stoddard - Booked It Photography

Edited by Ink Deep Editing

Formatting by Elaine York, Allusion Graphics, LLC

ISBN-13: 978-1-7339637-0-1

Come play online!

@eatprayfml

@gabriellestone

www.EatPrayFML.com

Table of Contents

To the ones who loved me,

broke me, lost me, and healed me.

Youre all the reason I found myself;

and for thatI thank you.

Buckle Up...

It all started with a kiss. One seemingly harmless simple fucking kiss. More specifically, a kiss in the fourth picture of a photo booth that five of us were crammed into. Welltechnically it had really all started six years earlier, with a different kiss that happened coincidentally to Princes song Kiss.

But for you to understand the monumental life path that this kiss sent me on, Ill have to take you back to the beginning. Well, not the actual beginning, cause who the fuck has time for that? But back a little bit, to the first love, the artificial marriage, the unfathomable deceit, the seemingly insurmountable heartache, and the mind-boggling revelationall of which led me on the life-altering journey I so appropriately call Eat. Pray. Fuck My Life.

Fuck

Your Past

(Just because it was your story doesnt mean it has to define you.)

Hello, world.

My name is Gabrielle. Im an actress born and raised in Los Angeles, twenty-eight years old. I love to dance, and I curse like a fucking sailor. Its something I need to work onbut not in this book. Twenty-eight sounds so young, doesnt it? It is. Regardless, anyone who knows me will tell you Ive lived a lot of damn life in these twenty-eight years. Its almost daunting to think about. Shit, if all this happened in my first quarter century, what the hell is coming in the next two?

My mother is an actress who has been in the industry for over forty-five years. Shes also a five-time author and world-renowned healer. She too curses like a sailoradmittedly, not nearly as bad as me.

My father was also a well-known actor and director, and a former Hollywood playboyuntil he met my mother. They were each others great love. Movie fairy tale, soulmates, so-perfect-it-makes-you-puke kind of love. They got married and tried for six years to get pregnant with me. Yeah, I knowdramatic from the start. What can I say? I know how to make an entrance.

I had an incredible childhood. Even when my parents were struggling financially, I never knew it. My mom was superwoman. We celebrated everything. Any excuse to have a party. If one of my parents booked a job, the other wouldnt take one. If someone had to work out of town for more than a week, the whole family went to go visit. I got to go to some incredible places at such a young ageSouth Africa, New Zealand, Brazil. Life in my family was quiteblissful.

On October 20 th , 1995, that all came to a screeching halt. It was one month before my seventh birthday. Mom was in New Zealand shooting a movie called The Frighteners, and my nanny Kristen and I had just returned home from a three-week visit there. I woke up and ran from my room past the kitchen where Kristen was cooking breakfast. I burst into my parents room to jump into bed with Dad for some morning cartoon time. He was nowhere to be found. I walked around the bed to the large master bath. The door was open and there, lying on the floor, was my daddy. I raced into the kitchen.

Kristen, Kristen! Daddy passed out. I remember seeing her face drop before she dashed toward the bedroom. I ran to my room and turned on the TV, thinking he had just fainted and would be fine. Shortly after, I heard the sirens.

I will never forget Kristen coming into my room, sitting on my bed, and saying, Honey, Daddy didnt pass out. Daddy died.

He had suffered a fatal heart attack. My mom was on the first flight home. Over the next week, she got everything in order. We had a memorial, or as we called it, a celebration of life. I will forever be grateful to her director at the time, Peter Jackson, who told my mom to go home and take care of me and let him know when she could finish filming. When she went back only a week later, Kristen and I went too. I will never forget Michael J. Fox spending his breaks playing four square with me. He will never know what an impact he had on my life. The whole crew took such incredible care of usand my mom finished the damn movie like a fucking champion. This was the first real example Id gotten of how to handle the things that would erupt into my life. It was then, at the ripe age of six, I developed the belief I would carry throughout my lifewhen I love someone, they die.

* * * * *

Holy shit. Id done it. I had graduated from high school. It was 2007, and I was finally eighteen and so freaking stoked on life. I couldnt wait for the summer! I had just moved into the condo where Id be living while I went to college. On my own. The next phase. I had been with my boyfriend for just about three yearsmy high school sweetheart. He was the ultimate bad boy with just enough sweetness to be the first big puppy love of my life. His name was Jake Carter, and the year before he had moved down to San Diego for college. He had a pierced lip, tattoos, and an incredibly sexy BMW. At the end of July, I spent a long weekend with Jake, his brother, and his dad in San Diego before my first semester of college started. It was a perfect end to a perfect summer. Until it wasnt.

On August 3 rd , 2007, my cell phone rang at 7 a.m. It was a girl I had been best friends with in early high school, but wed had a bad falling out. Although we had kind of patched things up, we definitely werent friends. Why the hell was she calling me at 7 a.m.?

Hello? I mumbled, half-asleep.

Gaby? she said in a manic and unsettled tone.

Yeah? I waited.

Jake is dead.

I immediately hung up the phone. I didnt burst into tears. I didnt even register what she had said. I picked up the phone and dialed Jakes dad.

Hello, he answered.

Tell me it isnt true, I said. His tears on the other end were all the response I needed. There I sat in my new condo, ready for a new chapter at eighteen years old, when the painfully familiar wound was ripped wide open. When I love someone, they die.

Fuck

Mistakes

(If you learn from them, they were worth making.)

Okay! Sorry for that heavy little intro. Important and imperative to understanding all that is to follow, but Oy vey, am I right? Lets skip forward a few years, shall we? Those that know me are rolling their eyes and thinking, Oh thats convenient, Gabrielle. Skip the crazy years of experimental debauchery and ridiculous, reckless decision-making. YEP. Dont mind if I fucking do. And to my exes who fall into this part of the timeline, youre welcome.

This next part is the real beginning of what my friends and I refer to as the Netflix show that is Gabrielles life. So buckle upheres where the completely normal fairy tale turned into a big fucking mess.