The concept of "Could U B the One" was conceived during a dinner party full of few friends and industry personnel sitting around a well lit table; adorn with flickering candles, lilies, and white lace tablecloths. Words were passed back and forth over a mix of jazz favorites playing in the background. Jokes about MTV expansion from music television to adding Reality TV and how they'd never take off. A friend by the name of Bill who did P.R for Warner wondered what reality show we would want to see. Someone blurted out that they liked dating games. Another mentioned a show about musicians and tour life. It was a long legged olive skinned woman with raven tail-bone length hair that put the thought together. That same woman turned out to be a dearest confidant; Blue.

Blue and I chatted the rest of the evening about the possibilities of producing a show like this. It was that first chance encounter that would have us shop the idea around to major networks. Hearing the word No is typical in the entertainment industry. Everything isn't everyone's cup of tea... but that one yes! That one yes is like magic. Magic that came with a catch. We had to bring in an artist that people would want to see. Thankfully, Blue's friend Kris had the inside scoop on a certain headliner that had placed an ad in his local newspaper for a date.

With some convincing and after some of the most strange interactions with assistants and intercoms; we secured an artist, we secured the dates, we secured a prime time spot, but who knew what would come?

No one!

I would have never predicted the twists and turns. The upheaval of lives and social statures. What it's like to live in the shadow of a rock god or being thrusted in the light by the same person and what happens if you aren't prepared? Hell, are you ever?

There are times when opportunities fall in our laps. Well at least that's the way it seems to others. One day you are praying for your big break... a chance to say that all of your hard work has paid off. That I belong! That I was here or I was there...

"I was here..." I repeat to myself as I watch my fingers tapping away at my keyboard. "No..." backspacing a few clicks, I correct myself. "That I am here!" I type out.

Leaning back to take a spoonful of wine spiked sorbet; a snack that was perfected by a few of the girls on tour and has become one of my typical girl dinners; and reaching for a piece of smoked Gouda. I was content with the words that were dancing across my screen.

It felt good to get the thoughts that had been keeping me up at nights out. I had developed a case of insomnia that was only cured by a few blondes, brunettes, and red heads...Jose, Tito, Jack, Woodford, Cab, and Malbec!

Immediately after the Reunion episode tapped, I was thrusted back in the spot light. A few fashion companies had reached out and due to some contractual obligations; I had a few runway shows to do and interviews for the movie that I had a small role in.

Looking back, I'm grateful because it didn't give me time to process the shit show that the reunion turned out to be. The ratings were amazing from what I gathered from the number of voicemails I left unanswered on my machine. The producer in me was ecstatic but the human in me was disappointed and hurt.

What the hell just happened?" Was all I could muster up after this debacle.

Kristina and Mani had taken off after Mele and Dawn. Blue had tried to pull the wiring to the monitors and cameras to stop filming sometime between Genny's announcement and Mele's, followed by Dawn's meltdown.

Was it epic? Yes... Would it have brought in great ratings? Heck yes... Would it have caused conflict between us and the man who has been signing our checks during the show's hiatus? Damn Skippy!

Not to mention when the air shifted so did he. It was subtle but his band would have caught it and after spending so much time with him over the past year we did too. Which is the reason why Blue had been for the past 5 minutes trying to rip up the cords that were duct taped to the floor. We needed to pull the plug or wrap it up.

The ladies that were left on the stage were still in a state of shock. Noone expected any of this to happen and if this was a year ago we would have relished in the ratings from this ill fated love or Jerry Springer-type love triangle. However, this isn't a year ago and we actually care about the people on this set.

Standing there in disbelief as well, I watched Blue make her way over to the fusebox and flip the switch shutting off all of the power to the second floor. The sounds of gasps, sobs, chatter, and clumsy production staff bumping into unknown furniture was heightened once the area was engulfed in the dark. Once the switch was flipped back on I was met with the accusatory finger of Genny.

"This is all your fault!"

"How Sway?! How is this all my fault?" I was wondering if she was going to accuse me too of sleeping with her man. A rumor that the press had way too much fun running with after the Victoria's Secret Show.

"It's all of your faults! He wasn't ready to make his decision and you forced him to make it...which forced us to make this one! What was the point of this reunion show? To pry into our lives again?"

"Yes all of this is our fault! It's our fault that a show was produced for you to meet the man of your dreams. It was our fault that you were able to travel and see places in the span of mouths that would have taken you a lifetime to experience. It's our fault that this show opened not only a door but the door to your Academy. Yes, all of that is our fault!" I hadn't noticed that my voices had went from a pleasant inside voice of a 4 to now a grammar school cafeteria voice of an 8.5. "We were blamed for everything that went wrong or wasn't up to your standards..." I state looking around the room. "Which shouldn't have been as high as they were considering you were not the star, and we took it on the chin. What you won't do is accuse us of ruining your relationship...you did that perfectly on your own."

My house had been in a state of disarray after the tapping of the reunion. It had morphed into a clear representation of my mind. Beautiful gowns and ensembles from press junkets and award shows littered my furniture; every inch covered in sequin and chiffon drapes. Shoes that had been kicked-off laid where they landed. Some of them would make a thud and the noise of the others seemed to get lost in layers of fabrication. My living-room looked like the showroom of a fashion house in the middle of creative differences for the next season's show.

I hadn't seen the oversized burnt leather ottoman that sat on top of a distressed wall to wall Persian rug; gifted to me by my mother when I moved into the condo; or the blue crushed velvet sofa where I had entertained that held memories of conversation in its threads in months.

Magazines clung to kitchen counters like tactpaper all turned to the pages that had my face or his or the girl's faces on them. Red wine stained some of those pages, where letters turned into words and recollections that seemed hurtful and at times heinous.

White ceramic bowls filled with half eaten food filled the fridge, while glasses and tumblers filled the sink.

If this was depression, I was lost in its embrace.

It had been 3 months since we completely wrapped on the show that took over a year and several countries to film. Could U B the One season 1 was a hit and unfortunately for me, I had become a rising star. Not what I planned at all.

"This is my story... " I type "...behind the veil and behind the..."

The banging between my ears had seem to slowly become louder and louder. An occurring feature to this new way of existing. Shifting on a computer chair; that was landlocked by a silk robe that once kissed its back in front of the only clear surface in my makeshift office; I reach for a brown bottle prescribed to me for anxiety. Taking a pill out, placing it between my teeth to bite into the bitterness, and chasing it with the last of the soupy concoction that swooshed around the bottom of a country crock container I've been using as a bowl.

My head aches from insomnia drove me to drink which in turn drove me to over sleep, which drove me to not sleep! It was a vicious loop.

"I know you're in there...."
"Let us in..."

The pounding between my ears had grown louder and what I can only assume is my conscious has developed multiple voices.

"Can you suffer from cabin fever while in L.A.?" I pondered.

Turning around to face the door. I wondered if the noise I heard was actually coming from the extreme hangover I had been enduring or was there an actual person knocking on my door.

I stood cautiously; planting my mix matched socked feet down and shifted my weight from foot to foot until I made my way to the door ensuring my gaze bypassed the mirrored walls of the foyer. The girl I caught a glimpse of in the mirror last week was a shell of her... her curls plastered to the side of her head while others tangled around each other in a messy ponytail. Face, ghostly pale but puffy from tears and too sodium. Eyes, hollowed and darkened. She wore a ripped Aerosmith t-shirt tucked under a silk robe. It has been five days since I've seen her lurking at the door, retrieving a pizza box from a driver at the door. A pizza that has been added to the stack of uneaten food in the fridge.

Placing my ear to the door, I could hear Kristina on the other side talking about kicking the door in before Blue cut her off with, "Let's knock one more time and if she doesn't come... you can kick it in!"

Pressing my face to the peephole I could see Blue turn around and begin kicking my door with the heel of her thigh-high boot.

"Okay... okay..." I scream "...enough with the police style knocking!" Scrabbling to remove the chains and subject my friends to the world I have been existing in when I'm not fully masked up and barely functioning in the world.

Swinging the door back with such force the wind from the wooden plank sent a gush of air sending my pink satin robe up, exposing the hair stems of my body.

"Eeek!" Kristina jumped back as if she had laid her sights on my figure. "What the fuck is that smell..."

"Ummm...." Blue starts. "...babe" She walks to embrace me in her arms.

"I...I didn't want anyone to see me like this!" Crying into the shoulder of her black leather jacket.

"Is that you?" Kristina questions! "Did you lose weight? Why does it smell like that? Is that you? Is it coming out of your condo?"

"Kristina!" Blue's words muffled by my curls.

"Let's go inside!" Blue suggests and she walks me back into the foyer of the condo and Kristina closes the door behind her.

"Gurl!...what happened here?" Kristina questions as she climbs over the mountains of fabric and debris to open the large windows on the west wall of the space. "Let's get some air in here...." Pushing the windows up with both hands. "Wooo... that's better!"

Kicking a few things out of the way and shifting clothes off the couch, Blue sits me down and asks, "Babe, I want to know what's going on but first I want you to clean yourself up. I knew you were down but I didn't know..." looking around at her surroundings. "...I didn't know it was this bad."

Using the right sleeve of my silk robe to wipe my face; I agreed and made my way to the bathroom.

"Why would you ask her all of those questions Kris?"
"What?"
"You can see she's unraveled! The last thing she needs is jokes! "
"I wasn't joking! I was serious! It smells!"
"Look, call the cleaning company that Charlie uses and see if they can come now!"

I hadn't bathed in a few days and I definitely smelled like it. A bath was needed and as soon as my feet penetrated the water, I felt my pill from earlier kick in.

At some point, Blue made her way into the bathroom and whispered "The cleaners are here."

I could have protested but I lacked the energy to fight or even clean it myself. So, I sat there with a slight nod acknowledging her statement.

Silently kneeling behind me, she began detangling the mess of curls that sat angrily on top of my head.

Seconds turned into minutes into an hour and I was finally ready to emerge from the water.

The house was clean and so I was I. I barely caught a glimpse of the crew as I made my way back to the living-room.

"Feel better?" Kris asked as I made my way over to her on the sofa.

"Yes..." inhaling the crisp air that swirled around the clean space and exhaling to relax a bit more.

"I knew that something was wrong..." Blue starts.

"But we had no clue kee..." Kris finishes.

"I thought I had a handle on it and it..." uncomfortably laughing "...and I didn't! I got a chance to sit with what happened. Finally and I'm lost and sad and confused and ...I mean I have a great life. I have a man that is at the top of his career... and and my career is..." looking for the words "...is everything anyone could want. Right..." looking to my friends for assurance. "But do I love him? Do I miss him... I miss him... I do! What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing!" Blue answers. "Nothing is wrong with you. It was a year and a lot happens in a year."

"When do you feel like this started?" Kristina questions.

"I don't know... I... I wish I could tell you. I wish I knew the moment when lines were crossed! He said the whole thing was my fault"

"All of this could have been avoided if your answer would have been yes that night in Paris!" He stated boldly turning to face me.

"How would it have looked if I would have said yes? We had a good thing going. I didn't want to ruin it!" I murmured.

"You would have looked like a woman in love with her best friend." turning his body to look at me head-on. "We would have looked like people in a relationship. Who cares what others think? I don't!"

"But we are friends!" I state with a trembling voice.

"We could have been more!" He demanded.

"So this is my fault? So you're gonna blame me like Genny just did? You've got some nerve!"

"What did she blame you for?" He questioned.

"For forcing you into a decision...for you and her and Mele...not to mention Dawn! I had nothing to do with that...none of this is..."

"It is your fault!" I have no clue when he had made his way around the desk into my personal space.

"You can't do that...you can't blame me for this. I played nice and stayed in my lane! I was rooting for you! No one told you to lay it low and spread it wide!" I yell in his face as I feel tears prickling at my eyes.

"Well, let's figure it out." Blue says. Standing to her full height she walks over to the stack boxes of vhs tapes lined up under the pane of the window. Seven months worth of footage from four separate cameras. Relatively four weeks fall in each month. Seven days standing proudly in the week. Which equates to roughly 18,861 hours.

"You want to watch the show?" Kris quips.

"No, we have more than just the edited version. We have all of the film. The editor's cuts and the outtakes!" Blue answers.

Swiping the tears that began to sting my swollen lids. "So we are looking for a moment that I must have missed. I need to prove to myself that even though I played a part I wasn't completely at fault." I quietly sigh.

"You know that what happened at that reunion had nothing to do with you?" Blue tries to set the record straight. "You didn't force any of those adults to be in a love triad or octagon or hexagon or some obtuse shape. They needed someone to blame and since they couldn't blame the show or themselves they blamed you."

"I mean she could have been the one and then the show wouldn't have ended in the highest rated televised blow up with chairs flying and him delivering that major read..." Kristina states.

Out of nowhere his baritone voice fills the air

"So this was the plan huh? This is what you guys been chatting about?"

"Don't think I didn't know...don't think I hadn't had a guess that you were trying to play me! Get in front of a camera and try to embarrass me?" He scoffs.

"If you were the women you claim to be... you could have spoken up long ago...Did I twist your arms? Did I force anything on you? You both said you wouldn't leave me...I was honest with you all along and now this...this victim act?! You wanna go mama?..."

The tap of his cane on the floor can be heard.

"There's the dooh! ...anyone trying to play me plays themselves!"

"Anyone trying to play me plays themselves...plays themselves...there's the dooh!" Kristina imitates as she gingerly laughs and twirls a cassette in her hand that she just retrieved from the tape deck of my new Pioneer stereo system. "I swear I was gagging for air when he said that. He might not have a name that is pronounceable but he is the reigning King of Shade." Rambling off to herself as she turns to face me and Blue. "What?"

"Why do you have that? And why is it in your purse?" Blue questions pointing to the tape as I nod my head.

"Sometimes me and Charlie like to role play and I play P and he is the damsel in distress. What?! I've used audio from Manni too. What?! Angry sex is fun even if you just playing."

"I don't even want to know anymore about you and Charlie Murphy's adult play."

"Wait..I do. Do you throw your voice when you are playing P or..." Blue starts questioning.

"Nope noooope nope...not today Satan!"

"Okay okay. K is right. Let's 'fuckus" on the situation at hand and then later I have a question..." Blue takes her index and middle finger pointing them at her eyes and then Kristina's.

"Well..." Kris pivots her body to stand right behind the mountain of tapes. "Let's start at the beginning..."

My intake of air was unnecessarily loud. This was something I needed but why was I so scared.

"Well Kris put in this one..." Blue hands her a tape labeled with blue sharpie on white duct tape 'Paisley Walk thru'

"There is no time like the present..." Kristina says as she pushed the VHS in and hits play.