Brooke on her mother dating a teenager: “Honestly, I don’t know what to say because I can’t relate to her right now. I’m extremely shocked. I know if I was 48-years-old, I wouldn’t date a 19-year-old. I just don’t feel it’s her. And through all this stuff, I really need my mom, and she’s doing her own thing. I don’t talk to her anymore. I see her at the jail visiting Nick and she asks me why. I say, ‘I don’t condone what you’re doing. I’m on my path, and you’re on your path.’ I told her, ‘I’d love to have you in my life, to see you and talk to you, but the kind of things you’re surrounding yourself with, it doesn’t make sense to me.”

 

Brooke on her parents’ split: “I could see my parents growing apart. I told them, ‘Nick and I are grown-up enough to understand that if it’s not right, don’t force yourself to be together for us.’ I don’t think the stress of Nick’s accident or being on Hogan Knows Best helped the situation, but they were already heading in that direction. It was starting to get painful for all of us. Sometimes all this makes me break down, but most of the time, I can look at it and think, we’re all still alive; we all still love each other. I just want to see them happy.”

 

Brooke on hearing about Nick’s accident: “I just went silent. Fifteen minutes later, I started having panic attacks: shaking, crying, freaking out….When I saw John in the hospital, it was just so hard. I couldn’t stop thinking about the last time I saw: He and Nick were just chilling on Clearwater Beach. I miss John like crazy. He ate breakfast, lunch and dinner with us six or seven days out of the week. And he was really funny, like a Jim Carrey sense of humour. He was as close as to my as my brother.”

 

Brooke on Nick in jail: “When he was sentenced, I was in shock. I’ve always been there to protect him, and this is the one time I can’t stop anything bad from happening. The thing that keeps me going is being able to visit him and see him through the TV screen. But that even sucks because I want to hug him and talk to him in person and see the colour of his eyes….He’s doing great now: He’s put weight back on– he lost 20 pounds in solitary. He’s getting his cleaning on ’cause that’s what his job is in jail: He’s a janitor! I tell him, ‘When you get out, we can go to the beach, we’ll eat your favorite foods, I’ll cook you dinners.’ I give him tangible things to think about.”

 

Brooke on coping: “I’ve been praying a lot and reading books that keep me positive: The Secret, The Power of Now, Harmonic Wealth. I tried therapy once, and after they tried to charge me 100 bucks for an hour, I was like, Screw this! My main therapy is talking to my friends. If I don’t let my emotions out, I will explode!”