Legends

Flashback: Allie: Post Divorce

November 2014

Allie's POV

I sighed as I checked my equipment swapping out a couple lenses between sets. Right now, all I knew was that I was tired. Mentally and physically exhausted from the pace I had kept up the last six months. I'd lucked up went I got back from overseas in finding a loft apartment in Nashville that was perfect for what I needed. Kolby had helped me move in during the few weeks I'd had off before I hit the road again. By then the talk of country music had been that recently divorced country music bad boy Brantley Gilbert had moved on with starlet/singer Jana Kramer.

Several had remarked that she would be better equipped to handle his busy life than his wife had a been. A woman, who had seemingly disappeared after news of her and Gilbert's split had been announced. The bitch would understand the demands of his career. Fuck that! I'd been there from the beginning and was supposed to be there until the end. Picked his formerly drunk ass up from more bars than I wanted to count or remember. Dealt with the lingering sadness in the beginning over the school teacher leaving. Hell, our house spot had been picked as a joke towards her!

Fuck them I had thought. Nope, anyone who really knew me, knew I was still very much around. I'd never been more thankful I had gone by Allison Walker professionally for a while. I'd taken to wearing my geeky black glasses more often and getting rid of the trademark blonde highlights in my auburn hair by dying it darker. I was just out of sight to all the idiots, including my asshole ex-husband. Kolby had tried to tell me how he was doing but I had shut him down. Mama was refusing to speak to me currently. Kolby and Aunt Liz were the only two from back home that weren't shutting me out right now. I deserved it, I had left but I just couldn't be married to him anymore. Tim had read me the riot act this morning that if I dropped any more weight he was going to purposely force feed me a pizza.

I glanced down at the white line still on my left ring finger. I had finally given in and taken my rings off about a month ago giving them to Kolby to put away. I didn't want them anymore and if I kept them I would just be reminded of what I'd once had. I just wanted to go home, bury under my covers, and shut out the world for a few weeks. Hold up in my sweats and pjs editing photos from this tour and gearing up for the next one. I had scheduled a few individual shoots at the beginning of the year for a couple magazine spreads and albums and a travel one in Europe this spring. After I got back I would split the rest of the year between Tim's Shotgun Rider tour and Kenny Chesney's. I had balked on doing that one just for the simple fact that Brantley was scheduled for select dates of it which is where working on Tim's tour had come in. I would be busy to say the least next year which is what I wanted and needed.

I was trying my best to figure out my life without Brantley. We had been together so long it felt like I had a limb missing but I was the one who had wanted this. I had to make the best of it. I still rolled over reaching for him at night and the ache in my chest wouldn't go away. I wish I could say he missed me as much but it was apparent he didn't. I'd gotten extremely lucky that during there brief little fling, he hadn't come to see Jana on tour. I didn't need to see them together in person. Unless he wasn't listening the day I left, he knew I had been on tour with Taylor and now Tim. I'd held out a little bit off hope he wouldn't have signed the papers. That he would chase after me determined to make it work in that stubborn way of his, but I'd received the signed papers via courier before we left Japan.

I was bent over checking my camera cards making sure I had my spare ones handy before Tim got on stage when I heard a pair of heels clicking behind me as I smelt the most flowery and cloying perfume I had ever smelled in my life. I felt my eyes and stomach turn at the smell. Geez, who wore this shit. Then I stood up straight as I heard a voice speak near me.