She had called when I was still out of it and spoke to one of the nurses to check on me, but I’m sure it was only for show. She may have admitted to all her wrong-doings, and she may have apologized, but deep down, she’ll always be the same cold, calculating person she’s always been. I don’t care how much she tries to make it up to me, I will never forgive her for taking my father away from me.
I never really had a mother, just someone who was in my life that took on the name but never the role. I've always looked at June as a second mother, and who knows, maybe in another life, she could have been my real mother. She has always loved me, always looked out for me, and she loved my father. I couldn’t really ask for anything else. She’s been by my side through every step of my recovery, and she’s been helping me heal my head and my heart one day at a time.
I haven’t seen Brady since the day he told me I was just a job and pushed me away. I have a few wonderful memories of him telling me he loved me, but I have no idea if those memories are real or just part of my brain mixing things up from that day. June told me during one of my many crying fits over the last couple of months that he was out of his mind with worry trying to find me that day. She told me he stayed by my bedside until I went into surgery, and Gwen and his friend Austin had to forcibly remove him from the hospital because he put up such a fight about leaving. None of that makes any sense though. Aside from the letter that came in the mail a few days after I got out of the hospital, I haven’t heard a word from him. If he was so broken up about what happened to me, why wasn’t he there? Why didn’t he stay?
I push thoughts of Brady from my mind and try to concentrate on what I’m about to do. Thinking about the man who is still taking up residence in my heart will make me want to curl up in the corner and cry, and that wouldn’t be good. I’m here to say goodbye to one chapter of my life and hello to a new one.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to calm the butterflies fluttering around in my stomach. I’m nervous, but it’s a good kind of nervous. The kind that excites me and makes me want to push through it until I come out on the other side, proud of myself and what I’ve accomplished. Pulling the note from my father out of my back pocket, I read through it for the hundredth time without any tears for once. I smile as I fold it back up and stick it inside the sound hole of my nineteen-sixty Gibson Hummingbird guitar and tighten the strap that holds the instrument around my neck.
Tonight is the first stop of my farewell tour. It's not a long tour, just a small handful of cities. I don’t have the energy to travel the globe, and thankfully, after what I’ve been through, my fans have understood.
I’m beginning this tour of saying goodbye at the place that started it all: The Red Door Saloon. For the first time in my life, I’m doing things my way, singing the songs I want to sing and playing the music I want to play. I’m taking my father’s advice and letting the music take me where I want to go. I want to be a songwriter, not a performer. I don’t have the heart for performing anymore.
June did a few renovations in the last few months, and the bar finally has an actual stage instead of just a platform in the corner. Now there’s room for a guitar player, a piano, a set of drums, and a singer, and I couldn’t be happier to be christening the stage for her tonight.
Standing off to the side of the stage behind the curtain, I watch as June walks to the middle of the stage and taps the microphone a few times.
“Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for Nashville’s very own, Layla Carlysle!”
The small crowd of around two hundred and fifty people, the most The Red Door Saloon has ever seen in