I Sold Twenty Million Country Records. My Old Backup Singer Was the Only One Who Noticed My Manager Was Stealing From Me

I didn’t say anything for a long time.

Then I asked the question I’d been wanting to ask for fourteen years.

“Why did you leave the band, Ava?”

She looked down at her hands.

“Because of Rick,” she said. “In 2010, I noticed the tour expense reports didn’t add up. I asked him about it. He told me if I said anything, he’d make sure I never sang in Nashville again.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She looked up at me with tears in her eyes.

“Because you were in love with your wife, and you trusted him like a brother, and I was just the girl who sang harmony,” she said. “And because I was in love with you. And I couldn’t stand next to you every night knowing both of those things.”

I stared at her.

Ten years she’d stood half a step behind me on every stage in America.

I’d never once turned around.