New Email from Annabelle Swift.
Her stomach dropped.
She stared at the notification for a long moment, her thumb hovering over the screen. Part of her wanted to delete it unread. The rest of her couldn't look away.
"Actually," she said, standing abruptly. "I need five minutes."
"Sure. I'll grab more coffee."
Raven walked out into the corridor, phone clutched in her hand like it might explode. The hallway was empty, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, the distant thump of bass from another studio vibrating through the walls.
She opened the email.
And then she read it. Once. Twice. Three times.
By the fourth read, she'd slid down the wall until she was sitting on the industrial carpet, phone still in her hand, something cracking wide open in her chest.
I'm not okay.
I love you.
Annabelle had been honest in a way Raven never let herself be. Vulnerable in a way Raven had spent her entire life avoiding. She'd admitted she was scared, that she'd made mistakes, that she was hurting.
She hadn't tried to fix anything. Hadn't offered solutions or compromises or ways to make it work.
She'd just told the truth.
And sitting there in that sterile corridor, Raven realized with sudden, devastating clarity that she'd done the exact same thing to Annabelle that she'd done to her music.
She'd left before she could fail.
Before she could be rejected. Before she could try and discover she wasn't good enough.
With Krimson Khaos, she'd walked away the moment things got difficult. Convinced herself it was about Alissa, about the breakup, about not being able to work together anymore. But the truth? The truth was that going solo meant risking everything. Meant putting herself out there without the safety net of three other people to share the blame if it all went wrong.
And with Annabelle…
Christ. With Annabelle, she'd done exactly the same thing.
She'd felt something real. Something that made her feel safe and terrified in equal measure. Something that made her want to stay in a tiny village and teach guitar to sad eight-year-olds and eat lemon biscuits until she weighed as much as a small elephant.
So she'd run. Dressed it up as career ambition and protecting Annabelle from the press and all the other excuses she'd been telling herself. But really, she'd just been scared.
Scared that if she stayed, if she tried, if she let herself actually love someone who loved her back, it wouldn't be enough. She wouldn't be enough.
Better to leave first. Better to control the narrative. Better to walk away before she could be left behind.
"Fuck," Raven whispered to the empty hallway.
Her phone buzzed in her hand. This time it actually was Claire.
She stared at the screen for a moment, then pressed ‘ignore’ and called Arty instead.
He answered on the third ring. "Raven. How's London treating you?"
"I'm sitting on the floor of a recording studio hallway having an existential crisis. So, brilliantly."
"Sounds about right." She could hear the smile in his voice. "What's happened?"
