Raven had spent her whole life thinking she had to choose between being loved and being herself. Between stability and ambition. Between the parts of her that needed people and the parts that needed solitude.
But maybe, just maybe, she didn't have to choose at all.
Maybe she could have both.
The track came together quickly after that, Jem calling it some of her best work. And as Raven packed up her guitar, an idea crystallizing in her mind with perfect, terrifying clarity, she realized something else.
Annabelle had given her back her music.
And now it was time to return the favor.
She didn't know if it would work. Didn't know if Annabelle would forgive her for leaving, for being a coward, for assuming she had to do everything alone.
But she was going to try.
For the first time in her life, Raven was going to actually see something through instead of running away when it got hard.
And if that wasn't terrifying enough on its own, she was going to do it in the most public, vulnerable way possible.
She smiled as she walked out of the studio into the London evening, guitar case in hand.
Time to make a grand gesture.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Annabelle had been awake since half past three in the morning.
Not intentionally. She'd just… stopped sleeping properly after Raven left. Something about there being no loud rock music at midnight made it harder, not easier to sleep.
But today wasn't about that. Today was about the library.
She stood in the center of the newly reopened space, surrounded by chaos that she was pretending was organized preparation. Daisy was hanging posters that kept falling down every thirty seconds. Gloria was rearranging the children's reading corner for the third time, moving cushions around like she was directing a West End production. Arty was setting up folding chairs with the calm efficiency of someone who'd learned not to get involved in Gloria's creative vision. And Blossom was arranging biscuits on plates with careful calmness while obviously thinking about something else.
Probably Lilah. Who was still in Australia. Being gorgeous and successful and definitely not having a breakdown oversomeone who'd casually mentioned they were leaving and then actually left.
"Annabelle, love, where do you want the juice boxes?" Daisy appeared at her elbow, holding a box that was already leaking something pink and sticky.
"Oh. Um." Annabelle blinked at the box. "Maybe on the refreshment table? Next to the… actually, maybe in that bin. Is that one leaking?"
"Only a bit. I'll just…" Daisy tilted the box, which made the leaking worse. "Right. Bin it is."
Annabelle managed a smile. She'd been managing a lot of smiles lately. Professional smiles. Teacher smiles. The kind of smile that saidI'm absolutely fine, nothing to see here, definitely not falling apart inside.
She was getting quite good at it.
"The reading corner looks perfect, Gloria," she called out, because Gloria was starting to eye the cushions again, and if she moved them one more time, Annabelle might actually scream.
"Does it?" Gloria straightened up, hands on her hips, surveying her work like a general surveying a battlefield. "I'm not sure about the blue cushion. It's clashing with the curtains."
"It's perfect," Annabelle said firmly. "Really. Don't change a thing."
Gloria looked suspicious but mercifully left the cushions alone.
Annabelle checked her list. Decorations: done. Refreshments: mostly done, aside from the leaking juice boxes. Reading activities: planned. Children arriving in an hour. Parents arriving in an hour. Lily giving a speech. Everything was fine. Everything was going to be fine.
She'd made it fine.
That's what she did, wasn't it? Made things fine. Fixed things. Smiled through things. Pretended that her heart wasn'tin approximately eight thousand pieces scattered across her kitchen floor, next to the biscuits she'd stress-baked at five a.m. and then burned because she'd been crying too hard to notice the timer.
