"When did you last eat?" Lily asked.
"Breakfast. I think. Or was that yesterday?" Annabelle laughed, but it came out thin and brittle. "Doesn't matter. I'm fine."
"You're not fine."
"I am. The fundraiser's tomorrow and I just need to make sure everything's perfect and—"
"Annabelle, even for you, this is a lot." Lily sat down on the floor next to her, carefully moving a stack of programs aside and handing her the sandwich. "Talk to me."
"There's nothing to talk about. I'm just tired."
"You're crying."
Annabelle touched her cheeks and found them wet. She hadn't even noticed.
"Oh," she said softly. "I suppose I am."
Lily didn't say anything. She just sat there, solid and steady, waiting.
And something in Annabelle cracked.
"I'm scared, I suppose." she whispered. "What if it's not enough? What if we do all this and the library still closes? What if I've put everyone through all of this work and stress and it doesn't matter?"
"It will matter," Lily said firmly. "Whatever happens, it will matter."
"But what if…"
"You can't control everything," Lily interrupted gently. "You've done everything you possibly can. The rest isn't yours to control."
Annabelle laughed, a broken sound. "That's not even the worst part."
"What is?"
She took a shaky breath. She didn’t want to say the words out loud but equally, she couldn’t keep them inside. "Raven's going to leave."
There it was. The thing she'd been trying not to think about, not to say out loud, as if keeping it unspoken would somehow make it untrue.
"You don't know that," Lily said.
"I do. She said it herself. She never intended to stay forever. And why would she? She has a whole life, a whole career. She's arockstar, for God's sake. What's she going to do, stay in Bankton and teach guitar lessons forever?"
"Have you talked to her about this?"
"What's there to talk about? She's been honest with me from the start. I'm the idiot who fell for someone who was always going to leave."
Lily reached over and took her hand. "You're not an idiot."
"I tried so hard," Annabelle said, and now she was properly crying. "I tried to fix everything. The fundraiser, Raven, Jamie, everything. And I think inside, I thought that if I could just manage it all perfectly, then maybe…"
"Maybe she'd stay?"
"Maybe she'd want to."
Lily squeezed her hand. "Maybe she does want to. Maybe she wants to and can’t, maybe she wants to and will, maybe she doesn’t want to at all. But Annabelle, listen to me. You've done everything you can. The rest isn't yours to control. And if Raven leaves, that's her choice. Not your failure."
Annabelle knew Lily was right. Objectively, logically, she knew. But knowing something and feeling it were two entirely different things.
"I just want to fix it," she whispered. "All of it. I want to save the library and make Jamie happy and make Raven want to stay. I want everything to be okay. I want…"
