Annie wanted to talk to somebody to talk to, but not Auggie, and Joan was probably busy with work at 8:30 am.

"Hello," the woman said at the last ring.

"Danielle, I know it's early there and the girls have to be at school, but do you have a few minutes to talk?"

She thought she heard the woman sigh, but over the phone she couldn't tell, "you didn't have time for me for over a year, so no probably not," Annie could tell that was just the beginning of what she wanted to say.

"Sorry that I bothered you," Annie said about to hang up.

But Danielle stopped her, "No you wait just a second! After all this time you deserve to at least hear me out."

Annie wanted to tell her everything all at once, but nothing could come out.

"You left me, you abandoned me. After all that time and everything we had been through together you had to leave me here alone. Annie I told you I needed you, I needed my little sister there and you weren't. You weren't there because you didn't need me."

Annie wasn't sure what she should do. She should have been crying, the real Annie would be hurt by this, yet instead she just felt numb and cold. At this point that scared her more than crying would have.

"Dani if you ever think that I didn't need you your wrong. Those late night talks we had a long time ago after I got hurt kept me sane. Even from across the country I needed you just to text me good morning or goodnight you instantly made me feel better. And without that I'm not sure who I've become," Annie laid her feelings on the line hoping this would not upset her big sister more.

But it did, "it's all about you isn't it!" Snapped Danielle, "everything is Annie's way or no way or you have to think about Annie before you do or say anything. I've done that my entire life as your big sister I always put you before me, but I'm done with that. This is my life and you left me to start with; you cant just walk back in."

As Annie took a deep breath she felt that wall she effortlessly put up starting cracking. What if that was true, what if all the hurt on everyone else was solely caused by her?

"Your right," she bit her lip, "your right," she ended the call.

Before she knew what was going on she had her knees to her chest trying to catch her breath.

With her head on her knees and thoughts of what awful things she had down swirling around in her brain it felt impossible to breath and her chest clenched.

When she was almost over what she had realized was a panic attack tears trickled down her face for no specific reason.

And before she regained her composure Auggie whisked through the door.

"Annie you here?"

She tried to best not to make the sniffles apparent but failed, "yea," her voice sounded more rough than she had thought too.

"Are you okay?" His eyebrow rose a hint in question as he found her arms curled around her legs.

"I'm great," She said in a very actress like enthusiastic tone before she got serious, "but are you? This morning I know I didn't take your feelings into account & im sorry. After all this is my fault and I shouldn't just be worried about the consequences it had on me."

Auggie shook his head in disbelief, "all your fault?"

"Well yeah it is."

"No Annie and you better not believe that's for a second. This isn't your fault. Yes some of the decisions you made caused hurt to other people. But either way that was Henry and not you. If you didn't do what you had Henry would stop at nothing to get you, and if that meant hurting all of us to do it, or hurting you to hurt us he would have done it. That wasn't you fault."

Annie sniffled again and Auggie reached up finding her tears, "maybe in the long run it was Henry, but you said yourself there had to have been another way."

"Annie," he covered his hands on hers, "maybe so, but your intentions were good and you only wanted to protect us. Henry meant for us all to get hurt in some way, you just shortened the inevitable."

"I wanna go to work, and see... Martin," she said a few minutes later.

"Martin?"

"Yea I was suppose to tell him if I had any more panic attacks and I did."

"Oh, okay," he pulled her off the couch.