Chapter 51
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
PENELOPE
The silence in the apartment was stifling. It pressed in on me from all sides, thick and suffocating and so much worse than any argument or screaming match could’ve been.
If Declan had yelled, I could’ve yelled back. If he’d slammed the door, I could’ve rationalized my anger. But the quiet click of his bedroom door and the absolute nothing that followed?
That was something I couldn’t sit in any longer.
Without thought, I grabbed my keys, shoved my feet into a pair of shoes, and left. Not knowing where I was going or what I was doing or what I was going to do.
All I knew was the growing, nauseating weight of everything that had happened was bearing down on me, and I needed to escape it in whatever way possible.
As soon as I pushed through the building’s front door, I strode straight to my car. Then I climbed in, started the engine, and pulled onto Main Street on autopilot. Drove through town with no destination in mind.
I should turn around. Go back to the apartment and knock on Declan’s door and tell him I was sorry for what I’d said. For my knee-jerk reaction to finding out my secret was no longer that.
But I couldn’t. Not yet. Not when I didn’t know if I’d been wrong about who had spilled everything.
You know you were wrong.
The thought sliced through me, sharp and immediate, and I tightened my grip on the steering wheel to keep my hands from shaking. Even though my subconscious had apparently made up her mind, the rest of me still couldn’t make the pieces fit together.
He was the only other person who knew about my second life. The one and only soul I’d ever shared that secret with.
So if he hadn’t told anyone, who had?
It didn’t make sense. But neither did thinking Declan had broken my trust.
In the year I’d lived in Starlight Cove, he’d been a lot of things—a rule-breaker, a button-pusher, and the single most maddening man I’d ever met. But he’d never once given me a reason to doubt him. Not once.
He’d held my secret for weeks, claiming he had to simply because of The Roommate Rules.
He’d never teased me about it, never let a single hint slip to his brothers or Rowan or anyone else—even when they’d unknowingly made me face the almost collision of my two lives at family dinner.
He’d read my words and been proud of me.
Had looked at me like what I’d created was something extraordinary rather than something to be ashamed of.
And I’d looked him in the eye and told him I thought he’d betrayed me.
A sob tore out of my chest, ugly and broken, and I swiped at my eyes with the back of my hand.
I could barely see the road through the blur of tears, and I knew I had no business driving right now.
Knew it with the rational part of my brain that was currently being drowned out by the irrational part—the part that couldn’t stop replaying the look on his face right before he’d shut down.
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I recalled the flicker in his eyes—something raw and wounded—before the walls had gone up and the man I loved disappeared behind them. Safe once again in his armor.
Armor he’d taken off for me.
Not anymore. Not after what I’d done. Not after taking the single fear he’d trusted me with—that he was a 2.0 version of his father—and confirming it without even stopping for a moment to think about what I was doing.
Another sob broke free, harder this time.
My vision blurred, my chest heaving, and I knew I needed to stop.
Needed to pull over and breathe and figure out what the hell I was doing.
But I just kept driving, wheel clenched in my hands while cries filled the car, until the familiar sights of Holly’s neighborhood began passing in a blur.
Without allowing myself to second-guess it, I pulled into her driveway and killed the engine. For a long moment, I just sat there, hands still gripping the steering wheel and tears still rolling down my cheeks in a slow, steady current.
I hadn’t intentionally driven here. Would never in a million years think it was a good idea to go to the childhood home of the man whose heart I’d just broken and discuss it with his mom.
But somewhere between leaving the apartment and the moment I’d turned onto her street, some part of me must have decided this was exactly where I needed to be. The one place that had felt like a mother’s comforting embrace since the day I’d set foot in this town.
This was a terrible idea, though. I should leave. I should reverse out of here before she saw me, drive home, and deal with this mess on my own like I’d dealt with everything else in my life. I didn’t need to drag Holly into the ruins of whatever the hell was happening between her son and me.
I’d just placed my finger on the button to restart the car when her front door opened, and there she was.
Carrying a mug in her hand, Holly stepped out onto the porch wearing leggings and a chunky knit sweater, her reading glasses perched on top of her head. She took one look at me through the windshield, set the mug on the porch railing, and walked down the steps toward me.
She didn’t rush. Didn’t call out to me. She just crossed the driveway with that steady, unhurried grace and warmth that was so deeply Holly, it made my chin wobble all over again.
She opened my car door, leaned down, and held her hand out to me. “Come inside, sweetheart.”
“I—” I shook my head, my voice cracking. “I don’t think I should.”
“Nonsense. I made myself a whole kettle of tea, and you look like you could use some. Now, come inside because I’m cold.”
She guided me out of the car and into her home, one arm wrapped around my shoulders in a comforting embrace I definitely didn’t deserve.
The kitchen smelled like cinnamon and nutmeg, and the familiarity of it—of this room where I’d peeled apples and heard stories about Declan as a little boy and had been welcomed into the fold like I was family—nearly dropped me to my knees.
Holly settled me into a chair at the table and pulled down a mug without asking. She moved around the kitchen the same way she did everything else—calm, purposeful, efficient—giving me time to collect myself while she prepared me a cup of tea.
When she finally sat down across from me and slid a steaming mug into my trembling hands, she didn’t push. Just waited. Patient as always.
“My secret’s out,” I said, my voice low and wrecked and stripped bare in a way I wasn’t used to. “About Eden Foxbury. They’re… They’re my books.”
“I heard.” A warm smile spread across her face. “I’m so proud of you.”
There was so much to unpack in those two little sentences. But at the moment, I could only focus on the former.
“You heard? How?”
“Sweetheart, this is Starlight Cove. I’m amazed it took until noon,” she said wryly before reaching out to pat my hand. “Molly came by the circulation desk after you left. Poor thing was beside herself—thought she’d screwed up by approaching you at the library.”
Guilt about that twisted in my stomach because Molly hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d just been a girl who loved a book and wanted to meet the person who wrote it.
Unfortunately for her, that person was me.
“I just don’t know how everyone found out. I—” I shook my head, unable to bring myself to say that I thought Declan had done it.
“Apparently, she found one of your brainstorming notes in the library last week,” Holly said. “She recognized some plot details from the series and put two and two together.”
The realization hit me like a wrecking ball to the chest, and every ounce of air left my lungs in a single, broken exhale.
This hadn’t been done to me. I’d done it to myself through my own carelessness.
“Oh god.” I pressed my hands over my mouth and closed my eyes. “Oh my god.”
All those scraps of paper I’d been scribbling on for weeks—receipts and sticky notes and napkins—because my creativity had exploded, and I couldn’t be bothered to organize any of it. Not when the thoughts had been flowing so freely.
One of those scraps had probably fallen out of my overstuffed bag or had never gotten shoved there in the first place. And a sharp-eyed teenager had done what sharp-eyed teenagers did.
Holly spoke again, her tone gentle but curious. “Can I ask you something, sweetheart?”
I nodded, not yet trusting my voice.
“Why did you feel like you had to keep it a secret in the first place?”
The question landed softly, but it burrowed deep. I stared at the steam curling from my mug and tried to find an answer that didn’t sound like I’d been letting fear control my life.
But that was exactly what I’d been doing, wasn’t it? With more than just this. It was how I’d been moving through every single facet of my life.
“I was scared,” I admitted. “Not just of people knowing, but what it might mean for my job. For everything I’ve built here.”
Holly tipped her head to the side, her brow furrowed. “I’m afraid I don’t understand what one has to do with the other.”
I huffed out a humorless laugh. “I lead story time for toddlers. I run a dozen different clubs for children and teens. Parents trust me with their kids. And if they found out the same woman doing puppet shows and sing-alongs was also publishing—” I gestured vaguely, my cheeks flaming over the knowledge that she—along with who knew how many others—had read my words and now knew I was the one who’d written them.
“I was terrified they’d pull their children from the programs or that the library board would decide I wasn’t the right fit. That I’d get fired and lose my home.”
My voice cracked on the last word because home meant so much more to me now than just a town.
Though Starlight Cove was magical in its own right, it was everything it was filled with that had my heart—Holly and the kids in my programs and the friends I’d been welcomed by and the community I’d slowly, cautiously allowed myself to belong to.
And Declan. The man I’d never seen coming and hadn’t prepared for.
The man I’d probably just lost.