Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
ROBYN
It only took Robyn seconds to follow the social media trail and discover what had happened. Her ex had outed her.
He couldn’t have just left it to the message he’d sent her.
No. He had to be petty, calculated, and cruel.
His dickish behavior knew no bounds. Because this wasn’t an accident.
He wasn’t hiding that it was him. He’d posted her pen name next to her real name like he was proud of the cruelty, screenshotted her account, and let the internet do what it always did when it got a new target.
He was one of the only people who’d ever been told about her writing—back when she’d made the mistake of trusting him with it, back when he’d smiled and then used it to make her feel small.
Back when he’d managed to make something that brought her joy sound like a joke she should be embarrassed about.
Robyn’s stomach turned as the reality settled in.
And it wasn’t just Yale she was terrified of now.
It was Tyler. It was the memory of her ex laughing, the words “silly” and “embarrassing” tossed at her like they were harmless, like they couldn’t bruise, like they couldn’t make her flinch years later.
What if Tyler saw her writing the same way? What if everyone did?
Her phone started ringing.
Her parents.
Of course.
She couldn’t do this right now. Couldn’t talk to them and listen to the lecture that would come wrapped in concern and disappointment, the one where they told her she’d been careless and na?ve and had ruined her career, because she knew—knew—that was exactly what they were going to say.
And the worst part was, they wouldn’t be wrong.
The quiet life she’d been building here had been ripped open in a single afternoon. She and Tyler had needed time to figure out what this was, to take it slow, to let it grow into something real without the whole town weighing in.
Now the whole town knew, and not just about her and Tyler. They knew everything about her. Robyn couldn’t breathe around the fact that the cat wasn’t just out of the bag—someone had taken the bag and flung it into the middle of Oak Way under a spotlight.
Her phone rang again.
This time it was Krista.
Robyn wasn’t even sure where in Europe her sister was now—or what time it was there. The news had traveled around the world either organically or via their parents. It didn’t matter. Krista would be kind. Krista would be on her side. Krista would tell her she wasn’t ruined.
Robyn still couldn’t answer.
She couldn’t talk to anyone. Not while her thoughts were slamming into the walls of her skull like a ping-pong ball.
With shaking hands, she turned off her phone and set it face-down on the counter like it might bite her if she looked at it again.
She didn’t open her laptop. She didn’t open her email.
She didn’t even let herself wonder how many messages were waiting, because the moment she did, her mind supplied the worst-case version in startling detail: emails from colleagues with careful, disappointed phrasing; students sending links with wide-eyed emojis; a supervisor requesting an urgent meeting; the unspoken threat of donors and reputations and committees.
That was how it worked in her world. All it took was one outraged person with power, and she would be reduced to a cautionary tale in someone else’s faculty lounge.
Robyn tried to think of a solution, but her brain was no longer producing solutions. It was producing catastrophes.
Even Mr. Darcy seemed concerned for her, watching her pace the living room from his perch on the kitchen counter. His eyes never leaving hers.
“Maybe we could disappear,” she said to him, her feet still working the floor. “Go somewhere off-grid. Wait for it to blow over?”
Mr. Darcy cocked his head, as if he was willing to hear her out but had serious doubts about the logistics.
Or maybe she could become a monk. They took vows of silence all the time. If she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t answer questions, and people would be forced to leave her alone. Did they allow cats in monasteries?
The thought was so absurd it almost made her laugh—except she was pretty sure she hadn’t gone silent for more than an hour in her entire life; Mr. Darcy certainly hadn’t, and she didn’t actually want to give anything up.
Not Yale. Not teaching. Not Maple Falls.
Not Tyler or Emma, or the bookstore and the lake and the way the town felt like home.
She liked the quaint streets and the small-town rituals.
She liked how the same people could be the busiest gossips in one breath and the kindest souls in the next.
Mrs. Bishop and Mrs. C. would probably be thrilled by this information, yes—but they’d also bring casseroles if Robyn got sick. They’d show up. They’d help.
But how was she supposed to face any of them now?
And Tyler—
Tyler must feel deceived. He must be furious. He must be embarrassed to have been standing beside her in public while the internet dragged her for writing the very thing he said he never read.
Robyn wrapped herself in a blanket and curled on the couch, hot tears sliding down her cheeks as if her body was trying to drain the panic out of her one drop at a time.
Mr. Darcy abandoned his post on the counter, padded across the room, and jumped up on the couch, settling heavily against her thigh.
She stayed there until the room blurred, until the streetlights outside turned into smeared halos, until she nearly convinced herself she could stay hidden forever.
Then a small pebble tapped against her window.
Robyn flinched, startled, and ignored it.
A second pebble followed, sharper this time, then another, arcing up from the sidewalk and catching the glass with a light, insistent tick.
Her stomach clenched. She didn’t want to look. Looking meant reality.
But the tapping came again, and finally, she pushed herself to her feet and crossed the room on legs that didn’t quite feel like hers. She pulled aside the gauzy curtain just enough to peer out.
Tyler stood below, head tipped back, hands cupped around his mouth.
When Robyn’s face appeared in the window, she shook her head immediately, a silent plea for him to go. For him to leave her alone in her humiliation.
“Please,” Tyler called up anyway. “Open the window!”
Robyn didn’t want to, but she couldn’t ignore him standing there like that. Not with people still out on Oak Way, strolling past with mugs of hot cider and scarves wrapped tight against the wind. A few had slowed to watch, curiosity tugging them closer.
Mortification burned through Robyn’s chest. She lifted the window anyway, just a crack, cold air rushing in.
“Tyler, I—” Her voice broke. She swallowed, throat tight. “I’m sorry. I can’t—” She turned away from the window.
“Don’t,” Tyler said, holding up a hand. His voice was firm, not angry. “Don’t go.”
Robyn blinked, confused by the gentleness of it.
“We think you’re an incredible writer,” Tyler said, words clear and certain. “All of us. We’re all fans.”
Robyn’s confusion deepened. “What?”
He stepped slightly to the side, and only then did she see shapes moving in the darkness, and then their faces as they came closer beneath the streetlight glow.
The book club, funneling out of the bookstore and gathering around Tyler. Edith in her navy and white tartan scarf. Mrs. Bishop in her brown wool coat. Mrs. C. with her arms crossed, and no-nonsense attitude. Cassidy, Madison, Kit, and Elsie all smiling and waving up at her.
Robyn was too stunned to speak.
Tyler lifted his phone and began to scroll. “I’m going to read you something,” he called up, and there was a faint tremor in his voice now. “Because I don’t think you believe us.”
He cleared his throat and read the first comment.
“Your writing takes me to another world. Bravo!’” Tyler said, then glanced briefly around the group.
Kit raised her hand, shameless. “That was me.”
Tyler scrolled again.
“That chapter was—no words. I devoured it!”
Cassidy lifted her hand with a grin. “Guilty.”
Another scroll.
“This story is everything I never knew I was missing.”
Edith fanned herself dramatically. “Also me.”
Robyn pressed her hand to her mouth, tears still falling but different now—confused, stunned, something warm cracking through the fear.
These people… liked her stories.
Not faceless follower counts or anonymous hearts on a screen. Real people she knew. People who had brought her cupcakes and cider and laughed with her in the pumpkin pie book nook.
Tyler kept reading, each message a small light in the dark, and each time a book club member claimed it with a wave or a laugh, she was grateful to them for outing themselves tonight, in solidarity with her.
Robyn’s chest hurt. In the best way and the worst.
When Tyler finally paused, he looked up at her again, and his smile turned a little crooked, a little nervous, like he was about to step off a ledge.
“Robyn, you’re hiding from a storm that doesn’t exist. Everyone you respect already loves the real you, and we are so proud of you for your writing. Especially me.”
Robyn frowned through her tears, not understanding—
“I’m literally your biggest fan. It’s me, ReadsAfterBedtime97. And look, I’m not saying I’m Cathy and you’re Heathcliff in this scenario, but I am standing under your window in the cold, asking you to let me in.”
For a beat she could only stare down at him, the streetlight catching his face, the wind tugging at his hair, the whole scene so absurd and tender she didn’t know whether to cry harder or start laughing.
“You lied,” she called down, because her brain needed something to hold onto that wasn’t the fact that her heart was doing gymnastics.
Tyler blinked, genuinely startled. “What? No,” he said quickly, holding his hands up as if he could prove his innocence. “I swear. I’m ReadsAfterBedtime97.”
Robyn let out a shaky breath that almost sounded like a laugh. “That’s not what I mean,” she yelled back down, clutching the window frame like it could keep her upright. “You told me you never read romance. That you only liked fantasy.”
A grin tugged at Tyler’s mouth, relief flickering across his face so fast it made her chest ache. “No,” he said, pointing at her like she was the one on trial here. “I said it wasn’t my thing. You only assumed I never read it.”
“Slight omission,” Cassidy stage-whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Tyler held his thumb and index finger an inch apart. “Very slight.”
Edith waved a hand dramatically. “Let him live. A man deserves his secrets.”
Mrs. C. crossed her arms, looking impressed. “At least this one’s secret involves literacy.”
Robyn pressed her fist lightly to her mouth, trying to keep her smile from breaking free.
Tyler’s expression softened, and the teasing slipped away as if it had never been there. He tipped his head back, eyes locked on hers. “Robyn,” he called up, quieter now but somehow even clearer, “listen to me.”
The crowd around him stilled a little.
“Your words are the only ones that ever mattered,” Tyler said.
“I look for them every night. I read them when the house is quiet and Emma’s asleep and I need something that makes the world feel…
good again.” He swallowed, and the honesty in his face made Robyn’s throat tighten.
“Knowing it’s you makes perfect sense. No one has ever captivated me the way you have. ”
Robyn’s heart thudded hard, her eyes burning.
Tyler took a small step closer to the building. “I’m proud of you. I’m—” He let out a breath. “I’m yours, Robyn. Body, heart, and soul.”
Below him, the older ladies sighed in unison.
“Oh,” Mrs. Bishop whispered, fanning herself. “Oh my.”
Edith pressed a hand to her chest like she might need smelling salts. “Goodness gracious.”
“About time,” Mrs. C. muttered, her faith in the opposite sex restored.
Robyn stood frozen, tears slipping down her cheeks, the fear still there but suddenly not running the show. Because Tyler wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t disgusted. He wasn’t disappointed.
He was looking at her like she was perfection.
She disappeared from the window.
Moments later, the front door of the bookstore flew open as she spilled out onto the steps, breathless and barefoot.
She didn’t even remember taking her shoes off, only that she’d moved like a woman who couldn’t stand still another second.
She crossed the sidewalk in three quick strides and didn’t hesitate.
She launched herself into Tyler’s arms.
His hands caught her automatically, strong and sure around her waist, and Robyn threw her arms around his neck. She kissed him hard, right there under the streetlights, right there in front of the whole Maple Falls Book Club and anyone passing by.
Tyler kissed her back like he’d been waiting for permission, but he’d never been more certain of anything in his life.
Right now, Robyn didn’t care who saw. She didn’t care what the internet was doing to her name. She didn’t care what Yale might think tomorrow.
In Tyler’s arms, with his mouth warm against hers and his hands steady at her waist, everything felt, impossibly, like it might be okay.
And if the world could feel this right with him holding her together, what if she let herself believe it could last?