Page 46 of The Pumpkin Pie Book Nook

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 naïve 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.