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Chapter twenty-seven

Robbie

“Now this is how a Saturday morning should be,” I muse, carrying a plate in each hand while Naomi slides the deck door open for us. She throws me a smile that nearly knocks the breath right out of me as I pass her.

“It is a nice morning, isn’t it?” She takes one of the plates from my hand and lowers onto the first wooden step of her deck, resting the plate on top of her bent knees. I lower next to her, doing the same with mine.

“Not as beautiful as this steak and eggs. Thank you for making breakfast,” I say as I slide a forkful into my mouth.

The sky has a bit of pink left over from the sunrise, a tiny strip of it reflecting across the water, and a flock of ducks swims out in the distance, lazily drifting between two docks on the other side of the lake.

It’s a perfectly serene setting to start the day that I’ve now grown accustomed to.

We fall into a comfortable silence as we eat, listening to frogs croak their morning song. Eventually, she clears her throat.

“So…I was thinking,” she starts, setting her empty plate next to her.

“Uh-oh. That’s never good.” I huff.

“I mean it.” She laughs softly. “I was thinking about our conversation after your show—when you asked me if I would ever bake from anywhere else? If I would ever leave Pine Falls?”

“Yeah.” I nod, a low simmer of something like dread starting to ruminate in my gut. I wasn’t exactly expecting to have this conversation so early in the day, so I scramble to brace myself.

“And I want to be upfront and honest with you.” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and shifts toward me, the tension in her shoulders giving away how difficult the coming words are for her to say.

“I feel like I need to stay here,” she admits with a sheepish cringe.

“For sure. At least for a while, to get this business off the ground. This is my dream, Robbie. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, and it’s actually coming true.

I don’t like the idea of having to start all over somewhere new where nobody knows me, you know? ”

Guilt flashes across her face, and I instinctively reach a hand out to grab hers, ignoring the intense gnawing in the pit of my stomach. At this moment, I want nothing more than to comfort her, to make sure she’s okay.

“Please don’t feel bad about that, Naomi,” I tell her earnestly. “I completely understand. And truthfully, it’s what makes the most sense for you. I would be doing you a disservice if I asked you to leave Pine Falls.”

“Are you sure? I just… I don’t want to go forward with this”—she waves a hand between us—“without being straightforward about that first. I want to lay everything on the table so we both have clear expectations.”

“I totally get it,” I insist, the corner of my mouth tipping into a smile. Even being on the disappointing end of her pointed conversation, I’m proud of her assertiveness. “I’m still on board, by the way. With this. With us. We’ll figure this out together, okay?”

She nods, dipping her head down as I pull her in for a side hug.

“I’m on board too,” she whispers.

I hold her to me as I squeeze her arm, hoping that we’ll be able to find some way to make this work.

While I think through what the reality of us being together might look like, she tilts her head up. There’s a soft probing there in her gaze—a vulnerability.

“Do you think you could tell me why it’s so hard for you to be in Pine Falls?” she asks gently. “I’d really like to understand why being here is so terrible for you. Maybe I could help.”

My stomach clenches, and nausea grips me at the mere mention of it. I haven’t talked about any of this out loud in a long time—maybe even ever. Avoidance and deflection are my knee-jerk reactions to this topic, and this time is no different.

But looking at Naomi, who has always been upfront and honest with me, I feel the smallest urge to at least try to do the same. For the sake of building something real with her. Something honest and transparent.

If I’m sure of anything, it’s that she deserves that.

“Okay,” I agree, setting my plate down beside me. I run my now sweaty palms down the front of my jeans, my next breath coming out slow as I wonder if I’ll be able to pull it all to the surface to explain. At the same time, I wonder if there’s any point. “Where do I start?”

“Wherever you want to,” she encourages me gently.

I run through my memories, considering which of them I should pull from—which painful details I should share out loud.

“Okay.” I clear my throat, mustering the courage to continue despite the lump in my throat that protests.

“I guess it started as far back as I can remember—my parents’ obvious favoritism for Steven.

He was always the smarter one. The 4.0 GPA.

The valedictorian. Med student. Everyone around town constantly raved about how amazing he was, which my parents relished.

Meanwhile, I was scraping by with my mediocre grades and below-average accomplishments.

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t feel inferior to him, honestly. ”

She places a gentle hand on my forearm.

“He ate it up too,” I continue, gaining momentum now, “always boasted about his accomplishments and rubbed Mom and Dad’s affection in my face, especially in front of his friends. Being a typical older brother, of course, but he knew how much it bothered me. That’s what hurt the most.”

“That wasn’t very nice of him,” she says weakly.

“Anyway, my parents were never shy about showing their favoritism loud and clear. Out in public. At the grocery store. Anywhere and everywhere they shouted his praises, making me feel about as small as an ant. They’re both doctors too, you know.

So, the fact that only one of their sons followed in their footsteps was apparently crushing for them.

I know for a fact that they planned out a doctorate path for me too before I was even born. ”

I pause, running my palm across my jaw. “But no matter how hard I worked in school, I couldn’t ever reach the bar they set for me.

They saw my insecurities—I know they did.

Not only did they do nothing to appease them, but, to me, it felt like they put them on display to pick apart and ridicule in front of the whole town. ”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers.

“I overheard them, on several occasions, telling their friends or people they ran into how much my inability to measure up to Steven disappointed them. They hardly tried to hide it.”

I inhale deeply and clear my throat, grounding myself before continuing.

“The times when they weren’t tearing me down, they flat-out ignored me.

It wasn’t neglect, necessarily. My basic needs were taken care of, but they didn’t show any interest in me or my hobbies at all by the time high school rolled around. ”

My chest tightens as I push my fist into my hand, needing to push some energy out in a physical way.

“It was heartbreaking,” I whisper, my voice cracking under the pressure of the words.

“These were supposed to be the people who loved me unconditionally and supported me no matter what—at least that’s what I knew parents were supposed to do.

But eventually, once my underachieving tendencies didn’t change, they sort of just… gave up on me.”

“The last straw for me was at my graduation party when they were openly criticizing my choice to pursue music instead of applying to med school—in front of a whole group of people that were supposed to be there for me. They were all laughing about it, talking about what a waste of a party—and money—it was.”

“I don’t remember that,” she says quietly.

I shake my head. “It was after you guys left.”

She rubs her thumb along the skin of my arm. I appreciate her comforting touch, but I don’t dare look over at her just yet. I might not have the courage to keep going if I do.

“So, I left,” I continue. “And I literally haven’t heard from anyone in my family since. Not my mom, my dad, or my brother. They never reached out to me, and I certainly didn’t want to be the one to call them—at least until I saw Steven at the hospital, that is.”

“I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” The pity in her voice is loud and clear, which I both loathe and find comfort in at the same time. “That’s why you didn’t come home for such a long stretch after graduation.”

I nod. “I just couldn’t. And then when I did, the stares and whispers around town were too much to handle. I have no idea who all knew about my parents’ ridicule, but I’m assuming a lot of them did. The embarrassment and shame were so overwhelming that I had to turn right around and leave.”

“I had no idea,” she whispers as she slides closer to me, wrapping her arms around my elbow. Her touch seems to soften some of the tension in my muscles, and I lean into her.

“Anyway, to answer your question, that’s why I don’t like it here.

Not only because of the risk of running into them and what that conversation might be like, but also because of the stares from everyone else, the judgment from my parents’ friends.

Everyone I run into—Iris and Opal, for example—always brings up my family and I just don’t want to constantly be reminded, you know? ”

“I get that,” she says quietly.

“I’m fine. I really am, Naomi. I’ve moved past a lot of it, and my trauma could absolutely be way worse. But I can’t help but feel uncomfortable when I’m here, which is why I don’t come home that often.”

“Until you offered to be my fake boyfriend and help me with these silly exercises.” Her face pinches together in a cringe. “I’m so sorry, Robbie. I shouldn’t have let you do all this for me.”

“Hey, no. Absolutely not.” I turn toward her, squeezing the spot above her elbow. “We’re not doing that. It was my idea, remember?”

She nods wearily, unconvinced, resting her head on my arm.

“Besides, I’m happy I did. I don’t regret it for a second.

Because it led me to this. To us. This means a lot to me.

” I blow out a slow, steadying breath. With each passing second of her head resting on my shoulder, some of the discomfort of reliving it seems to quell, although the weight of it all still feels heavy.

I’m not sure there will ever be a time that it won’t.

“For what it’s worth, I would choose a musician over a doctor any day,” she whispers, causing the corner of my mouth to curve up.

“Thank you.” I force out a low chuckle, struggling to push everything back down where it belongs so we can move on with our day. “Anyway, enough about that.”

I clear my throat again, mustering enough stability to do what I originally planned for this morning.

“Can we start our day with a mini exercise?” I ask.

She rolls her head off my arm, rolling it backward dramatically.

“Sure,” she eventually says, sitting up straight.

“That’s the spirit.” I rub my hands together, breathing through the lingering pressure in my chest. “Let’s do a little mantra building to start our day.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asks.

“That’s right.” I lightly bump her nose with my finger. “Look at the perfect little student you’ve grown into.”

She playfully rolls her eyes. “Okay, one thing I want out of life is…to have multiple storefronts of my bakery in different locations. Have I mentioned that yet?”

“You haven’t, but that’s a great one.” I brush aside the mental reminder that if she leases a brick-and-mortar building here, the chances of her ever leaving Pine Falls would be even slimmer. But I can’t focus on that right now on top of everything else.

“Back to our mantras. Super simple. Just repeat after me,” I say. “I am a confident woman.”

She repeats.

“I am worthy of respect.”

She repeats.

“My wants and needs are valid and worth fighting for.”

She repeats.

“I am deserving of good things.”

She repeats.

“I am allowed to set boundaries when needed in order to preserve my well-being.”

She repeats.

I continue on, helping boost her confidence for the day.

All the while, mine seems to be slowly deflating under the still-present heaviness from our conversation.

As much as I try to focus my attention on building her up, my mind reels, and the tension ends up lingering for far longer than I’d hoped it would.