Cure for the Common Breakup by Beth Kendrick Page A

pocket. “Red convertible. New York plates.”
    â€œAll righty.” Marla eased Summer’s ankles up onto a footstool. “We’ll get you properly checked in later. You just stay right here and take care of yourself.”
    â€œAlways have, always will.”
    â€”
    Summer knew that life must have continued on around her—guests coming and going, attempting cell phone coups and borrowing hammers—but she remained oblivious to it all. For hours, she napped in a patch of light like a cat. At sundown, she mustered just enough energy to walk from the lobby to the back porch, where she collapsed into an Adirondack chair.
    Marla appeared with a glass of water and an invitation to a game of Trivial Pursuit starting in the lobby.
    â€œNo, thank you,” Summer replied. She touched a drop of condensation on the glass, then drew her fingers away as if burned. “I’m good right here.”
    This was a lie. She was not good. She was, in fact, the opposite of good. As the shock of the last few days wore off and her physical injuries started to heal, she was wrecked, ravaged, bleeding out from wounds no one could see.
    Walk it off.
    But she’d finally reached her breaking point, here at the water’s edge. She couldn’t take one more step.
    â€œI’ll leave your room key right here.” Marla regarded Summer, her gaze warm and perceptive. “We call it room number fourteen, but it’s really the attic. Can I get you anything else, honey?”
    â€œNo, thank you,” Summer said. “Nothing.”
    She stretched out her legs and watched the sunset fade into dusk. She didn’t move. She didn’t speak. She barely breathed.
    She just sat, listening to the waves and feeling the weight of her body. After years of racing through airport terminals and cramming carry-ons into overhead bins and traipsing through crowded bars and cafés and hotels, she craved stillness and solitude. She wanted to feel the support offered by the sturdy wooden chair. She wanted to watch the world passing her by.

chapter 6

    I
feel like I’m getting a CAT scan.
    The next morning, Summer woke up to the sound of the tide coming in. She stared at the ceiling, which was only about three feet above the top of the bedposts. Because of the steep slope of the roof, the bed had been positioned in the center of the narrow attic, and the walls, floor, and beams had all been painted pale blue. The space didn’t allow for a dresser or table, so her trash bag (or her “luggage,” as Marla insisted on calling it) rested on a spindly wooden chair wedged between the footboard and the wall. Bright morning sunlight filtered in through the white wooden shutters, bouncing off the blue walls and giving the impression that the whole room was submerged in seawater.
    â€œSorry about the close quarters,” Marla had said last night as she led Summer up to the inn’s fourth floor. “I hope you’re not claustrophobic.”
    After years of squeezing herself into tiny airplane galleys and lavatories and economy-class middle seats, Summer was not claustrophobic. She hadn’t realized how many people were until she’d undergone multiple tests and scans in the hospital after the accident. “You okay?” the medical techs kept asking. “No issues with anxiety?”
    She could fit herself into the tiniest pocket of space, as long as she knew the situation was temporary. As long as she was en route to another destination.
    She turned over on her side, adjusted the white cotton sheets, and realized she was still wearing the same clothes she’d worn yesterday: a casual black shift dress and lightweight cardigan she’d borrowed from Emily.
    This couldn’t go on any longer. She
had
to shower—a real shower with shampoo and conditioner, not just a cursory rinse in a tiled hospital stall with no water pressure. She had to comb her hair and do something about