Page 133 of Summer Love

She didn’t even bother to turn it off when she left.

Flip speeds up a little, then passes me and bolts straight for the door. I watch him, hands in my pockets. He stops at the bottom of the steps and whines.

I freeze. A muffled sound, uneven, punctuated by silences, comes through the door.

Sobs.

Not quiet tears—deep, broken sobs that won’t stop.

Flip whines louder and scratches at the door with his claws. He turns and looks at me.

Summer’s still here.

But I walked a long time. She’s been crying like this… since I left?

“She didn’t seem to.”

Luke’s words again. Except this time, I don’t push them away.

Summer had blocked my number and Noah’s. That much I knew. She’d regretted taking things further with me, so she’d shut the door.

But if she blocked us the very next morning—before she knew about the accident—then Noah’s calls from the hospital… mine, for weeks, the phone ringing into nothing… the message I left on her voicemail at three in the morning, doped up on painkillers, just saying, “Call me back”…

She never got any of it.

Shit. She didn’t know.

The sobs keep coming. Flip scratches harder.

I see it again—the GoPro thrown onto the bed like a punishment. Not a word of explanation, no warning.

It was too cruel. I never should have put her through that.

I climb the steps and throw the door open.

Summer’s curled up at the foot of the bed, knees pulled to her chest, hands clamped over her ears. Damp strands hide her face, her dress clings to her skin… and she’s shaking.

The GoPro’s on the floor beside her, screen black.

Flip goes straight to her, lies down against her legs, and rests his head on her knees. She doesn’t react. Her shoulders jerk and heave. She’s gasping for air and can’t seem to get any.

Now there’s no doubt left: she knew nothing. Not the accident, not the hospital, not the rehab, not what it cost me.

She regretted sleeping with me. She didn’t want to be with me. It was ugly. It still hurts. But she didn’t cut me out of her life knowing what had happened to me.

I stay rooted in the doorway. The words don’t come. They were never my thing.

So I step forward and kneel in front of her. I hesitate, then take her wrists and gently lower her hands. She barely resists. Her eyes are red, swollen, and she looks at me like she doesn’t understand what I’m doing here.

I pull her into my arms, because I don’t know what else to do. Nothing romantic about it. She stiffens for a second, then sags against me and cries without holding back. With every sob, her fingers fist in my T-shirt.

Flip gets up and slips out of the trailer without a sound.

I don’t say anything for a while. I just hold her, that’s all.

“You didn’t know,” I breathe.

Summer shakes her head.