The Break-Up Retreat(63)

Belinda is standing on the stairs. She’s got a light-gray rain jacket on, hood pulled over her head, and her usual white sneakers exchanged for low rubber boots.

“I—” I start, mind completely blank.

She walks up to me.

“Well?”

I’m out of good explanations. Out of stories, out of energy. I can’t get myself to care enough to make it sound believable.

On the other hand . . . that note in my file made me out to be an attention-seeking liar. No matter why that was in there, it can only work in my favor.

“I wanted to talk to Martina,” I say.

“Doctor Martina?” Belinda asks.

I clear my throat.

“The very same.” I smile. “I went to the main building, and she wasn’t there, so I thought . . . well, I figured I’d go to her room and see if she was there.”

Belinda stares at me, unblinking.

“It’s urgent.” I don’t have to fake the way my voice is shaking.

“Well, first of all, that is not okay, Isobel,” Belinda chides me. “Patients are not allowed in staff quarters.”

“I’m not in staff quarters,” I point out. “Technically, I’m outside staff quarters.”

This earns me a sour little smile.

“Very cute.” Belinda does not appear to find this cute. “But that’s not even Doctor Martina’s room. That’s Sandra’s room. You would’ve woken her up if I hadn’t stopped you.”

She takes me by the elbow, her grip firm, and leads me away from the window, toward the main building. The rain is still falling all around us,

“She’s still sleeping?” I ask, trying for innocence. Or stupidity. Whichever works. “Isn’t she going to miss breakfast?”

“She’s sick,” Belinda says, voice short and clipped. “I think she’s got a stomach bug, so we don’t want anyone to bother her.”

“Oh,” I say.

That explains it.

Andrea had a stomach bug. That’s why Sandra was late to show up. She must have caught it from her daughter, gotten symptoms last night.

Belinda stops, turning to me, her grip tightening. The hood and shoulders of her rain jacket are glistening in the rain, and as the wind blows all around us, it catches a strand of her hair escaped from the hood, making it dance across her face, which is tightened up in suspicion.

Up close, I see that she’s got a small brown spot in one iris. A birthmark. It makes it look like she’s got two pupils in one eye; like there are two people in there, staring out at me.

“Isobel,” she says, her voice low. “Tell me the truth. What is going on with you? What are you after?”

“Nothing.” I’m too quick to respond; I sound, accurately, like I’ve got something to hide.

Belinda’s mouth twists, for just a second, and I feel like I’m seeing a glimpse of the person behind the picture-perfect mask for the first time. An actual human emotion, as opposed to pure, blissful serenity.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” She brings her face closer to mine, her grip on my elbow tightening.

“What was me?” I ask, with genuine surprise.

Belinda stares at me. For one second. Two.

Whatever she sees in my face, it’s enough to make her let me go.

“Never mind.” She turns away, but I swear there was a glimpse of . . . something, in her eyes. “Come on. I’ll bring you to Martina.”

Belinda walks me over to the main building. The reception area is empty, the lamp in the ceiling giving off a slight electric buzzing I can feel in my teeth.

As we walk in, she pulls her hood down, shaking her hair out.

For a moment, the frustration and irritation still writ naked over her face, with rain drops running down the surface of her jacket and her dirty rubber boots, I think she looks like someone who could have been my friend, under other circumstances.

“She’s in her office.” Belinda’s voice is clipped. “Just go over there. If she doesn’t have time, she’ll tell you.”

“Thank you,” I say, and Belinda waves me off as she sits down behind the desk.

I hesitate.

“Is everything okay?” My curiosity, still winning out.

She looks up. There are dark circles under her eyes, and in the bright, artificial light, she looks washed out, like all the colors have leached out of her.

But then, as though on reflex, she plasters on that by now familiar wide, bright smile.

“It’s fine, Isobel.” That now-familiar smooth, friendly voice. “Absolutely nothing to worry about. You go talk to the doctor.”

I linger for yet a few more seconds, but Belinda has turned to her computer, her well-kept square fingernails tapping away at the keyboard.

After a few seconds, I turn and walk down the hallway.

The door to Martina’s office is closed. I don’t knock; I just swing it open.

Martina looks up in surprise as I step in.

“Hi,” I say, smiling. “I’d like to go home.”





Chapter 34


Martina, to her credit, doesn’t look surprised.

Instead, she leans back in her chair, gesturing to the chair on the other side of the desk.

“Take a seat, Isobel,” she instructs me.