Page 46 of Mountain Boss

There’s no mattress.

I turn away from the bed and look at the walls, like a mattress might be propped up somewhere.

There isn’t.

There’s no fucking mattress.

I look under the bunk.

But it’s just boxes and Courtney’s suitcase.

And the bunk is just a bare piece of fucking plywood.

I look back at the pile of laundry now bunched at the foot of the bed.

And I feel like the biggest piece of shit on the planet.

My Courtney has been sleeping on her clothes because I gave her a cabin without a mattress.

I plant my hands on the bunk.

The weight inside my chest threatens to drag me to the ground.

Why wouldn’t she say something?

Why the fuck wouldn’t she ask for a fucking mattress?

But the answer is obvious.

She thinks I did it on purpose.

Guilt glides over my skin, seeping into my being and filling me with a level of self-hatred I haven’t experienced before.

Courtney thinks I gave her this cabin knowing there was no mattress.

I didn’t know.

I swear, I didn’t know.

But why would she think otherwise?

I’ve been dismissive and rude to her since the moment I found out who she was.

Flashes of her filter through my mind.

Courtney seeing me that first morning and going right back into her cabin. After sleeping on a fucking board.

Courtney not eating lunch with us because I didn’t tell her.

Courtney with toilet water on her face and shirt after her second night sleeping on a fucking board.

Courtney last night, with tears in her eyes and a fake smile on her lips, on her way to spend another night on a fucking board.

Courtney asking when we get paid. Probably because she wanted to buy a fucking mattress to sleep on.

Courtney this morning, smiling over a trip to Costco, after sleeping on a fucking board.

I have to clench my jaw.

---