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.
