Cardboard mattresses

[chapter 3]

June sat wearily behind the little counter of a small coffee shop, smiling occasionally at a customer as they came in, going about her routine making a cappuccino, then a dark coffee followed by what felt like thousands more variations of that, and by the afternoon it felt like she'd served half of New York.

Taking a bite into her bagel and looking up at the tv a man with a strange hippy kinda beard was rambling on about world peace and the like, she found his egocentric voice very irritating and she flicked over to another channel.

It hadn't skipped her notice that frost had began to form on the windows and the air was significantly chillier today, winter was coming,
lovely.

After work she picked up the small amount of tips she'd made and headed over to goodwill in an attempt to find a warm coat, she picked out a long black one with a worn fluffy lining for ten bucks, it was a very welcome addition to her outfit as Jack Frost nipped at her exposed skin. The thing about winter was that as a kid she adored the snow, the silent blanket that fell on the world, wrapping it in a warm embrace and holding it for a few weeks or if she was in luck a month. It was something about the way it seemed to put people in a much calmer mood, Christmas was on its way and that generally made people happy.

You coming to the camp tonight? She texted to Matt, the man who'd woken her up on that log a day or so prior,
Yep, a text quickly pinging back to her
I need a lift back if thats ok? June responded her fingers quickly numbing in he cold air.

Climbing into matts front seat she almost gagged, "fucking hell dude when did you last Fabreeze this car?" He laughed at her scrunched up face,
"This is my house so shut up or get out" he replied with a smirk and June punched his shoulder. Sitting back in the slightly musty car seat she stared out of the window, a look of what some people may have mistaken for anger or rudeness lay on her face, what it really was, was sadness. A longing sense of feeling totally lost in life. If someone had told her that at 14 she'd be homeless and on her way to her tent riding shotgun in her dealers car she'd probably have slapped them. In all honesty she knew its what her parents had believed would have happened, they had never paid much attention to her, they were the kind of people who you'd look at and think why the fuck would you become parents.

She looked over at Matt, "you got anyplace other than this car" she asked,
"Nah not really" he said carelessly, he wasn't exactly a chatterbox and neither was June so that suited her just fine and she turned back to the window for the rest of the journey.

Pulling her bike off the back of the car she thanked Matt and headed over to the camp, Maeve was waiting by her tent with a cigarette hanging out her mouth and a concerned look on her face, her hands raking through her curly black hair with a sense of urgency. As June approached her breathing quickened, "what is it" she asked.
"Feds kiddo, someone tipped them off to a bunch of troublemakers living out here" she said gesturing around to show she meant that they where the 'troublemakers'
"No, n-no we haven't done anything wrong" June said dropping her bike at her feet, her eyebrows creasing into a frown as she began to wring her hands together.
"Yeah happens every couple years... we just gotta move into the city for a bit then we'll be okay for the spring to move back" Maeve said with a sympathetic look crossing her face, " your folks are still around tho right kid? See if they'd take you back perhaps" and with that she stood up, patted June on her back, snuffed out her cigarette on a rock and wandered back towards the rest of the camp who'd mostly packed up.

June felt like curling into a ball and crying, she had two strengths, ignoring her emotions and running away from them, which I suppose are very similar things but they were June's speciality's none the less.

Pushing her small collection of personal belongings into her bag she stood up and zipped the tent up behind her. She wasn't too sure why she was leaving the tent, most likely because it wasn't exactly stealthy, it was luminous orange, not her colour choice, she'd borrowed it off another guy who'd left the group about a year ago.

Turning back to look at the folks she'd called her friends for the last year anger bubbled up in her stomach and she turned away to do the thing she did best, run.

Not literally run because that seemed like far too much effort, she picked up her bike and took one more glance back, a few "good luck" and "see ya" comments where thrown her way and she nodded at the group with a weak smile. June had remembered a place that Mae had mentioned a few months ago, apparently a few hours north there was a small uninhabited cabin that had a well and a roof, and seeing that she currently had no better plan and to be quite honest would rather die than live in the city as a homeless, skinny little kid she made her way though the trees on the rather shitty path that would take her to her new home.

Why didn't she stick with the group, that's a good question and not one June was even sure she could answer herself, perhaps it was the overwhelming lack of trust she put in the druggies which was a tad rich coming from her but her ego was sometimes a little big for her boots.

So was the faith she put in herself for wilderness survival.

The one thing she was thankful for was that new coat she'd bought, it was very warm and had big pockets which fit her Walkman so she could listen to music as she cycled, however that didn't last long as thirty minutes into her ride she began to get real sleepy.

"God I could do with a sleep right now" she said to herself, slowly closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, suddenly she hit a rather large rock and a hot pain flushed her face as she went flying over the handlebars, "FUCK" she screamed putting her hands out to stop her fall and rolling across the damp forest floor, she slumped over so she lay on her back and just lay there for a bit looking up at the sky, clouds chasing across it. She groaned quietly looking to her left to see her bike which now lay in pieces at the bottom of the hill. " fuuuuuck".

Another thirty minutes passed before she found the strength to pull her aching body off the floor, tentatively reaching up to her cheek she could feel a little bit of blood, nothing major though so she wiped it off her hand on her brown corduroy trousers and stood up. Her bike was now rendered useless by a stupid rock, June was tired and hungry and frustrated and then all of a sudden an angry sadness washed over her, it was like a black cloud had swept across her world tainting the colours of the forest into a dull aching brown and an angry brick had punched her hard in the chest.

She threw her knife at a tree in an effort to take out some of her anger, god how she wished she could be like some of the girls at her school, however insufferable they were, they had families who loved them and people around them in case they fell and needed a safety net to catch them. Maybe in an alternate universe she could have such a luxury but she was stuck in this stupid reality and right now she needed to get to that cabin before nightfall, as much as she liked nature she wasn't so sure she'd like it as much in the form of a 700 pound grizzly bear ripping her face off.

Traipsing through the undergrowth she made her way slowly north as the sun began to set and the night grew ever darker, she hacked away randomly at branches with her butterfly knife, pouring her frustration onto the plants that came within arms reach of her.

Finally many many scratches, stumbles and bumps later June came across a small very worn down hut. A tree almost grew through it and it's windows no longer had glass in them but it would be her home for now.

Just as the sun dipped below the horizon and the forest was plunged into darkness she tapped lightly on the door, perhaps a bit of a ridiculous gesture but June wasn't stupid she was aware that she wasn't alone in this forest, cautiously she pushed the mouldy door open to reveal a battered little room, it was pitch black so she pulled out her little wind up torch and shone it around. The cabin was tiny, it housed a single chair and table with various bottles on it, a tatty blanket and some very green, moss covered pillows, it didn't look like anyone had been in here for a very long time.

Unfortunately for her however they had.