Paper Brains ✥ l.h.

✥

The London sky was rather grey and for once, the brunette didn't moan about it. She was wrapped in her thick wool jumper and had put her giant scarf up to her nose. It was nothing she couldn't face. On the other hand, taking the bus seemed too stressful for her so she decided to walk to work.

It was barely 8am. She was outside. She was cold. But she wasn't in France anymore so she guessed it was okay for now.

When Amélie left France, it felt like a huge relief. She needed a fresh start and even if she still struggled with her old demons, now she was fighting them in English and it felt more right, in a strange way. The first weeks had been a nightmare, she couldn't deny it. She had no idea of what she was supposed to do, she had no job yet and all she had was her tiny little flat in Finsbury Park, which was in fact one of the cheapest area of London to rent a flat. Her rent was of £150 per week and she knew she would have to find a job that would allow her to make enough money for the rent, the bills and the food. She wasn't planning on just working either so she knew she would have to make enough money for nights outside, as well. She had arrived with a suitcase full of food, just to allow her to breathe correctly for the first week and then, she'd be all set to have anxiety attacks every night, thinking about her future here, in London, her dream city.

She found her job quite randomly, during her second week. She knew she had been lucky to get hired that quickly while some people coming here would need months to find something. She was a barista in an old coffee ran by an insanely nice old man who couldn't love her more than he already did. They were only serving coffees, chocolates, pastries and sodas so Amélie knew she could do it. It would have been a totally different story if it had involved alcohol but that wasn't the case so she had no trouble to do her job correctly. She made about £10 per hour and she worked for seven hours on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. During the weekends, she would work for ten hours on the Saturdays and only three on the Sundays mornings, every two weeks. At the end of the week, she would have made £455 which allowed her nicely to live properly. Sure she had the pay the bills every month and her flat was so tiny she couldn't really invite friends over but it had a bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen so she was fine with it. It was her tiny little flat in London and she wouldn't have traded it for a bigger one in France.

But here she was, walking to her coffee, in the streets of London. She was extremely cold but she knew that as soon as she would enter the little shop, a cup of hot cocoa would wait for her on the counter. Ian would have made it just before she would arrive and she would smile before hugging the old man to say hello.

Today was particular though, because she was about to work for nearly twelve hours. She had been promised some extra cash in reward and even if she wasn't really looking forward working for that long, she knew the money she was about to make would go straight to her gig jar. She couldn't wait to see it a bit fuller, now that she had spent half of it on a The Summer Set ticket.

Just as planned, a fuming cup was waiting for her on the counter when she entered the shop. Ian was still in the storage room but she could hear him hum with the radio.

- Thanks for the hot choc, Ian! Amélie yelled, in hope he would hear her.

- You're welcome my dear! Did you remember to bring your costume for tonight?

- Of course, she smiled. It's in my bag, she pointed, showing him the duffel bag she had brought along.

- What are you going to be, tonight?

- Clary Fairchild, she's a badass shadowhunter from a series of book I loved when I was a teenager. Plus, it doesn't really look like I'm dressed up so I didn't have to buy anything more than a temporary tattoo pen.