Chương 42: Ch 25a - Memory: Shelves

Sweat is carving a new stream between her breasts. Her bra is a poor dam, allowing the water to seep through the viscose weave to regroup for an assault on her stomach. Cara is one shelving unit away from a shower and a celebratory cold beer. If she can make it out of the room that is. Cardboard packing and half-ripped boxes barricade her into the living room. Make that one shelving unit and a quick tidy up away from a shower and a beer. She frowns. Something isn't right about the coffee table.

Are the legs supposed to angle like that? Splayed like a starfish? It takes her a couple of minutes to locate her phone, hidden as it is under the construction manual for the side table and the plastic padding for the table lamp. A check of the picture on the IKEA website confirms her fear. Make that one shelving unit, a dismantle and reattachment of the coffee table legs, and a quick tidy up away from a shower and a beer.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. She could abandon the build. She has achieved a lot today. And she has foolishly decided to tackle the job on the second day of a London heatwave. What's the point of living on your own if you can't abandon a job half done and leave a mess in your own living room?

"Once it's done, it's done," Gran chides her in her head.

"Right," Cara announces to the empty room.

"Let's get this finished." As she drags the box of beech veneer finish shelves across to the only empty space in her living room she finds the missing screw for the side table. It is unaffected by the stream of swear words she directs at it as she pulls it from the soft pad of her foot. It is equally unbothered when she discards it in annoyance on to the coffee table. It spins in a circle then rolls off the slanting surface and back onto the rug.

There it waits patiently for her to step on it again when she hauls the shelves into the far corner of the room.