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The hyperventilating is kicking in. I can’t breathe. Can’t see straight. Can’t think past the blinding panic.
Ping.
Shit! Dmitri’s home already? I was supposed to be done with the bassinet by the time he arrived. Instinctively, I move in front of it to hide the mess I’ve made in the living room.
He stops short when he sees me there on my knees, arms outstretched, probably looking like a complete nutcase. One eyebrow drifts up his forehead. “Wren? Are you?—”
“Itriedtobuildthebassinetmyselfandit’sacompletedisaster.” It all comes out like a single word without pauses in between.
He looks past me at the carnage in my rearview mirror. “Hm. Not sure it’s supposed to be lopsided.”
Old me might’ve laughed at that. Current me is not amused. “Gee, thanks, Captain Obvious. I had no idea.”
The other eyebrow floats up to join its twin. “You okay?”
“That’s a little bit of a patronizing question, don’t you think?”
He sighs and leans against the doorway, folding his arms over his chest. “Rough day, huh?”
“My day’s been fine,” I spit out. “I just need to finish this and I need peace and quiet to do it.”
“I can be quiet while I help.”
“No!”
He stops short, already halfway to where I’m sprawled. “No?”
“I need to do this on my own.” The moment I say it, I find myself thinking, Do I? Do I really need to do this on my own? Or am I just being insane?
But now that I’ve gone and said it, I feel as though I’ve backed myself into a corner. Don’t back down! Never show weakness! Freeeeedoooom!
“Wren, there’s no reason for you to?—”
“You think I can’t do it? Is that it?”
Dmitri’s eyebrows come down. He looks annoyingly calm. “I think you can do anything you want,” he says coolly. “If you want to do it on your own, then I’ll back off.”
Well… that was easy. “Okay. Good.”
“I’m going to the kitchen. Do you need anything?”
“Just some quiet.”
He gives me a small nod and disappears around the corner. I turn back to the bassinet as my face sinks. I’m the biggest bitch alive. And also the dumbest, apparently, because my brain is mashed potatoes and I can’t do this on my own right now.
“Shit,” I mutter, crawling around the floor in search of the instruction manual I yeeted a few minutes ago.
I find it and curl up in the corner and get back to work trying to figure out why Screw Q doesn’t fit into Slot 14 the way it’s motherfucking supposed to. The fact that the paper is wrinkled to shit doesn’t make my task any easier.
When I look up at the clock, ten minutes have passed.
I bury my nose in the instructions again. Another fifteen minutes.
Back to it. When my neck screams at me to give it a damn rest already, I look up to see we’ve now crossed the hour mark since Dmitri got home and I am nowhere close to cracking this puzzle.
“Goddammit!” I wail.
I glance over my shoulder to see Dmitri standing on the threshold again, this time with a glass of water. He does nothing apart from hand it over to me.
