“You’re going to ruin your shoes,” He winces, holding a hammer in his soaked fist.

“They’re the only ones I have, I don’t have any that are waterproof.” His response is overpowered by a fierce crack of thunder. His head whips back, he gestures at the square of wood parallel to my heel. I lean down to pick it up, every step I take closer to him is accompanied by a sucking, squelching noise. I am thankful that the temperamental darkness is obscuring his irritated face. “It’s worse to walk in these,” I tell him. It feels as if my feet are plungers trying to unblock a toilet, the water builds beneath my soles and seeps from the sides of my black, open toe ballerina flats, searching for salvation in the violent storm.

There are bullets of rain and seething swings of lightning filling the space for conversation. Finally, as he’s nailing the upper-right corner of the wooden square over the window frame, he says: “Mum and dad have it good on that cruise right now, huh?”

I laugh. “I dunno, they’re also surrounded by a pool of water,”

“That’s true,” though “I’d rather be in the ocean than in this storm right now”

I move my hands over to the lower left of the wooden board, “You need to hold it tighter,” he tells me. I move my feet closer to the pieces of shattered glass on the ground, the tips of my toes graze the broken pieces of window strewn around.

Kevin grabs the hammer again, then a nail; he leans forward, breathing deeply as the keeps the hammer hovering opposite the nail. He’s trying not to be distracted by the cacophony of the storm. He gives a hesitant swing. A bright, enthusiastic bolt of lighting steals his attention; and the small nail is hammered into his index finger. An ironically timed burst of thunder follows, drowning out his profanity; timed to its exit, my numb hand lands between my jaw and cheekbone.

He just turns to look at me, stunned. There are beads of water falling from the tips of his curls, small rivulets flowing in the creases of his trousers; and bright red blood dripping from his impaled finger, all diffusing into the cold, shallow puddle freezing his toes. My cautious fingers curl around the handle of the guilty hammer; I slide it out of his hands into mine. I secure each nail into the exterior wall indifferent to the exigent thunder and lightning; and only turn to him once, to see how his insentient body juxtaposes the droplets of water racing off the sleeves and hood of his jacket.