Hauntingly Lovely

Chapter 14

Jack's P.O.V.

Max has been measuring things for hours now, I just watch as he pulls the end of the measuring tape from one side of a broken window to the other. He has a notebook that he's been writing the measurements in.
"Should I help? I feel bad not doing anything." I tell him.
"I don't need help, we'll be doing more real work tomorrow. If you really want to though, you can take some of the cloth and thread I got and try sewing up some of the holes in the furniture and blankets." He tells me, gesturing toward the bags on the floor. He goes back to measuring as I grab the sewing supplies. I don't know how to sew, but I understand the general premise. So I cut some cloth to cover the holes and try my best to sew it there. It's not very good but it works for now and it sorta makes me feel better, and takes my mind off everything. When I'm finished with the holes in the couch I walk upstairs to start working on fixing the mattresses and blankets. I sew and sew and sew, and my messy stitches aren't that bad from a quick glance and I'm starting to get the rhythm. When I'm done it's dark outside and Max has fallen asleep on the dirty old couch. I decide to go to bed too.
I wake up to the sound of a crash, followed by a "SHIT!" from Max. I walk downstairs and find a broken window, many other nonbroken ones are leaning against the wall along with more planks of wood.
"What happened?" I ask.
"I dropped one of the window replacements I got, careful not to step in it." He warns me, I can hear the annoyance in his voice.
"Calm down, we can just get another one, right?" I try to reassure him.
"Yeah, about that," he starts, "the store owner is getting suspicious, I think he might have even recognized me. We should work with what we have and look for a different hardware store to go to." He tells me. I guess we have to work with what we have for the time being. 
"Ready?" he asks.
"Ready." I reply.  
We start by breaking off any floorboards we can on the bottom floor and replacing them with new ones, then we do the same upstairs, being careful not to fall through to the next floor. Eventually, we move on to taking out any broken windows and replacing them with new ones. When we're done we realize Max actually miscounted so we didn't need the broken window. We rest for the night more comfortably after that and the next day we start fixing the holes in the roof. It takes a bit longer to fix the roof since fixing the roof is different than nailing some boards in place of other ones. When we get that all sealed up we decide to go inside and keep going tomorrow. I sew up the holes we've made in our clothes from all the rough work and I'm happy to be getting better at it. When I go to bed I feel it shift and Michael says goodnight, as I start to drift off.