It was almost empty. An older woman folding towels in the corner. A college-aged guy asleep in a plastic chair, his phone clutched in his hand.
Tom headed for the machines along the back wall—their machines, the ones they'd always used because they were newer and less likely to eat your quarters. They were older now.
He set down his bag and started sorting. Whites. Colors. Darks.
Lauren watched him fumble with it, pulling out a shirt and hesitating over which pile it belonged in. He'd never been good at this part. She'd always been the one who sorted while he fed quarters into the machines.
"That's a light," she heard herself say, pointing to the gray shirt in his hand.
Tom looked at her. Looked at the shirt. Put it in the whites pile.
She moved closer, her hands reaching for the bag automatically. Muscle memory. This was what they'd done every Sunday—stood side by side at these machines, sorting and loading and waiting together.
Her fingers brushed his as they both reached for the same sock.
"You need quarters?" she asked.
Tom pulled out a handful of bills, and despite everything, Lauren almost smiled. He'd always forgotten quarters. Always had to ask the attendant for change while she stood there with exact coins already counted out.
The old attendant booth was gone now—replaced by a change machine bolted to the wall. She watched the way he smoothedthe edges of the bills before feeding them into the slot. It spat out quarters in a noisy rush, clattering into the metal tray.
When he fed them into the washer, the familiar clink-clink-clink echoed through the room. The machines started up, water rushing in, the heavy drum beginning its slow rotation.
Tom stood there awkwardly, his empty laundry bag folded in his hands.
"Forty minutes," he said. "For the wash cycle."
She sank into one of the plastic chairs. Tom sat beside her, leaving one chair between them like a buffer.
The laundromat hummed around them. The machines sloshed and spun. The college kid's phone buzzed and he jerked awake, looked around confused, then slumped back.
Lauren stared at the machines, watching the clothes tumble together through the round glass door. His shirts. His jeans. His socks.
It used to be their clothes together.
“I forgot about this part,” Tom said quietly. “You used to bring a book.”
Lauren remembered. While Tom sat beside her and sketched in his notebook, designing buildings that didn't exist yet.
When had he stopped sketching his ideas?
"You used to draw," she said.
"Yeah." His voice was soft.
They sat in silence, the machines filling the space between them with sound.
Lauren thought about those Sundays. How mundane they'd been. How boring, even—sitting in a laundromat for hours, waiting for clothes to wash and dry. She'd complained about it sometimes. About not having a washer. About the time it took.
And then Tom had taken a job with his father. And used the money to build her a house with a laundry room. A beautiful house.
But now, sitting here beside Tom in the harsh fluorescent light, she realized those mornings had been precious in a way she hadn't understood. Just the two of them, with nowhere else to be. Nothing to do but wait together.
"Why did you bring me here?" Lauren asked.
Tom was quiet for a long moment. The machines sloshed. Someone else came in, hauling a bag almost bigger than they were.
“I loved this time with you," Tom said finally. “It was one of my favorite times of the week.”
