Heat climbed the back of her neck.
"I remember you made a game of guessing which machines would break down. You were right more often than not."
Lauren stared at the machine in front of them. The one that used to leak during the spin cycle.
"I remember," Tom's voice cracked slightly, "how happy we were. Even doing laundry. Even in this shitty laundromat with broken machines and uncomfortable chairs."
Lauren closed her eyes.
The machines kept spinning. Lauren sat there, her hands twisted in her lap, and tried to breathe through the ache in her chest.
"We should walk," she said abruptly, standing. "While the machines run."
Tom stood too. “Okay."
They left the warmth of the laundromat and stepped back into the January cold, their breath clouding between them as they walked down the familiar street.
CHAPTER 34
Tom
Salt crunchedunder Tom's boots. The air had that clean, biting cold that made his lungs ache. They left the laundromat behind and walked past the old stores they used to know by heart.
“Look,” Lauren said softly.
Their old building stood in front of them, the red door faded but still familiar.
Lauren wrapped her arms around herself. “I loved it here,” she said. “It was small, and I felt… big. With ideas. With trying.”
She stopped.
“You made me feel stupid for trying,” she said.
“I was a fucking idiot,” he said.
She swallowed. “You called me cringe.”
Wind lifted a strand of her hair. She tucked it behind her ear, and that’s when he saw it: the thin gold band on her hand catching a reluctant shard of winter light.
She was still wearing his ring.
The recognition hurt and healed at the same time, like thaw.
Lauren's fingers moved to the band instinctively, twisting it the way she always did when she was thinking. For a moment, he thought she might take it off right there. Might hand it back to him on this street corner with the red door watching.
He wanted to reach for her. Wanted to pull her against him and promise he'd never make her feel small again. But he'd made enough promises. And he’d broken enough promises. There was no reason why she would believe him.
"I'm grateful," he managed. "That you're still wearing my ring. Even if it's just—even if you haven't decided."
Lauren looked at him then. “Do you remember when you gave this to me?" she asked.
"Of course I do.”
“It meant I was yours. That everyone would see it and know." Her voice was steady now, almost clinical.
“You’restill?—"
"That's what I wanted at Christmas," she said. "Something that said…" She put her hand to her throat, placed one fingertip there. "Something that said you valued me. That I mattered."
