The Pull

eet‑lights flickering over puddles that refuse to dry. I walk them anyway, counting sidewal

coughed their last spin days ago, and the leak under my bathroom sink has claimed everything that used to smell like me. So I haul a

order; the fifth refuses my crumpled bills. The sixth blinks READY but click

hen I no

ack coat, dark hair cut too close on the sides. He doesn't belong to the hour or maybe he owns it. A single dryer turns behi

et, coins skittering under benches and between trash‑clogged vents. I crou

open. In it sit three quarters and

not rough exactly more like

ket, trying not to meet his eyes. Looking at

ys. "Takes your money, gives

my bag to the humming dryer be

nto a misshapen fan. "Try that one." He points to the only machine I

elf. "Do I have to

all tilt of a grin, like he's not sure he'

a bitter taste, stale

ur names are already sewn together in some secret ledger. He hands over two more q

t have to

ing," he interrupts. "For

. And it's true. Lately loneliness

mine and someone else's. I perch on a cracked vinyl seat. Austin slides onto the on

night?"

rect, then instantl

t seem the type who believ

And what t

lined long ago. "Stuck at the second right before midnight. The r

me time. My chest tightens, ready to fight or flee, but the drye

acks without covers and haunt laundromats at

her window where my clothes whirl l

man in a delivery uniform lumbers in, dumps a stack of rug runners, and curses at the broken wa

f your skin?" he asks quietly. "Not the swe

the t

nd

works,"

e. Something in me wants to throw a quilt over the cracks, but the greater part wa

ipping defeat onto the floor. Austin flips a quarter across his knuckl

u let me pa

ney," he says. "

ast is a ledger best left closed. Yet I shove my clothes into his

ght hours a day. I tell him how the city looks different when you stop pretending it's temporary how permanence steals the skyline and pain

fession. Not judgmental hungrier. When I finish, the dr

ster in rehab, a father who sold silence for whiskey, a love of old books with the covers ripped

off. Clothes slum

el lighter

tle,"

, shrugs on his coat. "Mayb

hat laundromat optimism is a chemical imbalance, that chance meeti

," I a

nd him of where he left off. "Don't fix the clock, Nora,"

halo, swallowed by a city that

den awareness that I've been seen. And somewhere between the missing washe

erous just fou

from my skin. It doesn't work; it never does. But as I walk, I find myself hoping terrified at the thou

s. Because some prayers don't need numbers; they only need