Refolding a Shirt That's Already Folded

the laundry room in my building has four machines and one window that doesn't close all the way, so even in july it's cold in there past midnight. i've been telling people i come down at midnight because the machines are free then, which is true, and also not the reason.

i tested three nights before landing on saturday. tuesday, nothing. thursday, nothing. saturday, the guy from 4c was there in a gray shirt, folding towels like it was a job he took seriously. i've done saturday since, and told people six weeks, casually, whenever it came up, like it was a new thing i'd only recently gotten into.

tonight my load finished before his did. i pulled a shirt back out of the folded pile, the one already folded, and did it again slower, so there'd be a reason my hands were busy and a reason i was still standing three feet away under a light that hums.

he said the dryers run hot, you have to watch the whites. i said i know, though i've never once watched a white.

upstairs, my phone lit up with the laundry app's payment history, some update i didn't ask for. eleven charges. every one a saturday. going back four months, not six weeks. i've been doing this since before i ever let myself call it something i was doing.