I still have no Beta-Reader, so if you spot any errors please do tell me in a review and I'll sort it asap.
The bins were full now, but the flat was nowhere near tidy. Emily hadn't even finished the main room. She picked up her orange drink and down the rest of it, gasping at the strength. She needed clean clothes, the sleeves of her long top were grey at the wrists and she could see more stains than ever on her jeans. There was no washing machine in the flat and she had only a tenner or so in her purse. Enough for another bottle of vodka and a packet of cigarettes, with enough left over for a few loads at the laundrette on the corner. It would have to do.
Emily walked to the dresser against the far wall, a bin liner in her right hand, a grim expression on her face. She needed another drink and a cigarette. She bent down to the floor and grabbed bras and knickers, thongs and socks. If she had clean underwear, she figured, the rest would follow. With a bin bag half full of undergarments, she moved on to shirts and dresses, shorts and skirts, jeans and hoodies. When the bag was full she tied the top in a neat knot and dragged the back of her hand across her forehead, wiping away the slight dampness. Her mouth was dry, her tongue sticking to the top of her mouth, and she felt sick. Emily kicked her way through the piles of empty bottles and take-away containers still littering the floor and pushed her feet into a pair of scruffy silver Doc Martens. The pair of scruffy silver Doc Martens that Naomi had spray-painted for her two years ago before she went to university. The pair of scruffy silver Doc Martens that had once been pristine and perfect, like their relationship.
She sighed and checked her pockets, making sure she had her money and her keys and her phone, even though it barely rang nowadays. She hitched the black bin-liner over her shoulder, opened the door, and stepped out, slamming it hard behind her. Her feet hit each step violently on the way down the stairs, each footfall echoing around the cold stairwell, the sound bouncing back from the cracked linoleum tiles on the floor and the solid dirty white doors. At the bottom Emily pushed open the entrance door with its broken lock and handle, letting it close itself with its weight. She turned left and walked down the hill, leaving the cramped flats behind as she passed an old Victorian terrace with crumbling brickwork and small concrete yards at the back. At the bottom of the hill, just before the main road, she turned into the laundrette's and threw the bag from her shoulder onto the bench that sat in the middle of the room, running the length of the pale yellow space.
Brown eyes scanned the instructions before small soft hands ripped open the black plastic and divided up the clothes. Three separate piles formed; underwear, colours, and darks. The three separate loads were dumped unceremoniously into three separate drums, three separate doors were banged closed and coins were inserted into three separate slots, sending the huge noisy machines to their programs. Water gushed and drums turned and bubbled formed. Emily was mesmerised for a while, watching the three spinning circles before her. Then she became aware of her dry mouth and shaking hands and pounding head and turned away. It would take at least an hour. She grabbed the torn plastic bag and dumped it in the bin by the door as she left, crossing the main road and entering a small off-license.
The florescent yellow lights on the ceiling buzzed, making Emliy's head pound all the more. She walked to the back of the small shop, to the alcohol isle. Her eyes caught a sign, an offer on some cheap brand of cider.
Buy1 Get 2 Free
It was too good to miss. Her hands closed around three of the two litre bottles and she pulled them into her arms, carrying one almost like a baby, nursing it against her chest. She carried them to the till and dumped the bottles on the counter.
"That's £2.49." The masculine voice growled from behind the chipped blue counter, placing the bottles into cheap stripey carrier bags that reeked of polythene.
"Twenty Richmond Superking Menthol too," Emily handed over the money and grabbed the two carrier bags, collecting her change and cigarettes and shoving them into her pockets. "Cheers."
She pushed the door open, crossed the road and made her way back up the hill. With each step her mouth got drier, her hands shook more, and her head pounded fiercely. Once she was at the bottom of the stairwell she put the bags down, pulled out a bottle and took three huge gulps of the bitter dry cider, warm in the bottle. Already she felt better. She put the bottle back in it's blue and white carrier bag and heaved them up the two flights of stairs. At her door she put the bags down again and fished in her pocket for the key, jabbing it into the lock and turning. She nudged the door open with her knee as she picked the bags up and brought them into the flat, dumping them on the messy blue couch. She grabbed the glass that had held her vodka and Irn-Bru just an hour before and filled it to the brim with cider, which she raised to her rose-bud lips and greedily swallowed in seconds. With a sigh of relief she poured another glass and savoured it for all of ten minutes, before pouring a third and making her way back to the small kitchen.
Ok, so a chapter about washing clothes. But was it a good chapter about washing clothes? Much longer than the last one.
