'If washing machines could talk...' Delta wondered, as she slid four bits into the slot of the extra large washer before hitting the button for 'Super Ultra Extreme PowerSoak'.
Actually, it was a good thing they didn't talk. Because if they did, upon seeing the condition of the clothes she had just put in, they'd probably say something along the lines of 'oh no, you need to put four more bits in if you expect us to wash these mangy things'.
Indeed, as the cylinder began to fill with water and soap, she began to realize how very little she took care of most of the fabrics in her daily life. But the cycle had started, both this one, containing her clothes, and the one next to it, containing bedsheets, a blanket, and pillowcases, and now she had 60 minutes to get something else done before she would have to be back here at the laundromat to swap everything into dryers.
It was time for another trip to Carbon's place. She quickly flew back to the junkyard and started gathering all the bottles she could see from around the workshop; there was easily another half load's worth scattered in and around the building. Adding onto that, she decided to throw aluminum on top of that. She went back to her trailer and started getting the few beer cans that were scattered around. She usually got bottles, but some nights, a six-pack of cans was cheaper than a pack of bottles, and she took what she could get. Not only that, in addition to cans, she had plenty of aluminum scrap laying around the lot. She'd usually wait for somepony to come and buy in larger quantities, but whatever she could push over to Carbon was fair game as far as she was concerned. Twenty minutes later, and her wheel barrow was full of a combination of bottles and aluminum scrap. One trip down the block later, and minus what she had just put into the laundromat washers, she now had 107 bits sitting on her dining table. Not to mention she had at least one more trip's worth of small scrap waiting to be taken over.
She got back to the laundromat just in time to spread out all her amazingly clean items into six available dryers. With so few items in each, it only took a bit per dryer to get everything dry and ready to fold. Properly folded, everything fit into the giant laundry basket she brought along. Upon getting everything back to the trailer, she knew that the plates and silverware in the sink had no doubt soaked enough. She set the laundry basket in the bedroom and came back out to put away what was on the drying rack, then washed and rinsed what was currently in the sink. When the last knife and plate was on the rack, she let out a breath of relief.
Today had been an excellent start, but laundry and dishes were just the start; this place was for all intents and purposes, still filthy.
She turned to head to the room to put away her clothes and make the bed, and for some reason, her eyes lingered on the wall, where a poster of the EQSA Space Shuttle was... Next to a picture of her graduating class, and a photo of her, in her cap and gown.
She felt a wave of anger about to wash over her, and just as she was about to go and take a beer from the fridge, she stopped.
Was that part of the problem? That she had surrounded herself with pieces of the past, constant reminders of what had been taken from her? Is that why she found it impossible to move on?
She walked up to the wall and removed the pins from the poster and pictures, rolling up the poster with her wings and taking it and the pair of pictures to the bedroom. She walked over to her nightstand and opened the front drawer and was about to toss the pictures in when she paused again, looking at what was already in there; a faded picture of her, with her mom and dad.
Feeling a lump begin to form in her throat, she leaned the rolled up poster against the nightstand before she took the photo out of the drawer, and sat down on her bare mattress with it.
She still remembered how her parents had chastised her about doing something so foolish right before her interview with EQSA. Her mom had said she would ultimately have to live with her mistakes, and that if she and Jet loved each other, they would find a way.
Fighting back tears, she continued staring at the photo as she put the graduation pictures under it.
It was easier dealing with and living with your mistakes when you had support. But the night Jet came clean changed everything. She felt angry, used, and... Afraid.
That's why she had put so much distance between her and Apogee; she was afraid. Afraid of lashing out, of blaming her daughter for something that she had absolutely no say in or control over whatsoever. She didn't want her daughter to suffer because Jet didn't know when to let go.
...But Apogee had suffered. Jet's deception, and Delta's reaction to it, had completely destroyed the family she had, and she had wanted as little to do with her daughter as possible since, because she was always a living, breathing reminder of that deception. If she wasn't so dirt poor most of the time, she'd up and leave, get as far away from Las Pegasus as possible.
'But would I really...?' Delta wondered as she continued staring at the photograph, sniffling away further tears as she dug deeper into her soul.
No.
The only thing keeping her in Las Pegasus had been herself. She kept telling herself she couldn't save up the bits to move, but being brutally honest with herself, it was because of all the money she put towards beer, cigarettes, and her next high. If she had stayed away from that stuff, she could set the bits aside to go absolutely anywhere in Equestria. It wouldn't be EQSA, but her degree was far from worthless. She had just made it worthless in her own mind. Just like she had trapped herself in this junkyard in her own mind. Because staying here, sorting and selling junk and waking up hungover had made it so incredibly easy to blame Jet for how her life had turned out.
But maybe, deep, deep down, she didn't want to leave because doing so would mean abandoning Apogee. For as adamant as she had been about not taking her relationship problems out on her daughter, moving farther than 40 miles away would put an even greater strain on them. As much as she hated to admit it, and would never, ever say it to his face, Jet had every right to fatherhood as she did motherhood. Being any farther apart wouldn't be fair to Apogee.
As if she had been even remotely fair to her so far...
She hadn't been since the night she walked out, twelve years ago.
It would also be unfair, and downright cruel, to continue to deny Apogee the mother-daughter relationship that she was so desperately seeking, so she could get at least some semblance of what Delta had in the photo she held in her wings. The deepest parts of Delta's heart were telling her that if she turned her back now, her daughter would resent her for the rest of her life.
But could she manage to mentally detach her daughter from what Jet had done to her that night? If she couldn't, it would preemptively doom any wholehearted attempt she made at connecting with her.
So as she set the pictures gently in the drawer before closing it, and turned to look at the sunset through the shades, she pushed images of the past with Jet as far out of her mind as she could, and instead focused on everything she had accomplished today, and what she could accomplish tomorrow, as a fiery determination lit in her heart.
With that, she got up from the bed and dug out the sheets from the laundry basket, unfurling the fitted sheet to pull over the corners of the mattress. She couldn't remember the last time she slept in fresh sheets. By the time the bed was made, the dusk was over, and the starscape covered the night sky over the greater Las Pegasus area.
The last item in the basket was her white tank top with the equestrian flag on the chest. It didn't look brand new, but the Super Ultra Extreme PowerSoak did wonders to the oil stains. She walked over to her small closet, hung it on one of the very few hangers that wasn't on the floor, and put it up on the rack. She fell into her fresh sheets, and shut off the bedside lamp with the tip of her right wing.
Tomorrow was a new day.