Page 69 of When In Doubt

He rolls his eyes and rattles off our order. I’m a little impressed at how he remembered mine, even getting no olives in my sandwich.

“Great, that’s twenty-one seventy.” Becca smiles, producing a reader. I go to grab my purse but Oscar’s already tapping his card. “Your food will be right with you,” she says before heading back to the counter.

I start to tell him he doesn’t have to do that, but his scowl stops me short.

“We’re gonna need some kind of swear jar or something.” He places his palms against the table, tone serious. “Any time you say, ‘you don’t have to,’ whenever I’m trying to be sweet to you, you gotta put a dollar in or something.”

“What?”

“I’m serious! You have got to stop thinking that I’m here out of some kind of responsibility, or like it’s a chore to be around you. You’re not just something I’m checking off a list, Freya.”

“I know that,” I mumble.

“No, you don’t.” He shrugs off his jacket and I realize I still have my coat on. When I stand to take it off, he moves with me, waiting until I’ve got it unbuttoned before he slides it off my shoulders. “We’ll get there, though.”

“So, the sweater dooms the relationship?” Oscar tips his head to the side as he finishes the last bite of his tuna melt. “Must be a shitty sweater.”

I laugh, exasperated. “It’s not about the quality of the sweater.”

“But the sweater gets ruined?”

“No!” I can’t stop the giggles that burst out of me. I’ve been trying to explain The Sweater Curse for longer than I care to admit, but I don’t know if knitting superstitions have really made it into Oscar’s circle of references before. “It’s not about the sweater itself, nothing happens to the sweater.”

“But if nothing happens to it, then why are people breaking up?”

“I don’t know! It’s just a dumb thing people say.”

“That if you knit your partner a sweater, you’re gonna break up?”

“Exactly.” I nod, covering my mouth as I chew. This sandwich is exactly why I never change my order. Mozzarella, pesto, and sliced tomatoes, I’ll take that combination in pretty much every form. It’s probably the only thing I’m really nailing about being Autistic: finding a safe food that’s good no matter where you get it from, and is available in about seventy percent of places.

“But my mom must have made a dozen sweaters for my dad.”

“That’s the exception, once you’re married, the curse is broken,” I explain sagely.

“But if you’re not married, then…”

“Doom and gloom.” I shrug, fighting back another grin.

“And you believe in this?” Oscar asks, wiping his hands on a napkin and dropping it onto his empty plate.

“I don’t know, but I guess I never wanted to tempt it.”

“So, no sweaters for anyone you’ve dated?”

“He wouldn’t have wanted one,” I scoff. Shit, I did not mean to say that.

“Just one guy?” he asks, not unkindly.

“Just the one,” I confirm.

“Was he–”

“He was fine, it just didn’t work out.”

Oscar’s gaze focuses. I wish he’d look away and stop peering inside me.

“Is he like, the one that got away or…”