The drive back to the city from the corn maze was excruciatingly silent. Saskia knew that throwing the map away was a silly mistake, but she didn’t think it warranted this stony reaction.
“I’m sorry about throwing away the map,” she said to break the silence. “It was thoughtless.”
Milo looked ahead at the road. “It’s not that you threw away the map,” he explained. “It’s part of a greater pattern.”
“That I’m a fuckup?” Saskia said.
“No, you’re not a fuckup. I’m afraid that what I’ve been hung up on is true. We are deeply attracted to each other, and we can have a great time together, but there’s something else about us together that doesn’t quite click. We shouldn’t force it. You deserve to be with someone more easygoing, who doesn’t get frustrated with lateness or silly mistakes.”
Saskia thought about what Milo deserved. Someone who didn’t make silly mistakes in the first place? Good luck, everyone was human, and everyone, even Milo, was going to make a boneheaded error from time to time.
Sad as she was to lose someone who was rapidly becoming a highlight of her days, he was right about not forcing things. People loved to say relationships are work, and you know what? Work sucks. She did as little work as she could possibly do to get by. She happily bartered to avoid her most dreaded tasks. Kareena, for example, helped with Saskia’s finances in return for Saskia cooking and keeping the apartment clean.
Maybe romantic relationships could work that way, too. She never wanted to make plans, but could she hand over that duty to someone who understood how she liked to organize her time? In exchange for something she was good at, like dealing with people? Too late for her and Milo, but she could take that lesson moving forward.
When they got back to the city, Milo dropped her off at a convenient subway station on his way to return the car to its owner.
There was questioning in his eyes, but she didn’t know the answer. Either he was a fool to give up on her so easily, or she was a fool for thinking a stuffed shirt would ever make a good boyfriend. Maybe they were both fools.
She wept on the train, a time-honored New York tradition. As the tradition mandated, no one bothered her, and she wallowed in self-pity by scrolling through her recent photos. Including ones from Milo’s party and their initially happy time in the corn maze. She ought to delete them and move on, but she couldn’t make herself yet.
She closed out of her photos and opened her social media instead. Clemens Orchard had reposted news of a nearby Hudson Valley village that was celebrating autumn with a town-wide garage sale. Clemens would have a stall on Main Street slinging cider and doughnuts. Saskia’s first thought was that she should talk to her parents about helping at that stall or the orchard. Then she realized a town-wide garage sale was the perfect place to stock up on jewelry she could repurpose for her business’ rapidly approaching busy season.
She might stumble across an antique apple peeler, too. The mental image she once had of spending a day with Milo, rummaging around in people’s cast-off stuff, was crushed. That crystal vision was shattered as intensely as it first appeared. A teardrop fell onto her phone, distorting the image. She wiped the screen, vowing to go to the garage sale on her own and not cry if she saw any apple peelers.
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