Page 45 of Canned & Coated

Not the tension or the wanting or the fact that everything has shifted in a way we can’t undo.

The ease of it.

This is what we were always supposed to be doing.

By the time we’re done, both cars are packed, zippers pulled tight, doors shut. The campsite is stripped down to nothing but a flattened patch of grass and a faint ring of ash where the fire used to be.

No footprints. No trash. No evidence of what happened here.

Except we know.

The three of us stand there for a second staring at the empty space. At the place where everything has changed for us three a million times over. At this place where nothing really looks different at all.

Milo exhales beside me. Tanner shifts his weight, hands on his hips, scanning the site one last time clearly committing this moment to memory.

I don’t know how long we stand there, but it feels important.

Maybe leaving too quickly would mean we missed something. I like to think there’s a version of us still sitting around that fire, still laughing, still pretending none of this mattered, and if we wait long enough, maybe we’ll see them.

We don’t.

So I turn and catch Tanner’s eye. “See you at home?” I ask.

It comes out softer than I mean it to because home isn’t just a place anymore. It’s not just the town or the house or the life we left sitting there untouched while he was gone. It’s… this. Us. Whatever we agreed to without fully saying it out loud.

Before he can answer I’m thinking about all the other versions of this moment. The ones where he shrugs it off. Says something vague. Keeps things open-ended. Leaves himself an out.

He doesn’t.

Tanner nods. “Yeah,” he says.

That’s it.

Milo bumps his shoulder lightly into mine, a quiet, grounding touch, and then we start moving. Bags get loaded. Doors slam. The kind of small, ordinary sounds that shouldn’t feel this heavy, this final, this… significant.

I take one last look at the clearing before climbing into the passenger seat. The trees are still. The air’s warmer now. Morning fully settled in

Milo starts the car, engine turning over with a low hum, and we roll toward the exit. Gravel crunches beneath the tires, each turn of the wheel pulling us further away from the place where everything finally made sense.

At the park entrance, the road splits.

Left. Right.

Decisions don’t usually feel that obvious.

In the rearview mirror, I watch Tanner’s Jeep approach the fork. He slows enough that I can fully register the choice. Enough for me to remember every other time he’s taken the right.

Chasing something. Running from something. Always moving. Always leaving.

Then his blinker clicks on and he follows.

We merge onto the same road, his Jeep settling in behind us.

I lean back against the headrest, the tension I’ve been carrying all weekend finally starting to ebb, replaced by something steadier.

Hope.

It’s unfamiliar and a little uncomfortable, but it’s there.