Day One

Stefano knew the turn before the sign did. The camp park was quiet, which surprised them as they'd anticipated the summer rush given the time of year. There were certainly a lot of people in their own spots, but no roaming people or loud music washing out the peace of the nature around here.

Stefano watched the dirt road turn to gravel as the density of pine trees thinned it near the river's edge. He would have have missed it himself if he hadn't already known it was there.

"Here." he said. "Left here."

Diego took the left without comment, the trailer swaying once behind them as the tires found the ruts. Alessia had her arm out the window, her fingers combing the air the way she used to as a kid on car trips, and she didn't look at either of them when she said, "I remember this part."

"You remember the lake," Stefano interjected with a self confident smile. "Not the road. Nobody remembers the road."

"What's so special about it?" Diego asked, his gaze locked on the road before them.

Alessia sighed and watched the bushes and trees pass them by. "I just have a lot of memories." Diego scoffed and Stefano chuckled as he stretched out in back seat.

"Diego's never been a camping man after all." Stefano murmured with a bit of a snicker.

"Maybe I'll see why you enjoy this all so much."

Alessia nodded. "I hope you do."

The campsite hadn't changed. Same flat clearing above the water, same fire ring gone soft and gray at the edges, same crooked pine that leaned out over the bank like it was trying to get a better look at something. Diego backed the trailer in on the second try and cut the engine, and for a moment the three of them just sat there in the settling quiet, the tick of the cooling manifold the only sound.

"Good spot," Diego said with a breathless huff. He stretched around, loosening his tense muscles from the long trip, and got out to start preparing the camp site.

Stefano was the last one out of the car. He stretched his arms above his head, cracked his neck, and breathed in the sharp scent of pine and damp earth. "Just like I remembered," he said, turning back toward the trailer.

Alessia smiled at him from the driver's seat, her fingers still wrapped around the steering wheel. "I knew you'd want to come back."

Diego slammed his door and walked straight to the trailer hitch, muttering about the bumper. "I wouldn't go that far. I'm here for you, nothing more. Now help me grab that stake bag please." Diego said in between grunts of effort as he continued working.

Stefano's eyes scanned around to find the bag, and Alessia grabbed it with ease. She handed Diego one, and the two of them worked the rest of it out between them. Stefano stood at the tree line with his hands in his pockets and watched the shape rise.

"We could use an extra set of hands." Alessia said, glancing up at the tree Stefano leaned against.

"I'm sure you could." Stefano mused with a cheeky smile.

"No. Not at all." Diego cut in with a huff. "We're almost done here."

"You don't need to prove yourself, if that's what this is." she told Diego who laughed, not looking up, focused on a stake that wasn't going into the ground the way he'd liked.

They got the fire going before dark. Diego handled the wood, splitting kindling against a flat rock with a hand axe he'd apparently owned since college, and stacking it with an engineer's patience into a shape that would catch. Stefano crouched near the ring and reached for a piece of birch bark to feed it in, but Diego already had the lighter out. Very quickly he had flame going under the first curl of tinder, and the fire took on its own without anyone handing it anything.

Alessia came back from the trailer with three folding chairs, but only set out two. Diego looked at her with a puzzled look and asked about the third chair.

"Isn't that the busted camp chair?" Stefano chuckled.

Alessia fiddled with the chairs as she set the two up. "One of the chairs has a bent leg."

"The bend isn't bad. You could still sit on it just fine." Stefano noted, eyeing the poor camping chair.

"The chair still works of course, but I wasn't sure which one had the bend so I brought them all out to be safe."

Diego nodded with an understanding look. "And you decided to bring an extra for backup, right?"

She nodded and sat down in one of them with her knees pulled up, watching the fire flicker and dance. Stefano stood a while longer before he found a spot on the ground instead, sitting on the dusty ground by her side. It didn't take long for Diego to settle down as well, taking up the other free chair.

For a while they talked, watched the sun set, and had a few prepacked burgers they'd made. Stefano had imagined they'd be too tired to make food when they got here, and as Diego ravenously ate his own share Alessia realized she was right.

Diego squinted at her. "You sure you're okay? You seem... spacey."

"I'm fine," she said. "Just glad to be out of the city."

Stefano wandered toward the treeline, his boots crunching on fallen needles. "There used to be a path here," he said. "Remember? We followed it to that little creek."

Alessia followed him with her eyes. Diego followed her with his.

"Something in the woods?" Diego's eyes followed her gaze, though saw nothing wrong in the slightest.

"No. Just looking." she murmured. With a small shake of her head she turned her attention back to the fire and Diego turned his attention back to his burger. Stefano sat between them, cross-legged on the damp ground. He told a story about a raccoon that had stolen their food on this very trip five years ago. Alessia laughed, her shoulders shaking.

Diego looked up from his plate with a puzzled expression. "What?"

"The raccoon." she said.

"The racoon?"

"The one who stole our food. Right off the plate."

Diego frowned. "I don't think I was on that trip. The one with Greg and Marta right? Why bother thinking about it now?"

"Right." Alessia said quickly. "I was... Never mind."

Stefano looked at her with sheer disbelief in his eyes and she looked back at him only a moment later. He knew what she was doing. She always did this. "Nothing wrong with reminiscing to know."

Diego scraped his plate clean and soon rose up with a huff. "I'm hitting the sack early. That drive was hell." He stood, stretched, and walked to the trailer. "I'll leave you to your memories. Just don't stay out to late."

"Good night." Alessia murmured with a small wave.

Stefano didn't move. He watched Diego disappear into the trailer, the door slam shut with a tinny bang, and let out a heavy sigh. "He's such a buzz kill."

"He's tired." Alessia corrected. "There's a difference."

"Same thing, really. All he does is drag himself around and moan about everything under the sun." Stefano picked up a pebble, turned it over in his palm. "Does he ever talk about that night?"

She shook her head. "Never."

"Does he talk about anything? To you?"

She smiled, but it was brittle. "He talks about work. Traffic. The weather. He talks around it, Stefano. That's his way."

"You mean he complains about work and traffic." Stefano murmured. He reached down for and threw a pebble toward the nearby lake. It arced over the water, a perfect parabola, and disappeared into the dark surface.

The water seemed to swallow the stone whole, leaving nothing to show for it. The water's surface remained a flat mirror for the stars above. Beautiful, but frozen in a moment of time as if the stone's toss meant nothing.