This is the ninth installment of a 100-day challenge to write a new vignette every morning.
David subscribes to the “stuff your tent into the bag” strategy over nicely folding it. This relationship is over.
He’d insisted on a camping trip for our anniversary—four years—even though we’ve never gone camping as a couple. He hasn’t even gone since he was, what, 11? We had to borrow a tent from his parents, and I thought his dad would die laughing.
We’d stuffed the Corolla’s trunk full of camping chairs and sleeping bags and all of David’s damn orange soda.
He packed a shovel, too. I made a joke about him wanting to kill me, and he just stared at me. He’s always had such a strange sense of humor, but this weekend, I stopped finding it endearing.
Now he’s humming along to the radio—the radio—as if we didn’t just fight about beef jerky. I’m watching pine trees turn to cacti as we speed southward. Who drives six hours to go camping? We do, apparently.
23 songs later, we pull into our driveway. “We need to talk,” David says as he puts the car in park. “This relationship is over.”
Miles Away 