who: @tim-pierce where: opal lake state park
The drawback (or benefit, depending on how you looked at it) of living in the same town where you'd been born and raised was that you never really had to go too far without running into someone you knew. Sometimes, JD felt as if he'd never fully escape the familiarity of it all. It was during those times when the feeling got particularly bad that JD was especially grateful for his job. Of course, he still had to interact with people, but the majority of people who frequented the state park were the kind of people who did not grate on his nerves. Too much.
Tim was one such person. He'd known the other man for years, and there was a part of him that had to admit that he both admired and envied him. Tim was smart in a way that JD never would be. "What's got your pretty head all twisted up in knots now," JD asked clapping the man on the shoulder as he came to stand beside him. JD knew what it was like to want to escape the noise inside your own head. He couldn't say exactly that that was what Tim was experiencing, but he couldn't imagine that the man's job made it easy for him to find peace. "You know if you stand too long in a single spot, you'll sprout roots and never be able to leave again."