A Drive to Twin Rocks

The windows were cracked and the cool Oregon air poured into the car, sharp with salt and damp earth. Brandon Benjamin left his apartment from Portland’s Pearl District about two hours ago. He was chasing something he couldn’t name—quiet, maybe, or clarity, or just enough distance from anywhere that the phone calls and emails and whispers couldn’t reach him.

The Wilson River Highway wound through forest, the kind that pressed right up to the edge of the asphalt, dark trunks rising like sentinels. It was beautiful, in that moody, untamed way the Pacific Northwest had about it, but Brandon barely noticed. His mind kept circling the same facts: the app was dead, the investors were angry, and his name was smeared across a dozen tech blogs as another founder who had promised disruption and delivered nothing.

He hadn’t planned this trip. He’d just gotten in the car, pointed it towards the coast, and drove. The city had grown too heavy, every coffee shop table occupied by someone who looked like they were building the future, every sidewalk holding a reflection of what he’d thought he was.

The sign appeared around a bend: Twin Rocks – 2 Miles.

The name caught him. Twin Rocks. Solid. Permanent. He imagined two giant stones braced against the ocean, unshaken no matter how violently the tide crashed. He wanted to see them. Maybe he wanted to believe that permanence existed.

The trees thinned, and the sea opened in front of him—gray and endless, flecked white with foam. The light was fading fast, sky bruising into violet. He pulled into town, if you could call it that. A few buildings huddled near the highway: a convenience store, a shuttered bait shop, and a café with a flickering neon beer sign.

He parked in the gravel lot and cut the engine. Through the windshield, he saw them—the twin rocks rising from the water like guardians. The waves broke against them, unbothered, as if they had been standing there since the beginning of time.

For a moment, he let himself breathe. He wasn’t out of the woods—he doubted he ever would be—but here, at least, the trees had opened.

⸻

The café was nearly empty. The bell above the door jingled as he stepped inside, and the air smelled of fryer oil and old coffee. A woman in her late fifties looked up from behind the counter.

“Evenin’. Kitchen’s still open.”

“Thanks,” Brandon said, his voice rough from hours of silence.

He slid into a booth by the window, where he could still see the outline of the sea stacks. The laminated menu was worn soft at the edges: burgers, fish and chips, pancakes, a small salad section nobody ordered from. He picked a cheeseburger, fries and a water.

The place was quiet. Two men in flannel nursed beers at the counter, murmuring low. A young couple sat in the corner, their faces lit by their phones. And at the far end of the counter sat a man who looked like he belonged to a different time altogether.

His hair was silver, long and uneven, his face lined like driftwood. A green army jacket hung loose on him, and a battered hat sat on the stool beside him. He held his mug in both hands, slow and deliberate, as if the act of drinking coffee carried more weight than the coffee itself.

Brandon’s food arrived. He ate without hurry, though he wasn’t really hungry. His gaze drifted, inevitably, back to the man at the counter. Their eyes met for a moment. The man raised his mug in a kind of salute. Brandon hesitated, then lifted his own cup in return.

A minute later, the man slid off his stool, hat in hand, and crossed the room.

“Mind if I join you?” His voice was rough but steady, like gravel rolling in a stream.

Brandon gestured to the seat across from him. “Sure.”

The man lowered himself into the booth. He set the hat on the table and studied Brandon with a look that was neither invasive nor casual—it was the kind of look that said he’d been watching people for a long time and usually knew what he was seeing.

“It’s not that bad,” the man said.

“Oh, no?” Brandon said with a laugh, knowing he never had a great poker face.

The man nodded as if that was exactly what he expected. “Name’s Ray.”

“Brandon.”

Ray wrapped his hands around his mug again. His nails were rough, his skin weathered. “You just looked like somebody trying to think his way clear of something.”

Brandon let out a dry laugh. “That obvious?”

“Most people who land in Twin Rocks at dusk, eating a burger alone, are either hiding from someone or hiding from themselves. I figure you for the second.”

Brandon leaned back in the booth, considering whether to say more. He hadn’t told anyone—not really. But something about Ray, the way he spoke without judgment, loosened him.

“I started a company,” Brandon said finally. “Thought it was gonna be big. Thought I was gonna be big. Instead, it collapsed. Investors lost money. People lost jobs. My name’s kind of mud now. Feels like I’m wearing failure like a coat I can’t take off.”

Ray didn’t blink. “What kind of company?”

“An app. Job matching for freelancers. We thought we were reinventing the wheel. Turns out, people just wanted the wheel that already existed.”

Ray chuckled softly. “World’s full of wheels no one needed.”

Brandon smiled despite himself.

Ray went on. “I spent thirty years in the woods, running a small logging outfit. We kept a few crews busy, supplied the mills, made a decent living. Thought I’d pass it on to my boy one day. But when the housing market tanked in ’09, demand dried up overnight. Mills shut down, jobs vanished. I sold off the equipment piece by piece just to stay afloat. My son didn’t want any part of it anyway. Couldn’t blame him. So here I am.”

Brandon tilted his head. “And how’s that feel?”

“Like standing in a clearing after the fire’s gone through,” Ray said. “Everything’s charred, but you can see farther than you ever could before.”

Brandon turned that over in his mind.

Ray sipped his coffee. “You ever been lost in the woods?”

“Not literally.”

“I have. As a kid. Thick forest, no trail. Panic sets in, and the more you thrash around, the more lost you get. Only way out is to stop, breathe, and look. The woods’ll spit you out eventually, if you don’t fight ‘em too hard.”

Brandon stared down at his half-eaten burger. The phrase hit him differently than when he’d said it to himself in the car. Out of the woods. It wasn’t about escape, not really. It was about patience. About letting yourself be lost long enough to find direction again.

Ray tapped a finger against the mug. “You’ll build again. Or you won’t. Either way, you’re still here. Rocks out there don’t care how many storms roll through. They just stand. That’s all we can do.”

They sat in silence for a while, the kind that didn’t demand to be filled.

At last, Ray pushed back from the booth. “I’ll leave you to it. Good luck, Brandon.”

He tipped his hat and returned to his place at the counter, as if nothing had happened.

⸻

Brandon left the café not long after, stepping into the cool night. The town was quiet, the only sound the surf pounding against the rocks. He walked down toward the beach, shoes sinking into the sand.

The twin sea stacks loomed dark against the moonlit water. The waves crashed endlessly, white spray leaping high, but the rocks didn’t move. He stood there a long time, the wind in his face, listening.

For weeks, his thoughts had been a tangle of failure and regret, every step forward snagging on what he’d lost. But now, with the tide surging and retreating and surging again, he felt something shift. He wasn’t healed, wasn’t whole, but he felt—lighter. Not out of the woods. But maybe ready to stop thrashing.

At dawn, he started the car and pulled back onto the highway. The road stretched ahead, curving south along the coast. He didn’t know where it would take him. For the first time, that felt like enough.