The town, for intents and purposes, seemed deserted.

A giant banner still hung over the intersection at the center of Main Street, bright red letters loudly proclaiming "LAKE GUIREC LABOR DAY CELEBRATION!" and in smaller letters beneath: "COME BACK SOON!"

Erik prowled through the seemingly deserted streets of the lakeside vacation town, silently marveling over the difference 48 hours seemed to make.

Pulling briskly from the shadow of the buildings, he cut a hasty path across Main Street, leaping over the gutter where red, white, & blue streamers lie abandoned from the close-of-season parade a few mornings earlier. The detour he took was, by now, a familiar one, down the alley between an old fashioned barber shop and a souvenir shop selling Lake Guirec bric-a-brac. The bored teenager leaning behind the counter of the empty store never looked up from her cell phone to see the tall, lanky figure move past the front window.

From the alley he could cut across a parking lot, a lot that had been jammed with vehicles all summer, but now stood empty save for the ancient oldsmobile belonging to the old barber. Following the sidewalk down a steep hill, he bypassed the narrow streets that branched off from the slope.

Much like the parking lot, the rows of houses had shown vibrant signs of life until the last day or so. Colorful beach towels draped over balcony railings on every home, bicycles had littered the yards, and the non-stop cacophony of children on vacation had reverberated through the narrow streets.

While he hadn't relished the crowds or the noise, the large groups of people had made it fairly easy to move around practically unseen. He felt oddly exposed in these newly-empty streets, and made more of an effort to lighten his step to prevent the echo of his heels on the pavement.

The sky was a dusty violet as dusk settled around the lake, yet Erik continued his trek downward, as the sidewalk abruptly ended into a loose dirt path. Stepping over the low gate with its PRIVATE BEACH sign, as he had countless time already, he moved soundlessly into the shadow of the pines that had been densely planted in several straight rows. The trees separated the larger lake-front homes, with their private expanses of sand, from their less luxurious neighbors in the streets above. Erik had initially sneered at the audacity of the people who had sought to make the lake their private, upper-class domain, but found that the trees had provided a useful cover for his daily vigils.

Once he'd reached his destination—the sixth massive house from the corner, he let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Darkness was all that greeted him from the countless windows of the three-story edifice.

She was already gone then. Gone. Away from the lake, and away from him. Again.

He moved back a few rows of trees, coming to one with a large, thick base he had discovered was very easy to climb. From a higher vantage point, he was able to see the pool, water shimmering in the growing twilight.

He had spied her here, only a few days earlier, laying on a pool floatie in a blinding white bikini. Her mountain of blonde curls had been pulled up in a topknot, and looked platinum in the bright sunlight, wisping around her face. She had browned from the two weeks in the sun, and the contrast of her newly tanned skin against the white of her revealing swimsuit had left Erik reeling, dizzy from a sudden loss of blood from his head.

He couldn't help but notice how carfree she looked, how thoroughly untroubled, laughing with her little friend from the dance department as they drifted around the pool, the sun high overhead. Erik had watched her, panting, until both girls had gone into the house. His back had been slick with sweat and his head heavy with desire and despair as he left his hidden spot that afternoon.

He was able to confirm now, from his high perch in the branches, that the house was deserted.

Two lots down from the Chagny's beach house sat the lakefront property of a wealthy family that had hit on hard times, the second spot he had made use of in the past two weeks, and it was here he next headed, after shimmying down the tree,

During his first few hours in town, Erik had focused on doing a bit of reconnaissance work, discovering he could sit in a private booth at the back of a tiny diner off Main Street, and eavesdrop on the conversations of the townies and tourists. He didn't care how ridiculous he looked in his oversized sunglasses and floppy hat—they had done an adequate job obscuring most of his face, concealed by a flesh-toned mask, and he had been able to shovel down a plate of eggs and listen as the waitress and the woman who ran the minigolf place gossiped about how the Poligny house was in foreclosure, and what a shame it was that the house was sitting empty for the summer.

Discovering that the house, with its laughably easy to scale decks, was relatively close to where Christine was vacationing with her childhood friends had been another stroke of great fortune.

A cluster of large potted plants to obscure his presence on the deck, and one pair of binoculars later, and Erik had been able to watch Christine jump, squealing, from a tethered pontoon into the freezing lake water.

The swimsuit that day had been a strapless kelly green one piece, the knotted front creating a sweetheart neckline that framed her golden cleavage, making his mouth run dry. He had watched his angel laughing, bobbing in the lake water, cheering on her companions. The lake had glittered with the bright afternoon sun, but nothing had been as blindingly beautiful as her smile, and he had felt his own gruesome mouth stretch into a rictus grin as he watched her.

When he followed her gaze back up to the pontoon to see who she was calling for, the smile had died on his face. The young man was a bronzed god; his compact, muscular build glistened with lake water, his golden hair gleaming.

Erik had mentally compared his own elongated frame—towering height with a lanky build, he was all sharp angles and jutting knees and elbows; lank dark hair and pasty white complexion—with this sun god, and determined that, even taking his ruined face out of the equation, he certainly came up lacking.

The bronzed interloper dove into the water, splashing his angel as she squealed. When the young man had re-emerged under Christine, forcing her up onto his shoulders, Erik had hunched over in pain. Christine had been screaming out half hearted protestations as another man in the water took up the same position with Christine's friend Meg, the little dark haired dancer.

Erik watched in agony as his angel had reached out to catch the beach ball being thrown to her, her soft thighs—his thighs!—wrapped around the neck of the blonde adonis. Once upon a time ago, those same thighs had been regularly wrapped around his head, as she writhed in pleasure above him while he worked her molten core with his tongue, and comparing the memory of what he'd once had with the scene in front of him had churned his stomach.

He couldn't bear another minute of watching this man's hands wrapped around his angel's calves, silky smooth calves that had pressed against his own bony backside as he moved above her...hauling unsteadily to his feet, he had descended from the deck, heedless of discovery, and lost his breakfast in the bushes on the side of the house. He'd staggered around the building, back to the treeline, and vowed he wouldn't return. He'd drive back to campus that same night, back to the empty apartment, and would cease that particular form of self-torture.

Surveying the dark water now, his lip curled in distaste at the boat on its lift, remembering the scene he had witnessed there.

Of course he had come back, had come back every day, unable to stay away from where he knew she was. He had watched her countless times from the deck of the vacant house: had mentally catalogued every swimsuit she had packed, had watched her swimming in the lake, laying out on the narrow stretch of sand with Meg, having cookouts on the deck with her childhood friends.

The two young men were identical in their cocky smiles and strutting arrogance, although the older one seemed a bit harder around the mouth, more reserved than his obnoxious popinjay of a younger brother.

It was the younger one, Raoul, who was the main object of Erik's irrational hatred.

He had the self-assuredness and easy confidence of someone with their entire charmed existence stretched out before them, and reminded Erik of every childhood schoolmate who'd made his existence a misery. The boy was handsome and boisterous and absolutely everything that Erik was not.

He was also entirely too familiar with Christine. Erik had heard him squawking "C'mon, Chrissy!" more times than he had cared to, watched him pull her into bear hugs and casually place a hand on her hip as though he had the right, like he belonged there at her side.

Once Erik had spied him pull Christine into a half hug and keep her pressed there, a large hand spread over her hip as he animatedly told a laughing Meg a story. Erik had desperately wanted to remove the offending arm from Christine's body, preferably by way of ripping it out of its owner's socket and throwing it in the lake, or possibly shoving it directly up the young man's perfectly toned and not-at-all bony ass.

Alone in his motel room that night, Erik had googled exactly what kind of crime dismemberment was, and how long of a sentence he'd be looking at. He suspected that he'd do quite well on the inside, as a brief stint in juvie had shown him that weaker boys could be compelled to do his bidding, and the ones who were bold enough to challenge him were quick to learn he was deceptively strong and fast for a corpse.

The only thing that stopped him from enacting his fantasy on Raoul was the thought of Christine being upset by the inevitable blood. She'd probably be less likely to take him back if he maimed her childhood playmate, and so Erik had remained on the deck, clenching his hands and trying not to burst a blood vessel in his eye.

Occasionally, he'd been lucky enough to spot her alone. Sitting by the pool in the early evenings in her cutoffs and a hoodie emblazoned with the University's logo, writing in her journal and chewing her pen adorably, he would hold his breath, the darkening sky seeming to press him into the deck, paralyzed at the thought of living without her. She'd eventually pull herself up to the repeated squawk of "C'mon, Chrissy!" coming from inside the house, leaving Erik's line of sight.

A few times he'd watched her sitting in the sand alone at sundown, her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms wrapped around her legs as she stared out across the water. Those nights he had wanted to climb down and go to her, to pull her against him and kiss the pensive look off her lovely face, to beg her to never leave his side again...but he knew his kiss would not be welcome, that he was the last person she'd want to see.

And now she was gone, having slipped out of his life again.

Erik swiftly climbed down from the abandoned deck and returned to the dark cover the trees provided. He contemplated his impetuousness and the usefulness of the house as he moved, wondering if it would indeed prove to be a good investment for future summers. Surely she'd return again to stay with the Popinjay and his brother, and although she'd be out of his life, Erik could still watch her and pretend.

By the time he cleared the artificial pine forest and made his way back up the hill towards town, night had fully enveloped the lake. He moved down the dark and empty streets, neatly avoiding the light spilling out of the open doorway of a dive bar, jukebox music and bawdy laughter spilling out. It was the only sign of life in the otherwise quiet section of town, and for the briefest of moments he hesitated. A stiff drink would be much appreciated, and he occasionally frequented these types of establishments at home after all...but that was when he'd had a blonde angel on his arm, when the stares a masked man inevitably attracted seemed less important because she was there with him.

Instead, he hurriedly moved on, keeping to the shadows the buildings provided. As he passed the little cafe where he had watched her one morning, Erik slowed, thinking of her odd behavior that morning.

His Christine was a creature of habit, and was a perennially early riser. It had been no surprise when he'd noticed that she tended to rise before her companions, preferring to walk from the beach up to town to browse the little shops before the sun was too high in the sky. Anticipating her routine after only a day or two, Erik made sure to station himself at one of the diner's sidewalk tables every morning, concealed under his floppy hat and sunglasses, with a newspaper spread out in front of him as she passed, oblivious to his presence.

Fortune smiled at him at the end of the first week, when Christine had taken a seat under an awning outside the little cafe, only a few yards from where he hid behind his paper. She normally bounced along the sidewalk with a bright smile for anyone who passed, but he had noticed as soon as she came into view at the top of the hill that her walk seemed a bit slower, her smile a bit wane. After a server had taken her order, she'd pulled a piece of paper from the journal she had carried and the pen she had stuffed in the pocket of her sundress. Erik watched as she stared pensively at the paper, nervously chewing on the pen cap, before she bent and began to write.

He couldn't help the indulgent smile that tugged at his lips when a glass of pink lemonade accompanied the fruit plate that was delivered to her table. She'd paused to thank the server, continuing to write as she picked at a strawberry. Eventually, she'd pushed away the plate of food and brushed furiously at her eyes, using her paper napkin to wipe at them. His heart had clenched when he realized she was crying, and it took every ounce of self control he possessed to not dash to her side and cradle her in his arms.

He had seen her cry before, of course, countless times. Erik had gotten into the habit of checking the DoesTheDogDie website before they went to any movie, and always made sure to be armed with tissues if the website answered in the affirmative. Once, she had sat in his arms and cried while telling him a story about her father, gone only two years at that point.

He had quickly tried to tell her she didn't need to continue if it was too painful, but she had pushed on, explaining that she wanted to share things about her father with Erik, that she had loved her dad and loved him, and knew her father would have loved him as well. He had gently stroked her hair and rubbed her back soothingly as she continued her story, cuddled against him on the sofa and her tears had mirrored the rain that beat a steady tattoo on the apartment window.

Her tears that morning at the little cafe seemed different, frustrated. He'd watched as she'd pushed the paper aside and pulled her plate back, viciously stabbing a slice of cantaloupe. She continued to take her apparent anger out on her fruit for several minutes longer, before she shuddered out a steadying breath. Folding the paper in thirds, she'd produced a stamped envelope from her pocket.

Leaving cash on the table for her breakfast, Christine had made her way to a mailbox on the corner. Erik watched as she stuffed the paper into the envelope, and hesitating in front of the box, pressed a cotton candy-lipglossed kiss to the front of it, before dropping the envelope into the letter slot.

Now, as he hesitated outside the dark cafe in the twilight, he realized he'd probably never know what had made so upset that morning. By the time he had taken his place on the deck that afternoon, she was all smiles again, her melancholy passed. He would never know who had made her cry, never again be the one to comfort her and stroke her hair.

Choking back his agony, Erik swiftly made his way back to his car, parked on the far edge of an outlet mall parking lot. Navigating his way back to the dingy, out of the way motel where he'd been staying, suddenly overwhelmed by fatigue. Making the drive home tonight would be impossible, not with visions of her plaguing his mind.

Christine had been the best thing that had ever happened to him, nay, the only good thing to happen in his entire, miserable existence. To call her the best implied there was something else good in which he could compare her, and she was it.

Christine was his everything, and without her he had nothing.

He couldn't fathom how he was going to live without her sweet smelling hair tickling his bare face in the morning as she slept, pressed to his side; without her lingerie draped over the shower rod, mortifying him every time he'd go into the bathroom to relieve himself only to be caught face-to-face with a scrap of lavender lace dangling inches away from his head; without her crystal voice, soaring over notes that he wrote for her, only for her.

Tomorrow he would leave this place, this dreamy state of suspended reality, with her right there yet still so far from him. He'd go home, not that anywhere could ever be considered home again, not without her there.