She had been to the lake before. A number of years ago her boyfriend at the time brought her for a romantic getaway. The man’s efforts at romance had been absurd—candlelight picnics, guitar serenades (though he did not know how to play guitar, or sing particularly well, for that matter), a long time spent staring together at the stars each night. She had wanted none of it, and once they’d returned to Spokane Falls she ended the relationship. In hindsight, he was a nice enough fellow, but at the time, she was only looking for a drinking partner—someone to pick up the tab and keep other men from bothering her. He’d done these things admirably. But the candles and bad guitar and stargazing were too much, and even years later when she thought back on the trip, she cringed a little. The lake, though, she recalled fondly. Blue to match the sky with pined hills on all sides. The lake was long, and from the town, she could not see the other side. She liked the possibilities in that. How far did it go? The hills, similarly, seemed endless. You could walk through those piney woods all day without encountering another person, just deer and chipmunks, the sharp smell of bears nearby but always unseen.
It was just as she remembered. Though time had tumbled forward for her, the lake and the poky little town at its shore seemed not to have changed at all. So then, the only difference was her. And the fact that this time she was, mercifully, alone.