It wasn't funny, but he laughed anyway. The smirk on her face told all--it did to him, anyway.

Even if he was leaving town the next day, never to return, and even if she didn't actually care, life was grand and delicious, and some things don't really matter. People come, people go, he reminded himself. Well, she was leaving, and that was all that mattered. Or, rather, he was leaving, but in the end, it was all the same, wasn't it?

He left his home of fifteen years, taking only a few months of memories with him. You have to move on, he reminded himself.

The urban grit of--oh, who was he kidding? There's no urban grit in the suburbs of Sheltonville, just perfect house after perfect house, all lined up in a perfect row in perfectly square blocks. Perfect.

His new neighbors glared at him suspiciously over their (perfectly trimmed) hedges. New neighbors are not to be trusted, especially not his type.

And perhaps they were right. After all, wasn't he carrying something else with him? Something other than those few months of memories? Yes, yes he was. But that was going to remain hidden until the time was right, and at the moment, it was anything but.

So he sealed his lips and waved politely every day, all the while carrying with him a glower of contempt underneath that oh-so-friendly facade. And thus went the seasons and the years.

Then one day, late in the autumn of his fourth year, he received a phone call from someone familiar. Perhaps the time was right.