When I finally found him, he was standing at the end of the pier, looking out over the water, smoking.  The picture of casual indifference.  So very Brian.

By that time, my hair had grown out, touching my collar.  The wind stirred it gently, and I could almost close my eyes and imagine it was his fingers playing in the strands.  I shivered a little as the cold air whipped through my thin jacket.  I knew Brian didn’t feel the cold.  Not anymore.

It had been six months since I’d seen him last.  In that time, I’d been a waiter, a short-order cook, a dog trainer, a carpenter.  I’d broken my left thumb.  I’d wandered through dozens of towns in dozens of states, always searching.  I’d come close to giving up hope.  I’d learned Spanish and I’d become an expert on a subject that most people believed was fantastical and ridiculous.

I carry holy water and wafers.  I wear a cross.  There are two cloves of garlic stuffed in my pocket.

I don’t know if they will do much good.

The smoke forms a halo over his head, joining with the lights on the pier to bathe him in an otherworldly beauty.  And though he doesn’t move, doesn’t look at me, stands with that eerie stillness, I know that he knows I’m there.  And it has nothing to do with enhanced abilities.  He knows that I’m there in the same way that I know when he’s near.  We are attuned to each other in a way that is simply unexplainable.

He glances over his shoulder then.  One eyebrow raised.  Takes a drag of his cigarette before tossing the butt into the water.  

“Took you long enough,” he says, his voice carrying to me easily despite the distance that separates us.

And I have backed away before I realize it, the cool wood plank firm against my back.  They may have called me Sunshine, but it is Brian that glows now.

I know that I don’t look away, but suddenly he is standing directly in front of me.  Invading my space.  His cool gaze travels the length of my body.   His smirk is still in place, lips so red, skin now so pale.  He finally meet my eyes.  

“Where you headed?” he says.

I lick my lips, swallow past the lump in my throat.  It’s not so different from the first time. “No place special,” I reply.

His lips turn up in a cocky smile, and I try not to look at his teeth.

“I can change that,” he says.

He turns and slowly walks away.  And I know that I will follow him.  

One last time.