She stumbled to a halt, her breath catching in her throat when she saw him.
He was sitting at a table right by the railing, overlooking the beach on the other side of the pier. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, the dusting of gray in his low-cut hair not quite as reflected in the five o'clock shadow around his jaw. He was laughing at something his much younger female companion - clad in only a bikini and a tiny wrap - was saying.
She had not seen him in over a decade, except in newspapers and on news sites, both foreign and domestic. There had been many episodes, stretches of time since their parting when she had looked for him, deliberately typed in his name and submitted to a search engine. It was never more than a half-second before the results - many results, often with pictures - would turn up, the sight of his face causing a surge of emotions that she knew was unhealthy to keep seeking.
But like a moth to a flame, she would seek him out again, knowing she was hurting herself but unable to stop until, at some point, her masochism would be sated. It happened every few months, at least twice every year since he walked away from her.
Her last search for him had been just over ten months before, and it hadn't been from an inner compulsion but from what she had seen in the news that morning on her way to work. She had typed his name in, and, for the first time, she had been strong enough to stop herself from falling into her obsessive pattern.
It would have been too macabre ... too cruel.
She had been proud of herself then. For being strong. For not punishing herself any further. She even thought, in the weeks following, that she was finally moving on, getting better.
But seeing him now, in the flesh, far away from home, looking so different and yet so familiar, she felt the same riot of emotions arise, as strong and as merciless as ever.
Sadness. Pain. Guilt. Regret. Shame ... Desire.
She wanted him. Now. Still. Back in her life. His arms around her, his lips on hers, his body joined with her, inside her. She dreamed of it. Fantasized about it. Even after so many years. Even at her age. Even though ...
"There you are ..." her best friend said, stepping out onto the balcony behind her, and then she stopped as well, her voice faltering as she saw him too. "Oh ...!"
She turned away before he could look away from the caramel skinned woman sitting across from him and see her staring at him; the man who had effortlessly broken her marriages to other men, the man she could not forget, the man she could not bring herself to ...
"Let's get away from here ..." her friend whispered quietly, grasping her hand, also turning away so she would not be recognized.
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, allowing her best friend - still her best friend, despite it all - to lead her away.
_________________________________
NINETEEN YEARS EARLIER
"The next station is Camberley, where this train terminates." The automated voice announced.
Anderson John - AJ - Smith continued to stare outside the window, eyes on but not quite seeing the empty farmlands and occasional houses dotting the landscape. The highway ran beside the tracks, but it was on the other side now after the train went over a bridge a while ago.
AJ had taken this train before. It was one of several that ran from the suburban station nearest his home into the city. But when he had entered this time, going the other way, he had not stopped at that station, like large numbers of other riders had done, like he had done so many times before.
He knew a few of the alighting passengers, and was facially familiar to several after so long a history of commuting together, and he had nodded greetings and ignored the curious and confused looks on some of the more observant folks' faces when he did not get off the train with them.
That station was now more than an hour and several stops, more than a dozen, behind him. It was no longer his stop. It would never be his stop again.
The train was virtually empty now as it noticeably began to slow, approaching its terminus. He shifted in his seat, looking out properly and seeing the small, quaint town coming into view; he had never gone this far before.
All he knew about Camberley was that there was a university there, but he couldn't remember its name.
He still had his wallet. But no phone and no laptop. No keys; either to his car, or his home.
He closed his eyes, angrily willing the tears back, the weight in his chest nearly overwhelming him then as he realized it again; he didn't have a home anymore. And since he had no intention of going back, he supposed he didn't have a car anymore, either.
"The train is now arriving at Camberley. This train will terminate here." It was a male voice this time. "Please ensure that you take all your belongings with you when you leave the train."
AJ had no other belongings except the clothes on his back and the dress shoes on his feet. Three or four hours earlier, he would have looked at his watch instead of the screens on the platform for the time, but he had dropped it in the trash in the railcar's little toilet almost as soon as he had boarded.
He stepped out of the station, the cold wind buffeting him and making him shiver. He sniffed, and again willed the tears back.
That was when he saw the signboard for the Camberley Mills shopping center and the numerous stores it hosted. One of the signs was a Bacchus' Cellar.
It was a huge board, he saw, sniffing again, which meant it was some distance away. He stuck his hands in his pockets, and began to walk.
_________________________________
Two hours later he was trudging along the road just over a mile away from the shopping center; his environmentally friendly cloth bag with only four of the cheapest and most potent bottles of vodka in his hand; the shop attendant had looked at his eyes and simply refused to sell him any more.
"Whatever you're trying to get away from, man," the bearded man said, "that ain't the way."
"I didn't ask for your opinion," AJ had snarled. He had already paid for the four bottles, helpfully placed in a handy cardboard mini-crate. But then he had picked up another two on the way out and returned to the till to add them to his purchases.
But the man shook his head and pointed to the 'We Reserve The Right to Refuse Service' sign behind him.
"You'll have to make do with what you already got," the man said. "I'm not gonna have you on my conscience."
"I'm not driving."
"I don't care."
AJ left the two new bottles on the counter and left.
He saw it on the other side of the road from the shopping center, a shingle sign that said 'Bed & Breakfast' at the bottom. The writing above was too cursive for AJ to discern from across the road.
But he could clearly see the green 'Vacancies' plate slotted in beneath the writing, and so he walked across the road and walked up the graveled driveway.
'Milly & Milton's', he saw as he passed the sign, the two 'Ms' whorled and crossed together.
It had started to drizzle a few minutes before and he was cold, and much as he had thought about them since that afternoon, and how he wished he were in them, he was very certain that he didn't want to spend his last hours wet and shivering, outside in the rain.
He was sniffling long before he pushed open the doors to the dignified three storey Georgian building at the end of the gravel driveway, jangling the small entry bell as he entered the small reception, and walked up to the wooden counter.
It was a slim middle-aged woman that came out of the swinging door. She squinted at him as she absently wiped a pair of glasses.
"Yes?" Her eyes were blinking in the tell-tale pattern of one just rudely woken from sleep. "I mean," she said, as she finally wore the glasses, "good after ... good evening. How may I help you?"
"I want a room," AJ said. "There was a vacancy sign outside," he added, after she blinked at him again.
"Oh ... damn," the woman said, flustered. "We really need to take that down."
