Silverlighters by Ellem May

back again.
    I was only about two or three the first time I remembered seeing him clearly. There had been other times, but they were fuzzier. Like when he’d smiled down at me in my crib. Or the time when I was at the park with my mother, my excited voice driving him away when I called out to him to come play.
    The time he found me crying at the store was so clear it could have been yesterday.
    I was lost and scared, and then suddenly he was beside me, his big, warm hand curling around my smaller one.
    “It’s you,” I said, my tears evaporating as we walked through the store.
    Nodding his head, he crouched down beside me, and pointed.
    My mother looked so scared as she hurried through the store. As though she’d thought I was gone forever.
    “Mommy, you got lost,” I shouted.
    She let out a happy gasp, and ran toward me, pulling me into her arms. The smell of her shampoo enveloped me.
    By then I knew not to mention him. Instead, I stared over her shoulder until I could no longer see him.
    I was fascinated with the man who had moons for eyes.
    There had been so many times, and over the years he never changed. It was as though he lived outside of time.
    I think I always loved him. But somewhere along the way, as I grew older, my love matured into something more.
    I realized he would always be there when I needed him. So I started putting myself in danger, knowing he would come.
    When I was eight, I jumped out of a tree. I wasn’t high enough to do any damage. But he came.
    He caught me in his arms and set me down. Then he left again.
    When I was nine, I jumped off the roof of my classroom. I wasn’t especially imaginative at that age.
    That was the first time I worried he wouldn’t come, as I felt myself plummet through the air toward the pavement below.
    He did come, though, catching me at the last moment. I think he meant to give me a scare. And it worked. I didn’t try again for a long time.
    The night my mother died I was reckless. He found me on the roof of our apartment building, my skinny legs dangling over the ledge as I peered down, wondering what death felt like.
    I was still wearing the purple dress, and had bunched it up between my thighs.
    When I felt my forehead prickle, I stared at the movement of my knobbly knees, afraid to move. I didn’t want to scare him away.
    When I turned my head he was sitting beside me, his long jean-clad legs dangling in time with mine.
    I glared at him. “Why didn’t you save her?”
    He never did answer me. He just sat with me until he heard my father coming up the stairs.
    I turned instinctively at the sound of my father’s voice. And when I turned back he was gone.
    After that I did everything and anything I could think of to make him come back, getting more and more daring as I graduated from jumping from great heights, to stepping in front of a car when I was fifteen.
    I knew never to question him. Whenever I did, he left. I just wanted to see him again.
    I was fifteen when I first told him I loved him. And the day I turned sixteen, I tried to kiss him. But he grabbed my arms, holding me away from him, a haunted look in his eyes as he shook his head.
    “Why not?” I demanded, feeling completely humiliated. I had saved my first kiss for him, and had been planning it for months. “Don’t you love me back?”
    “I’m not part of your future,” he whispered against my hair, his voice husky.
    That’s where my memories stopped. Completely and abruptly. But his didn’t. They continued.
    He was always watching me. Looking over me.
    My very own guardian angel.
    I felt so safe, then. Like nothing could ever hurt me again.
    His body stiffened, and he started to pull away, but not before I saw that night in the parking lot through his eyes. He was running toward the car, the parking lot bouncing up and down with his movements.
    My pale face stared out the back window in horror.
    The man I called Scar crouched behind the car, his gun raised, ready to leap up and shoot