Episode 3:TheScar
779 Words
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[CLIFFORD’S POV]
I heard the gunshot.
I didn’t fire it. My father did.
But I let Eve run. Because if I held her, they’d kill her.
Vancouver rain washed the blood off my hands. It wasn’t mine.
It was my father’s men. They thought they buried me in that alley.
They were wrong.
I survived. Because she told me to live.
“Remember me. Even if I can’t be with you.”
I will.
Locker 217 was empty when I got there. She took the passport. Good.
But she left the note.
She forgot it. Or she couldn’t bear to keep it.
I picked it up. My handwriting. My blood on the paper.
Find the scar on your wrist.
I smiled. She will.
3 months.
I tore through Canada. Toronto. Montreal. Calgary.
No Eve. No trail. Just ghosts.
The Moretti name was banned from Canada. My father saw to that.
So I went off the grid. No money. No family. Just me.
And the memory of her mouth.
I found her in Halifax.
She was working in a bookstore. Hair different. Eyes the same.
She didn’t see me.
I saw her wrist.
The scar.
She was rubbing it. Like it hurt.
I didn’t approach her. Not yet.
I watched. For 2 weeks.
She flinched at loud noises. She checked the locks twice. She dreamed.
I knew, because I heard her through the thin wall of her apartment.
“Clifford…” she said one night.
My name. From her lips. Even without memory.
That was enough.
I got a job. Barista. Across the street.
She came in every morning. Black coffee. No sugar.
“Have we met?” she asked on day 5.
“No,” I lied. “You look familiar.”
Her breath caught. “Yeah. You too.”
It happened during a storm.
Power outage. Halifax froze.
She came into the café. Soaked. Shaking.
“We’re closed,” I said.
“I have nowhere to go,” she whispered.
I locked the door.
I gave her my coat. My shirt. I lit candles.
“You’re cold,” I said.
“So are you,” she said, and touched my chest.
Her fingers on my skin. The same fingers that stitched me in Palermo.
My body remembered before my mind could stop it.
I backed her against the counter.
“Eve,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
“Don’t,” she said. But she didn’t move away.
I kissed her neck. Slow. Like I was asking permission.
She gasped. “Why does this feel familiar?”
“Because you’ve been here before,” I whispered against her skin.
My hands were on her waist. Her hands were in my hair.
We didn’t go further. Not fully.
But when she moaned my name, broken, confused…
I knew she remembered something.
“Clifford,” she said after. Crying. “Why do I know you?”
“Because you saved me,” I said. “And I never let you go.”
My father found me.
Of course he did.
He walked into the café at dawn. Two men behind him.
“She’s remembering,” he said. “That’s dangerous.”
“She’s mine,” I said.
“You lost that right when you let her run,” he said. He pulled a gun.
Eve came out from the back room. She saw the gun.
And she remembered.
Not everything. But enough.
The alley. The blood. The rain. His eyes.
“Clifford,” she said.
He shot.
I moved.
The bullet hit my shoulder instead of her.
I fell. She screamed.
“Run,” I said again.
“No,” she said. She knelt. Hands on my wound. The same hands.
“I remember you,” she cried. “I remember.”
My father aimed at her.
I laughed. Blood in my mouth. “You’ll have to kill me first.”
He hesitated.
That was enough.
The police came. My father ran.
Hospital. Halifax.
Eve held my hand.
“I remember Palermo,” she whispered. “I remember you.”
“Good,” I said. Pain made me honest. “Because I’m not letting you go again.”
“My father will come back,” she said.
“Let him,” I said. “The Moretti heir is dead. Clifford is gone.”
She frowned. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we run,” I said. “Together. For good.”
I pulled her down. Kissed her. Hard. No more secrets.
She kissed me back. All of her. All of the memory.
Outside the window, a black car was watching.
My father’s car.
[END CHAPTER 3]
- Writer
