Breathe

Bucky had wracked his memory for every detail, anything that might hint at how to find her, but the list was painfully short: how she took her coffee, her favorite books and pastries and the way she laughed wouldn’t help him.

Clinical therapist, studied in Saskatoon.

Grew up in a prairie province.

Loves the east coast.

Canadian-    dual citizen or visa?

Sam had tried going through official channels but no evidence of Elle Landry existed before 2007 and no sign of her could be found within a week of her absence.

They’d attempted to file a missing persons report but the request had been first denied and then followed up by a visit from a severe looking RCMP officer.

“Why are you looking for Miss Landry?”

Steve stood, looking and sounding every inch The Captain as he responded. “She’s been missing for a year and no one has heard from her. Why are you here? Brooklyn is way outside of your jurisdiction.”

Bucky saw the officer’s arm twitch with a suppressed urge to salute, but he held it back, and his manner softened.

“The person, known to you as Miss Landry, is a Canadian citizen, and the RCMP are keeping a close eye on anyone that is attempting to track her location.”

He wouldn’t say any more and Sam ushered him out the door with a quiet “thanks.”

Bucky was clenching his fists in frustration but Sam’s excited expression drew Steve’s attention.

Steve crossed his arms. “What? He didn’t tell us anything?”

Sam grinned, “he said more than he needed to. Witness protection. It all makes sense now. No socials, no family ties, she’s in the program, and she burned the identity we’ve been trying to trace.”

Bucky shouldn’t have been shocked; he had seen all the signs. He shouldn’t have been, but he was. He slid down the wall rubbing the back of his neck and shaking his head as though the pieces would all fall into place for him.

Maybe Steve was right, if she really had burned that bridge…

“So, we’ll use other channels.” Steve interrupted the spiral of his thoughts. “Use what we know to calculate possible locals, and then you-”

“I, what? Drive across the continent, town to town looking for her?”

Later that night he’d taken up his old spot on the floor to sleep for the first time in a long time, a dim blue light glowed across his apartment bringing the oil painting on his wall into sharp relief.

The rocky cliffside, seagulls careening through a brilliant blue sky, ocean waves and a pebble beach.

In the lower right corner, a printed signature: El. The E had a wide stroke across the top like a fancy T and the lowercase l closed the curved edges of the E. In cursive next to the signature was the name she’d given the painting: “Skippers Bay”

“What’s ailing you, Love? you’ve got a face on you like a boiled boot.” Sofie asked, sliding into the seat across from Eve with a pair of steaming mugs.

Eve had lived in Skippers Bay for a year, and the locals had stopped making any effort to hold back the particular slang of small-town Newfoundlander long ago. Sofie hadn’t been raised on the coast so her accent and mannerisms weren’t quite as difficult as many others but it still took some work to decipher the meaning in phrases Eve had never heard before.

“Boiled boot?”

“You look right heart-broke, ducky.” Sofie looked at her knowingly, patting her hand comfortingly. “Any man who’s stunned* enough to leave you, isn’t worth your love my dear.”

“He didn’t leave.” A long pause followed Eve’s words, she swallowed painfully several times. “I did, a year ago today.”

“My ears are open, ducky.”

Sofie’s kind smile spurred her on and she talked without interruption for over half an hour, detailing her life in Brooklyn, how she’d met James, how she’d fallen in love, and how she’d run.

“Do you want to know what I think?” Sofie asked when Eve had finished.

“Yeah, sure.”

“I don’t think you really left to protect him. You were afraid that he would break your heart, but don’t you see, Evie, you’ve gone and done it for him, and you never gave him a chance not to.”

The conversation rolled back through her mind as she worked over a canvas that night. Rough black seas and stormy sky roiled around a lone figure like a lighthouse.

Evelyn had been a therapist long enough to know it was true, she’d known it the minute she’d stepped foot onto the plane that would take her away from the only safe harbor she’d known. But she’d tried to reason to herself, tried to believe she wasn’t being irrational, and when that failed, she’d told herself it was too late, that he couldn’t ever trust her again.

Why had she run? Because for the first time she’d felt safe. It had been so easy to trust him. So easy to look past his metal prosthetic and history to see the man who was trying so hard to be the good man she knew he really was.

And the safer she felt, the more terror built up like a wave threatening to tear it all apart. The more she wanted and needed him in her life the more she dreaded the moment when he left. That was the only thing she’d been sure of, that if he fell for her, a day would inevitably come when he would walk away and she would be left with the scattered pieces.

So, she shattered herself before he could. But what if Sofie was right? What if he wouldn’t have left? What if he’d really loved her?

She’d thought she was sparing them both pain, but she hadn’t, had she? No, she had struck the blow.

It didn’t matter, it didn’t matter because it was too late. He’d move on, find someone to love, maybe he already had.

Evelyn wept in the dark in a little cottage on a cliff, ocean waves crashed as sobs tore from her chest.

Tear drops beaded up on the canvas.