chapter 2

The hospital room was pitch black except for the glow coming from Vincent's chest.

His phone had been going off constantly for days, and he'd just laugh it off and say it was some pushy insurance salesperson. Eventually, he just put it on silent.

I used his fingertip to unlock his phone and opened his cloud storage. I clicked on the hidden album and typed in Serena's birthday as the password.

Thousands of photos loaded on the screen.

They spanned nearly ten years. In the earliest ones, Vincent still had that fresh college-boy look, and there was a girl with long flowing hair leaning against his shoulder.

Just like I'd suspected, she looked about 80 percent like me, especially the small mole by her left eye.

Every year on March 18th, Vincent would come up with some excuse to buy me a gift. Now I knew why. It was Serena's birthday.

I'd accidentally injured the corner of my eye once, and Vincent had gone completely ballistic and sued the entire restaurant staff.

I thought he was being protective of me, but no—he was protecting Serena's face. My face was just a stand-in for hers.

I didn't even hear Serena's name until she came back to the country last month.

Right in the middle of all those photos, I found a scanned copy of a handwritten letter.

It was a goodbye letter Serena had written to Vincent five years ago.

She said her parents were forcing her to marry someone overseas, and she begged Vincent to forget about her.

Not long after that, Vincent met me.

Everything had been so carefully planned out.

By the time I finished scrolling through all those thousands of photos, the sun was starting to come up.

There were 200 missed calls on his phone, all saved under "Insurance Sales," and he'd deleted every single message.

I suddenly realized my face was completely soaked with tears.

I put his phone back his pocket exactly how I'd found it. Then I got up and went to the bathroom to wash my face.

Steam filled the room as I turned on the hot water. I carefully unwrapped the layers of gauze and looked at myself in the mirror. The scar by my eye was ugly and twisted.

I didn't know when Vincent woke up, but suddenly, I felt his arms slide around my waist from behind.

"Don't look," he said, covering my eyes. His voice was still rough with sleep. "You love beautiful things. If you see it, you won't be able to handle it."

He was right about that. I did love beautiful things. I always had.

As a painter, I'd always had a keener eye for beauty than most people, and Vincent knew that better than anyone. But he'd destroyed my face anyway.

"My face..." I started to reach up, but Vincent grabbed my hand and held it tight.

"It's okay. I'll tattoo a tulip right here to cover it. You love tulips, don't you?"

I froze, and tears started rolling down my cheeks.

So Vincent had remembered all along that I loved tulips. But for five years, he'd kept bringing me stargazer lilies instead, just because those were Serena's favorite flowers.

Dawn was just breaking when Vincent came rushing back from the studio. There was frost in his hair from the cold morning air.

He pulled out his complete set of tattoo equipment and said he was going to tattoo a tulip over the scar to hide it. The doctor told him to wait at least two more days until my wound had scabbed over properly, but Vincent wouldn't listen.

The second the needle pierced my skin, sharp pain exploded across my face and my toes curled up.

"It'll be over soon. Don't be scared," Vincent murmured.

This wasn't my first tattoo.

Back before Vincent got famous, he'd tattooed an enormous fireworks scene across my back.

It was designed to overlap with the tattoo on his own back, and when you put them together, they created this gorgeous cityscape lit up at night.

Back then, I hadn't felt any pain at all. I'd just been so happy and so in love.

I'd even given up my own painting career to squeeze into his cramped little studio and draw designs for him, fix his stencils, and be his tattoo model.

I got tattoos and had them removed, then got new ones over and over again, until finally he made it big.

He'd promised me that after the wedding, he'd help me put on a new art exhibition. But now I didn't need it anymore. I didn't need anything.

Vincent's hands moved quickly, and the tulip petals were already starting to take shape.

He was completely focused on his work, and his phone lit up in his pocket a few times but he didn't stop to check it.

Then his assistant Lily came running into the room and leaned in close to whisper something in his ear.

Vincent's hand jerked violently. The needle dragged straight down from the corner of my eye and tore a huge gash across my left cheek.

I screamed.

But Vincent wasn't even looking at me. His eyes were locked on Lily.

"Are you serious?" he demanded.

Lily nodded and said, "Mr. Laurent, you need to get over there now, or someone's actually gonna die..."

I pressed my hands against my face, and blood kept dripping through my fingers. Before I could even say anything, Vincent was already gone and the hospital room door was swinging shut behind him.

By the time I made it out into the hallway, the elevator doors had already closed.

I sent Vincent a message asking what was going on, and his reply was short and simple.

"A client's having an allergic reaction. I need to deal with it."

But then I saw his face on the news.

There'd been a fire at the Garden Villa complex on the south side of town. The fire wasn't that big and the firefighters put it out pretty quickly, but the woman trapped inside Building 23 had already passed out from smoke inhalation.

In the crowd of people standing around, I could see Vincent holding a woman wrapped in his jacket. His face was covered in soot and ash, and he looked completely terrified.

He didn't come back to the hospital until after midnight, and when he finally showed up, he looked exhausted.

I could feel how distant he was being with me.

But when I opened my eyes, I saw nothing but guilt and concern staring back at me.

"Avery."

His fingertips traced over the scar on my face, and his hand was shaking a little.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you like this... That client is really important to me, and if I hadn't handled it properly, I would've regretted it for the rest of my life..."

"Yeah, I get it."

I looked down and felt my chest go cold. "Besides, my face is already ruined. No amount of fixing is gonna change that now."

"No, that's not true. As long as I make the design bigger, I can cover up your scar..."

"Vincent, can this scar really not be fixed?"

I looked up suddenly and stared right at him.

Panic flashed across his face for just a second, but then he calmed down again. "If it could be fixed, I'd pay whatever it cost. I don't care about the money. Avery, you can't think I haven't tried everything I possibly could..."

I smiled a little and didn't push it any further.

The answer was already pretty obvious.

"I want to get plastic surgery."

"What?" Vincent froze.

"I've been thinking about it, and instead of torturing myself over and over again, I'd rather just get a new face and start fresh."

"As long as I can stay with you, I don't care what I look like. I just need to know you'll be okay with it."

"I'm okay with it. I'm totally okay with it."

Vincent started crying tears of joy and pulled me tight against his chest. I could feel his tears hitting my shoulder, and they felt cold against my skin.

"I was so scared you wouldn't be able to let go of your old face. As long as I'm still me, it doesn't matter what face I have. I don't care about any of that. I just want you to stay by my side for the rest of our lives and be healthy..."

His voice was shaking because he was so emotional.

From today on, Serena would stay frozen in his memories, and Avery would get to be brand new.

A perfect solution for everyone.

"Then go ahead and set it up for me. The sooner the better."

Vincent didn't want to waste any time, so he pulled out his phone right away and scheduled the surgery with the cosmetic team for the day after tomorrow.

I watched him rush around looking so excited about everything, and I couldn't help but laugh bitterly to myself.

If I wasn't good enough to keep this face, then he sure as hell didn't deserve my love anymore either.

After the surgery, I'd be a completely new Avery.