chapter 5

When Vincent opened his eyes again, he found himself lying in a hospital room. Serena was right there beside him and refused to leave his side.

But when he saw her face leaning in close—that face that looked about eighty percent like mine—his lips started trembling and he couldn't bring himself to look at her.

"I'm fine."

He rubbed his temples. "Just had a really vivid nightmare... wait, where's Avery?"

The second he said my name out loud, all the fragmented memories in his head started piecing themselves back together.

"Avery!"

Vincent shot up from the hospital bed and ignored Serena trying to hold him back, then he sprinted toward the morgue.

But when he got there, freezer number 28 was already empty.

"We sent her to the funeral home hours ago."

The staff member said it casually, like it was no big deal. "You've been unconscious for a while now. If you're looking for her, she's probably already been cremated by now."

By the time Serena caught up to him—still out of breath—Vincent was already in a taxi heading to the funeral home.

When he finally reached the entrance, he ran right into me holding an urn full of ashes.

Or more accurately, he ran into me with my brand new face.

He didn't recognize me at all, but I called out his name first.

"Vincent?"

"Who are you?"

The confusion in his eyes looked real, and his gaze moved from my face down to the ceramic urn in my arms. The moment he saw the name "Avery" engraved on it, his eyes started turning red.

"Avery..."

He reached out like he was in a trance, trying to grab the urn from me.

I slapped him hard across the face and let every bit of rage I'd been holding onto come out in that one strike.

"You think you deserve to touch Avery's ashes?"

Vincent stumbled backward from the slap and stared at me in complete shock.

Rage and grief hit him all at once, and I could see the veins bulging in his neck.

"I'm Avery's fiancé! Her ashes should go to me!"

"After everything you did to hurt her, you've got some nerve asking for her ashes."

I pointed right at his face. "She wouldn't have been disfigured if you hadn't set up that fire. She wouldn't have gotten that blood infection if you weren't so damn selfish. And if she'd never found out the truth, she wouldn't have given up on living!"

"The truth?" Vincent's head snapped up, and panic flooded his eyes.

He looked like a kid who'd just been caught doing something terrible, his whole body shaking while he waited for his punishment.

I pulled out my phone and tossed it at his feet.

Everything was on there—all the journal entries Avery wrote while she was in the hospital recovering from her burns. Plus all the photos I'd downloaded from Vincent's cloud storage.

He picked it up and started scrolling through it. His shoulders started shaking, and by the time he looked up again, his eyes were completely bloodshot.

"How did... how is this possible... I hid everything so carefully. And after the fire happened, I did everything I could to get Avery treatment. I never wanted her to leave. I was going to give her the wedding I promised.

"I just couldn't let go of my memories with Serena. Why couldn't Avery understand that?"

I watched this man in front of me tear at his hair and offer up some half-hearted confession, and all I felt was disgust.

"But she's dead, Vincent. You destroyed her face first. Then you let her get that blood infection. And in the end, she left this world full of hatred for you.

"You told her you'd spend your whole life making up for those five years she stood by you. Did you actually do that?"

My words hit him like a bolt of lightning straight to the skull.

He flinched hard, and tears started welling up in his eyes.

He hadn't forgotten those hardest years buried deep in his memories. He'd just let greed cloud his judgment.

Vincent's parents died when he was young, so he grew up in an orphanage. That was what made him so independent and distant.

He got through college on scholarships, but when he saw how bad the job market was, he decided to open a tattoo studio instead.

He made some decent money at first and immediately reinvested everything, but then he lost it all.

That was when his childhood sweetheart Serena left the country to marry someone else, right when Vincent needed her most. She kept saying her family had forced her into it.

And that was when I walked into his life.

I saw this really unique tattoo on someone at an art gallery and tracked down where they'd gotten it—Vincent's studio. I started going there to get inspiration from his work.

Eventually, we got together.

I wanted to help him get back on his feet, so I gave up my chance to exhibit my art overseas. I was happy to stay cramped up in that tiny studio with him.

During our poorest year, I painted day and night and sold everything I made. I even started copying and forging other artists' work just to make money, and it killed all the creativity I'd once had.

Finally, Vincent got his ticket to the World Tattoo Design Competition, and that one event launched his entire career.

I finally got my proposal from him too.

But dreams were fragile, and mine burned to ashes in those flames.

Vincent stumbled to his feet and started walking toward me slowly, but this time he wasn't staring at the urn like he had been before. He was staring at my face instead.

Suddenly he grabbed my shoulders hard, and his familiar face got right up in mine.

"Who the hell are you? How do you know so much about me and Avery?"

He was desperately trying to find some trace of Avery on me, and he even ripped open the back of my shirt right there in public, not caring if someone accused him of sexual harassment. He wanted to see that firework tattoo.

But there was nothing. My back was perfectly smooth and clean.

Christy had been thorough. She'd hired professionals to laser off my tattoo and then had them apply a large patch of synthetic skin over the area.

Vincent kept turning me around and checking me over and over for what felt like forever, and then he finally collapsed on the ground looking completely defeated.

It was like all the strength had been sucked out of his body, and he let out this bitter, self-mocking laugh. "I'm such an idiot. How could you possibly be Avery?

"Avery must hate me so much. She'd never want to see me again for the rest of her life... so why would she come back looking like someone else just to watch me suffer?"

Then he finally covered his face with his hands and started sobbing.

I'd never seen him like this before.

Not when his studio got trashed by competitors and all his work was destroyed. Not even when he won first place at that international competition after years of struggling. He'd never looked this hopeless before.

The truth was, Vincent did love me—at least in his own way.

For all these years, he'd transferred his feelings for Serena onto me, and some of that had to be real.

But he could never let go of his teenage obsession with her, and he'd mistaken that stubborn longing for love. Eventually, even he couldn't tell who he was really thinking about when he looked at my face.

Soon the tears leaking through Vincent's fingers started turning pink, and they dripped down onto his shirt and pooled there.

He didn't even seem to notice the pain, like he was trying to cry out every ounce of longing he'd ever had for me.

Serena showed up in a taxi and rushed over to pull him into her arms.

"Vincent! Wake up and look at me! I'm Serena! I'm the one who actually has this face you've been obsessing over!"

Vincent's whole body jerked, and he looked up at her.

Two streaks of bloody tears ran down his cheeks, making him look terrifying.

"Serena..." He stared at her face like he was in some kind of dream, and his mouth twisted into a smile. "You're Serena..."

"Yes, I'm Serena."

Serena grabbed his hand and pressed it against the corner of her eye, stroking it gently. "Avery's dead now. I'm the only one in the world who can have this face anymore... Isn't that what you've always wanted?

"Starting today, you'll only have to deal with me. You won't get us confused anymore. And you don't need to retake the wedding photos either. I'm happy to take Avery's place as your bride. You've always wanted a family, haven't you?"

Serena's words actually worked, and Vincent slowly stopped crying those bloody tears.

Christy let out a cold laugh and shook her head, then she grabbed my hand so we could leave.

But Vincent suddenly lost his mind behind us. He shoved Serena out of the way and ran toward me, then grabbed onto my pant leg like his life depended on it.

"Wait... please wait.

"If Avery trusted you enough to give you her ashes and her phone, she must have really trusted you. Did she leave any last words for me? Or maybe something else she wanted me to have?"

I looked down at him while he begged desperately, but I didn't feel a single thing inside.

"No," I said it coldly and tried to pull my leg free.

But Vincent clung to me like some kind of parasite. "No, there has to be something... We were together for five years. I don't believe she left without saying anything to me. Even if she hated me, she must have left some kind of message..."

"You really want to know?" I suddenly bent down and got right in his face.

Vincent nodded frantically and grabbed onto my sleeve like it was his only lifeline.

I pulled out two thick files and threw them at him.

They were full of investigation reports from a private detective about everything Serena had been up to overseas for the past few years.

There were also intimate photos of her with several different men.