Chapter 2: Stolen Faces, Shattered Trust

After wrapping a commercial shoot, I hustled straight to my next gig.

The magazine shoot was all the way out in Jersey—seriously, the suburbs. Long drive. The car hummed along the turnpike, and the Manhattan skyline faded behind me in the rearview. I watched clouds drift by, my mind floating with them, half-awake, half-dreaming.

Drowsiness hit me hard in the car, and before I knew it, my eyes slid shut. Groggy, drifting.

Then—bam—a crash. The world spun. My face and arm burned, like I’d been stabbed by a thousand needles, every nerve on fire.

It all happened so fast. No time for my life to flash before my eyes. Just the smell of burned rubber, the coppery taste of blood in my mouth—and then nothing.

When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed.

The moment my mom heard how much it would cost to fix my face, she looked downright annoyed.

“It’s just a face. Not worth spending that kind of money,” she said, as if she were talking about fixing a dented bumper, not her own daughter’s future.

Weakly, I said, “Mom, the money I have now should be enough...”

“So you actually have that much saved up, and you never thought to help the family? Don’t you know we’re struggling? Raising you was a waste...” Her voice was sharp, every word another slice. She didn’t even look at me—just scrolled through her phone, totally checked out.

I shut my eyes, refusing to look at my mom’s twisted expression a second longer.

Struggling? Please.

Was it to pay off Dad’s gambling debts, or to buy Avery another round of designer clothes so she could bag a rich boyfriend? I’d lost count of the times I’d come home and found another new Coach purse or pair of Jimmy Choos in Avery’s closet, while I wore thrift store hand-me-downs.

After a call, Mom hurried out and left me alone in the hospital room.

Even shifting in bed felt like it would drain every ounce of strength, but I forced myself up, limped to the nurse’s station, and in a choked-up voice, dialed Noah. “Noah, come get me.”

Big tears rolled down my cheeks, hot at first, then turning cold as they soaked into the gauze. I tried to wipe them away, but my bandaged arm just flopped uselessly.

The nurse urged me to go back to my room, but I leaned on the counter, insisting I’d wait right there for Noah.

“Is that the Autumn Reese issue? Wow, you got it early...”

Hearing my own name, I looked up.

The person was holding the very magazine I was supposed to shoot in the suburbs.

I stared at the face on the cover—my face, or at least, it should have been. But something was off. I broke out in a cold sweat.

It was my twin sister, Avery Reese.

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