Chapter 1No More Saving You In This Life

I saved Grant Miller’s life once, and he spent the rest of his hating me for it.

He hated me because when the house went up in flames, I dragged him out first, leaving my best friend, Sienna, to be swallowed by the fire. I, in turn, hated him for the affair he’d been having behind my back. I hated myself even more for being the kind of woman who would sacrifice half her face to save a man like him.

We lived in a state of mutual wreckage, two people bound together by trauma and resentment, unable to let go and unwilling to forgive.

Then came the night a man with a knife and a shattered mind cornered us in an alley. Grant—the man who claimed to loathe the very sight of me—didn't hesitate. He shoved me aside. I watched the blade sink into his chest, the crimson of his blood staining my vision.

When I collapsed beside him, sobbing, he used the last of his strength to push me away one final time.

"She’s gone, and I don't want to be here without her," he wheezed, his voice a jagged rasp. "Evelyn... we’re even now. Just... bury me next to her. Please."

His eyes grew glassy. "If there’s a next time... don't love me."

At the funeral, Grant’s father was a shell of a man. "It’s my fault," Richard Miller choked out. "I shouldn't have forced him to marry her. If I hadn’t kept them apart, maybe he’d still be alive."

His mother, Martha, didn't offer words. She offered a slap that rang across the cemetery. "You jinx," she hissed, her face distorted by grief. "Why wasn't it you? Give me back my son!"

In that life, everyone regretted that Grant had ever married me. Including me.

But when I opened my eyes again, the smell of lilies and damp earth was gone.

I was standing in a kitchen. A pot was boiling over on the stove, the steam hitting my face with a sharp, stinging heat. I looked down at my hands. They were smooth. No puckered scar tissue, no grafts, no memories written in burnt flesh.

I looked into the small mirror above the sink. There she was—my twenty-four-year-old self. My right cheek was flawless, my eyes bright with a youth I thought I’d buried. Not the monster I’d become, the one who couldn't even stand her own reflection.

I stared until the boiling water splashed onto the back of my hand. The sharp prick of pain brought me back.

It was real. I was back. Back before the fire.

In my previous life, this was the night it all started. Sienna and Grant were about to walk through the door. Sienna had just been evicted, and she was "homeless" and "heartbroken."

When they arrived, I realized I’d only made enough dinner for three. In that other life, I had smiled through the hurt, insisted I wasn't hungry, and sat in the corner like a ghost while they ate and laughed.

I dried my hands and walked out of the kitchen just as the front door clicked open.

"I’m tired," I said, my voice steady. "I’m not cooking tonight."

Martha Miller froze, her hand on Sienna’s suitcase. "What? Then what are we supposed to eat?"

A dull ache throbbed in my chest. I had lived with the Millers for seven years. When my parents died in that car wreck when I was seventeen, Richard had held my hand in the hospital corridor and told me their home was my home. Martha had held me while I cried, promising to love me like her own daughter.

I believed them. I memorized their coffee orders, their favorite laundry detergents, the exact way Richard liked his steaks. I gave them everything, and in return, they turned me into the wallpaper of their lives.

I walked into the bathroom and shut the door. I touched my right cheek, my fingers trembling. After the fire in my last life, Grant had looked at my scars exactly once. He had winced and turned his head away in disgust. The man I had crawled through hell to save couldn't even look at me.

Outside, I heard the soft murmur of voices. I splashed cold water on my face and stepped out. The door to the guest room—the room they were giving Sienna—was shut.

Martha looked up from the sofa. "Evelyn, honey, is something wrong?"

"I'm out of grocery money," I said. "I need to talk to Grant."

As I moved toward the guest room door, Richard jumped up, fumbling for his phone. "I’ll Venmo you five hundred. Just use that for now."

The notification chimed on my phone. I didn't move. "Is Sienna in there? I want to ask what she wants for breakfast tomorrow."

Martha’s smile was tight, nervous. "She’s... probably in the shower."

"Fine," I said, grabbing my coat. "I'm going out."

"This late?" Martha asked.

I looked at the closed door of the guest room. "The air in here is suffocating."

I didn't look back. That night, I went to the most expensive seafood place in the city. When the hostess asked how many, I said, "Just one."

I ordered everything I used to love—crab, oysters, lobster—the kind of inflammatory foods I couldn't touch for years after the surgery. I swallowed the crab meat along with the salt of my own tears.

This life was just beginning. I was done crying for them.