The Love That Restored Me

For ten years, I was Claire Bennett’s stand-in. At last, Ethan Hayes and I were getting married. Then Claire burst into our wedding with a knife in her hand and tears streaming down her delicate face. Just like that, she destroyed every dream I had. Ethan held her carefully in his arms and looked at me with a sneer. “Haven’t you always wanted to prove you’re different from her? Then go to prison for her.” The instant the stun baton knocked me unconscious, all I could see was their interlocked fingers. Later, I really did become different from her. And he begged me to change back. On the day I got out of prison, I turned on my phone and found nearly a thousand intimate photos. Every single one was of Claire and Ethan. I knew what this was. Claire was rubbing her victory in my face. The sunlight made the scar on my cheek burn. I narrowed my eyes against the discomfort. A shrill honk made me realize a car had pulled up beside me. It was Ethan. After three years apart, he looked much more mature. I didn’t dare look for long. I lowered my head and hurried past. A hand seized me. “What’s this? Ignoring me on purpose?” His voice held a dangerous edge. He sat in the shadow of the car window, his expression unreadable. My body jerked. Goose bumps rose all over me, and I clutched the hem of my shirt in panic. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to… I just didn’t see you…” My voice grew quieter with every word, but I couldn’t hide the fear. He pulled me into the car. I let him move me however he wanted, keeping my head down and my eyes on my shoes. I didn’t dare move. My reaction seemed to irritate him. He slammed the door and frowned. “Look up.” “What happened to all that nerve? It’s not like I’m going to eat you alive.” No, he wouldn’t eat me alive. But he could send me somewhere that would, without lifting a finger. I raised my head and met his stunned gaze. The rearview mirror reflected the ruined half of my face, crisscrossed with hideous scars. It took him a long time to find his voice. Then he asked darkly who had done it. I gave a bitter smile. If I told him it was Claire, would he believe me? Or would he fly into a rage and send me back? I turned away from his unreadable stare and murmured, “It doesn’t matter anymore.” The air around us seemed to turn colder. After a long silence, he spoke. “It won’t happen again.” Again? Did we even have a future? Neither of us spoke for the rest of the drive, though I could feel his intense gaze on me. The car stopped at the Hayes family estate. If I remembered correctly, today was the anniversary of his great-grandmother’s death. No wonder he’d come to pick me up. She had adored me when she was alive, so the Hayes family always brought me along to the annual memorial in her honor. I touched the scar on my cheek. After hesitating, I called out to Ethan as he strode ahead. “Ethan, maybe I shouldn’t go…” If she could see me now, looking like this would only hurt her. He turned around. I dropped my head in fright, my heart pounding. His voice was cold. “She treated you so well, and after just a year you’re already tired of showing up for her?” “I don’t want to hear that again. Don’t be disgusting.” The blood drained from my face. Disgusting. That was the word I’d heard most often in prison. They’d watched me crawl on the floor and wolf down spoiled food, spitting at me over and over. “Fucking disgusting.” My distraction made him impatient. He picked up a pebble and flicked it at me. My forehead began to swell. He froze, as though he hadn’t expected it to hit me. I watched his mouth open and close. In the end, all he said was, “Keep up.” And so I entered that lavish, immaculate hall in my ragged clothes, with an ugly scar across my face. I didn’t belong there. Mocking, contemptuous looks came at me from every direction. He’d done it on purpose. He left me standing alone in the middle of the hall, helpless and panicking. “Well, well. Feeling charitable today, Ethan? Where did you find this beggar? She’s filthy and hideous. Almost scared me to death.” An elegantly dressed woman covered her mouth and laughed, her disgust plain to see. Ethan paused but said nothing. I merely forced a smile and rubbed my battered hands. He raised an eyebrow at me in surprise. Of course. The old me would have torn into her without a second thought. Ethan had always been the only person I made exceptions for. But the beatings in prison had taught me a brutal lesson. There was no one standing behind me.I looked almost exactly like Claire, the woman Ethan had never gotten over. Everyone knew that ten years ago, Claire had dumped the Hayes family’s golden boy and made him the laughingstock of the city. I’d seized my chance and spent the next ten years in her place. People called me shameless. They called me a parasite who wouldn’t let go. But was loving someone a crime? All I’d ever dreamed of was being with Ethan. And once, I almost got my wish. Until Claire destroyed everything without even trying. She burst into our wedding carrying a bloody knife. Her delicate face was deathly pale, and she trembled like a fragile flower about to fall. “Ethan, I… I killed someone…” She sobbed as she spoke. An eerie silence fell. Every pair of eyes turned toward me. Ethan tugged casually at his collar. His long fingers tapped a steady rhythm against the sofa as he spoke without warmth. “You had no trouble dumping me back then. Why come running to me now that you’re in trouble?” “Sorry. I can’t help you.” People around us began to smirk, enjoying her humiliation. Only my heart sank. After so many years with him, how could I not know? That tapping was something he only did when he was rattled. “But you’re all I have!” Claire’s voice rose. Then she bit her lip, looking wounded, her eyes full of hope as she stared at Ethan. For a moment, everything felt unreal. Somehow, at my own wedding, I was the one who didn’t belong. Someone in the crowd shouted, “Have you no shame? This is their wedding!” Ethan’s face darkened. With one wave of his hand, the person was dragged outside, screaming. The room fell silent at once. Of course. He always protected his own. I had just never been one of them. I lowered my eyes to hide the sting of tears and tugged lightly at his sleeve. “Ethan, ignore her. Can we please finish the wedding?” By the end, I was almost begging. I’d seen him lose his mind over Claire too many times. I couldn’t take that chance. Ethan shook my hand off so hard that I stumbled and fell. He looked down at me with a mocking half smile. “Haven’t you always wanted to prove you’re different from her? Then go to prison for her.” I stared at him, too stunned to understand. Then a piercing siren shattered the silence. The instant the police burst through the doors, he shoved the bloody knife into my hand. Someone forced me roughly to the floor. I knew he didn’t love me. I knew I was the only one who felt anything. But I’d spent ten whole years trying to warm his heart. After ten years, I’d let myself hope for something. In that moment, the hope shattered. The stun baton came down, and my vision went black. Before I lost consciousness, I saw Claire bury her face in Ethan’s chest. And I caught the flash of triumph in her eyes. In the end, he testified as Claire’s eyewitness. With ruthless efficiency, he personally saw to it that I was sent to Blackstone Penitentiary. A prison notorious for its brutality.After the memorial, everyone sat down to eat. I kept my head lowered and desperately stuffed food into my mouth. My stomach hurt from how full it was. Tears sprang to my eyes, but I refused to stop. I was terrified this was only a dream. So terrified that I didn’t even notice Ethan calling my name. “Emily!” “Here!” I shot to my feet on instinct. Food spilled everywhere, and a bowl shattered with a piercing crash. White shards lay scattered among the filthy mess. The food was dirty. I dropped to my knees in the wreckage, grabbed a handful from the floor, and tried to shove it into my mouth. In prison, wasting food meant being branded. They thought it was fun. But there was nowhere left on my body to burn. Ethan caught both my wrists. His face was dark with anger. “Have you lost your mind?!” For a moment, his face blurred into the faces of the guards. I couldn’t tell them apart. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please don’t burn me!” I shook all over, terrified, and slammed my forehead against the floor several times. A shard pierced my skin. Blood ran down my brow and into my eyes, but I barely felt it. He dragged me into a room upstairs, took out a first-aid kit, and carefully picked the fragments from my forehead. He was so close, yet I didn’t dare entertain a single other thought. His jaw tightened. He gave a short, unreadable laugh. “Well, look at you. You’ve gotten good at taking pain.” I lowered my head and said nothing. This little pain wasn’t even a fraction of what I’d endured in prison. My silence drew another angry laugh from him. I didn’t understand. What did he have to be angry about? Ethan lifted my chin with one finger and rubbed his thumb across the scar on my cheek. “Does it hurt?” Did it? I couldn’t really remember. Maybe I’d gone numb and couldn’t feel it anymore. Still, I obediently nodded. I must have been losing my mind, because for an instant I thought I saw pain in his eyes. “Good. Maybe you’ll learn your lesson.” See? I’d imagined it. After dressing my wounds, he called his private doctor. “Can you fix her face?” The doctor studied me in silence. After some hesitation, he shook his head with regret. “Reconstructive surgery can only achieve about a seventy percent improvement. Afterward, she may…” No longer look like Claire. He didn’t finish, but we all understood. Ethan had only ever cared for the resemblance around my eyes and brows. If even that disappeared… To my surprise, I felt relieved. But I missed the unreadable look in Ethan’s eyes.I’d always known Ethan’s moods could turn without warning. What I hadn’t expected was for him to force me to stay, claiming I needed to prepare properly for surgery. Resisting got me nowhere. I was underweight, so every day I was made to eat specially planned meals. When Claire showed up at the Hayes estate unexpectedly, I was secretly throwing up in the bathroom. She rushed over and glared at me. “You! Why are you throwing up?!” I trembled and curled in on myself in fear. At some point, it was as if every bit of courage had been scared out of me. Even a glance from someone could terrify me. Sometimes I’d have nightmares that same night, filled with staring eyes. The most intense pair belonged to Claire, bright with excitement on the day she threw acid on me. My mind worked slowly. It took me a while to realize she thought I was pregnant. She realized her mistake too, and her expression instantly shifted into a superior smile. “Oh, silly me. I forgot you just got out of prison, Emily. I got a little carried away. Don’t hold it against me.” “But you saw the photos I sent, didn’t you?” She leaned close and whispered into my ear. “Ethan is mine. You wouldn’t want the other half of your face ruined too, would you?” I shrank back and opened my mouth to promise her whatever she wanted. Instead, nausea surged through me, and I threw up all over her. She screamed at once, tears filling her eyes. “Emily, I know you think I’m disgusting. I know you don’t want me here. I’ll leave!” “You don’t have to put on this act to make me look bad!” I froze in confusion. Then I saw Ethan walk in, and everything made sense. He frowned and pulled Claire away from me. Again. With Claire around, I never stood a chance. Ten years ago, my family had fallen apart. Overnight, I’d gone from the daughter of the city’s richest man, someone everyone wanted to please, to a burden no one wanted. All I had left was an enormous debt. Ethan had been the first to step forward. He paid off what I owed and pulled me out of the darkness. Only later did I learn that Claire had been trying to break up with him at the time. He’d felt a flicker of pity because I looked like her. Helping me had been nothing more than a casual act of charity. But I’d been foolish enough to fall headfirst in love with him. All Claire had to do was say I’d stolen her necklace, and he believed her. He’d questioned me harshly in front of everyone, grinding my dignity into the floor. The necklace was a fake. He hadn’t even bothered to check the security footage. I’d desperately tried to explain that Claire was framing me. He’d looked at me just like this, one arm around her, his face indifferent. “Since when does a pet dog get to bite its owner?” How could he not see through acting that bad? He was simply choosing to back her up. Fingers clamped around my chin. The pain pulled me back to the present. I lowered my eyes and gave him a pleading smile. “I’m sorry. I was wrong.” In prison, apologizing quickly meant fewer beatings. He froze. Then his face darkened, clearly unhappy with my answer. Suddenly, Claire smiled and raised her arm. “Ethan, I forgot to tell you. I really love the birthday present you gave me.” She made a point of adding that she meant her last birthday. The very day I’d been doused in acid. How ridiculous. While a group of people pinned me to a wall and I screamed myself hoarse, they’d all been singing, dancing, and celebrating. I looked up and saw a translucent jade bracelet. The instant I recognized it, every drop of blood in my body seemed to freeze. I stared at Ethan in disbelief. My face went white, and my voice shook uncontrollably. “How could you give her that bracelet?!” “Don’t you know what it means to me?! It’s the only thing I have left from my parents!”