Today, I followed the lines of my own memory.
I leaned over her sleeping form. I traced the bridge of her nose. It was straight, cute. I drew a line to indicate a deviation—a slight bump, just like mine. I traced her jawline. It was soft. I marked it for reduction, for sharpening, to match the severity of my own profile.
I stopped viewing her as a patient. She was clay. She was raw material.
For a second, my hand trembled. This was malpractice. This was mutilation. This was the end of my career if anyone found out.
But then I remembered the photo. A hag.
And I remembered the credit card.
“You wanted to take my place,” I whispered into the silence of the room. “So you shall.”
“Scalpel,” I said to the nurse.
She slapped the instrument into my palm. The light glinted off the blade, a star of cold steel.
“We are going deep today,” I announced, my voice devoid of emotion. “Total reconstruction. Facial feminization and structural realignment.”
I made the first cut. A line of crimson bloomed on her skin.
There was no going back.
Chapter 3: The Surgery of Shadows
The surgery took nine hours.
It was a fugue state. I worked with a precision that bordered on the demonic. I broke her nose. Crack. I reset it, ensuring the slight asymmetry that Richard used to kiss, saying it gave me “character.”
I filed down her chin. The bone dust smelled like chalk. I harvested cartilage from her ear to rebuild the tip of her nose, giving it a slight droop—the Vance droop.
I worked on her eyes. A blepharoplasty, but in reverse. I created the slight hooding of the eyelids that I had inherited from my mother. I etched lines into the corners of her eyes—permanent crow’s feet carved from flesh.
The nurses watched in awe.
“Dr. Vance, the technique is… unconventional,” one whispered. “You’re aging her?”
“I am giving her gravitas,” I replied, not looking up. “She wants to be a woman of substance. Substance comes with scars.”
