Page 55 of Torn By Fate

“Don’t face the mirror,” she ordered, grinning. “I want it to be a surprise. You can only look after I’m done styling it.”

I simply nodded, both nervousness and excitement bubbling through me now that it was almost done.

Elyssa began drying my hair, working through each section carefully, only stepping back every few moments to study her work. Her brows were furrowed as she focused deeply on her task.

“Almost done,” she murmured.

A few minutes later, she switched off the blow dryer. The smile on her lips was so wide, it was all I could see. She turned me around, and we faced the mirror together.

Silence settled over the bathroom.

Thud.

I stared.

For a moment, I couldn’t speak.

The brown was gone.

In its place was a golden blonde that framed my face in soft waves. It made my eyes look brighter, softer… I looked younger somehow.

Different.

Beautiful.

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

“You like it?” Elyssa asked a little nervously.

I touched a blonde strand and then ran my fingers through it. “I do like it. It’s… different.”

I smiled at my reflection, almost giddy at the sight of someone I barely recognized staring back at me.

And then Elyssa stepped beside me.

Thud.

Something inside me went still.

I stared at us in the mirror.

Thud. Thud.

My gaze rove over her face, her full frame in the reflection, and then I looked back at myself. Blood roared between my ears, the pulse at the base of my throat thundering.

There was something familiar about the way we looked standing side by side.

I studied her face closer through the mirror. The shape of her eyes, the curve of her cheekbones, the slope of her nose and even the shape of her lips.

My heart gave a hard, sudden thud against my rib cage.

My hand came up, and I touched my face and then my hair.

Elyssa’s smile faded. “Serafina…”

I could barely hear her words over the thundering noise in my ears.

The resemblance wasn’t obvious at first. It was subtle, almost imperceptible. But now that I had seen it, I couldn’t unsee it.