Faces of the Departed

Every year on my birthday, my body literally breaks itself apart and rebuilds into

a stranger. It is agonizing, listening to my bones snap and skin stretch until I

have a totally new face. So I turn twenty-seven, endure the transformation, and my mom tells

me on FaceTime that I look weirdly familiar. I ignore her and go to work, but my boss is staring

at me like she’s seen a ghost. She pulls up a news article about a supermodel who died

in a car crash at the exact minute I was transforming. I look at the victim's photo,

and I freeze. It is my new face. I realized right then that I have been wearing the

faces of dead women my entire life.