Right before the car wrapped around the tree, I had felt the call: Death. I was ready for it to take me with open arms.

But it didn’t want to take me.

It took my sister instead. She and her deadbeat boyfriend who got behind the wheel after insisting that he only had one bottle.

Dahlia’s dead, and I’m alive. My other half. My twin.

They didn’t mention anything about hallucinations after the accident, even though I told them that there was a man in a hood standing by my bed, that he left a single lily on top of my chest. The doctors waved it off as a side effect of the medication and the shock of losing Dahlia. I told them that it was the Grim Reaper. But they looked at me with a strained expression and told me to just rest.

A phase, they called it.

I brought the lily home, because after a month it hadn’t withered away. The nurse said that it must be just like me; a survivor defying all odds. The lily now sits in the darkness of the drawer, surviving again and again and again, just like me. Waiting for a death that never comes. Solace that never happens.

Cockroach, I heard one of Evan’s friends call me after yet another failed attempt at seeing the Grim Reaper. But I’ve stopped attempting. I don’t like failing.

I thought it was just the medication from the hospital that played tricks on my mind. Then I was convinced that it was just an impractical joke. Then I opened my locker at work to find a new lily inside. It withered away days later only to be replaced by another in the locker with a note that read:

You will be mine.

I got mad at Evan, accusing him of playing such a disgusting joke. He denied it, so did everyone else. But still, the letters kept coming, appearing in more places they shouldn’t: in my coat pocket, my car, my handbag. They haven’t stopped since, incessant in nature.

Biting the bullet, I twist the locker door and mentally prepare myself for whatever he might have left me today.

Last time it was a rose quartz skull, the time before that it was caviar—I told Brit that I’d never tried it. Before that, a wad of cash—the most practical gift that he has ever left me. But he always leaves me with at least one lily, whether it’s at home or at work. Always a single white lily.

I open the door and a tremor runs down my spine as I reach for the brown parchment and unroll the thick paper, the feeling of being watched prickling my neck.

Not even a sunrise compares to your beauty.

Heat tints my cheek, but I force myself to stamp it down. The only times the word ‘beautiful’ has been used to describe me since the accident was in a newspaper article that called me a “beautiful tragedy” and these notes from the Faceless Man. I never thought that I would want validation from a man who is a complete mystery, but I’ve become obsessed with it.

It’s more than an obsession. It’s a craving. A need.

As much as I want him to get out of my life, he’s the only reason that I haven’t felt completely alone since Dahlia died. A part of me never wants it to end in fear that once he leaves, I’ll realize that he’s taken the lifeboats from a sinking ship.

Does that make me as crazy as they claim? Or does it just make me human?

The house sits empty when I arrive home. Just as it always is.

My shift finished without any hiccups, but my feet ache and my stomach hasn’t stopped groaning from not having eaten anything in twenty-four hours.

I throw a pizza in the microwave and eat in silence, staring at the charcoal smear above the stove.

The lack of sleep from last night is getting to me. My body drags me down as I go about my night routine and stand in front of my prescription drawer. The medications to stop the hallucinations and the anxiety are enough to put me to sleep. Staying asleep is another matter entirely.

When I dream, I know that I dream of him. I don’t remember what happens in the dream, so I can’t know for sure. But I’m certain that it’s him. The only dreams that I remember are of the night of the accident.

I couldn’t hear his black boots crunch the leaves as he walked toward me, Dahlia’s car blazing behind him with her in it. I couldn’t hear any of it. The doctors told me that I flew out of the window upon collision, landing in the dirt with glass sticking out of my body and my neck turned to the side. The faulty seatbelt was the only thing that had stopped me from burning alive.

I couldn’t move to look at him as he kneeled next to me and trailed a finger down my bloody cheek and whispered, “Not yet, my Lilith.”

Dr. Mallory’s pills track down my throat and I drag my feet to my room. I check that the nanny cam has enough battery and the windows are locked before falling into bed and letting the medication-induced sleep take me under.

“So sweet. So beautiful. My precious little flower.” His voice comes from behind me.

I gasp and spin around. For once, he’s there. In a cloak standing in the middle of a beach before a storm. The waves roar as they crash against the shore, deep blue beneath the slate gray sky.

The wind wraps around my bare arms, whipping the white dress around my legs. But I don’t feel cold. I don’t feel nature’s bite at all. When I look down, I finally notice his symbol drawn in the sand, with me standing at the edge of it.

At once, the sounds disappear even though the waves become ravenous and lightning splits the sky. The distance between us closes until he’s a matter of steps away.

This is a dream, but it feels so real at the same time. Have I been here before? Why does this place look so familiar?

The Faceless Man reaches out and trails a pale finger down my cheek just as he did the night of the accident. The touch is so warm and tender, and I want so badly to tear that hood from off his head to see what he looks like. I want to see all of him. I’ve already seen the way his clothes strain to contain the muscles hidden beneath the dark layers. I deserve so much more.

His fingers move down to the back of my neck and he pulls me closer to him. Still, I cannot see what is hidden beneath the shadows of his hood. I should pull away from him, tell him to go to hell for hunting me like I’m prey.

“You are a vision of pure beauty, Lilith.”

No one calls me that; both Lilith and ‘pure beauty’. The shock of the words doesn’t stop the shiver from running down my spine. I like my name on his lips—if he even has them.

“What’s your name?” I say.

His other hand comes up to trace the curve of my lips. “What would you like to call me?”

“You’re the Faceless Man.”

His laugh rumbles like the sea, and I almost inch closer just to drink in more of the sound. Maybe even lay my head against his chest to feel its vibrations. “Only because your eyes are closed, my love.”

My toes curl into the black sand. I tell myself it’s because I miss the sensation of having sand between my toes. Not because hearing him say ‘my love’ in something other than a whisper has sent molten heat through every corner of my being.

I stare at his hooded form and look around the expanse of sea and sand. “What do you want from me?”

“Everything.”

I swallow. I have nothing to give. No money, no happiness, no faith. I’m an empty woman with a heart that never truly beats. I may have a home, but I don’t truly belong there.

The hand holding the back of my neck moves, tangling his fingers within my hair as his thumb continues to skate along my lips and down the column of my throat.

“Why?” I finally say.

“Because you were made for me, Lilith. My perfect other. Fate has aligned and brought you to me.”