Defaced

"He was never entirely sure whether the thing he did next - the thing he always did next, the thing he had to do - was because the woman before him was not the one he had become fixated with or because in a way she was, whether she bore too striking a similarity or not quite enough. He knew that when the deed was done (heart beating so hard that he thought he was dying) she was neither, and her face could no longer taunt him frustratingly with what was different and what was the same, what he had and what he had not, because it was no longer there. He watched her bleed out in the morning light, noting the final slow and steady breath as he cleaned his equipment."