Ashes of Us by Olivia Salter | Short Story

 

Ashes of Us

By Olivia Salter

Word Count: 2,589

The first time Ilya saw Jonah, he was leaning against the scratched counter of a dimly lit bar, one of those places you only find in the back alleys of the city where no one knows your name and no one asks for it. His head was down, his gaze heavy on the half-empty glass of whiskey, and around him hung an aura of weariness that matched the bar's peeling walls and fading lights. She watched him from across the room, curious despite herself.

The bartender—a gruff man with silver hair and a mouth perpetually turned down—shot her a glance, a silent warning she ignored as she slid onto the stool beside Jonah. He glanced up briefly, his eyes cool and guarded, offering her only the faintest hint of a smile, a perfunctory courtesy.

It wasn’t a smile that promised warmth or welcome; rather, it held an edge of distance, like he was offering a sliver of himself and then retreating, already pulling back. And yet, as he lifted his glass to his lips, Ilya felt an inexplicable pull. She’d always been drawn to people with edges, people who kept their stories close to the chest. There was something magnetic in his silence, something raw, like he’d been carved from stone and left unfinished.

He spoke in short, clipped sentences that evening, answering her questions with practiced brevity. His voice was low, rough around the edges like the callouses on his hands. He didn't offer much, but she kept the conversation going, determined to pry beneath the armor he wore so closely.

"Do you come here often?" she asked, hating herself a little for the cliche, but needing something to fill the silence.

He smirked, a faint quirk of his lips. "Often enough."

She tried again. "What keeps you coming back?"

He looked at her then, a sharp gaze that lingered just long enough to send a shiver down her spine. "I like places where people don’t ask too many questions."

The answer should have made her back off, but instead, it fueled her curiosity. There was a mystery to him that felt like an unfinished puzzle, and before she knew it, they’d fallen into a routine. She started meeting him at that same bar, each encounter wrapped in the dim light and quiet music that hummed from an old jukebox in the corner. They spoke in half-truths and fragments, never quite sharing enough to piece together a full story, yet there was something intoxicating about the half-formed connection.

As weeks turned into months, Ilya found herself woven into his life, or at least the parts he let her see. Jonah was careful with his boundaries, always keeping her at arm's length, but she told herself it was his way of protecting himself. She saw the shadows in his eyes, the way he’d pull away after a night together, leaving her alone in bed as he stood by the window, lost in thought. There was a sadness there, a sadness she was convinced she could heal if only he’d let her closer.

The change was gradual, barely noticeable at first. She found herself rearranging her schedule around him, canceling plans with friends to meet him for a quick drink or an aimless walk through the city. She ignored the quiet warnings in her head, the sense that she was losing parts of herself to someone who never quite reached back. Jonah was a puzzle she couldn’t solve, a riddle that kept her up at night, and she became obsessed with the idea of being the one to break through his defenses.

One evening, after a long stretch of silence between them, he suggested a walk along the shore. The sky was overcast, and the waves crashed against the rocks with a relentless force, a sound that filled the empty spaces between them. She shivered as they walked, but he didn’t reach for her hand, didn’t offer her warmth. He walked with his hands shoved into his pockets, his gaze fixed on the horizon.

After a while, the silence grew too heavy, pressing down on her chest, and she couldn’t hold back anymore. She stopped, pulling him to a halt beside her.

"Jonah," she said softly, searching his face. "Why do you always feel so far away?

He didn’t answer at first, just looked out at the churning sea, his jaw tight. Finally, he turned to her, his eyes shadowed. "Because maybe I am," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Maybe I was never meant for this."

The words hit her like a wave, stealing the breath from her lungs. She stared at him, trying to find something in his gaze, some crack in his armor that would let her in, but he only looked back at her with that same, impenetrable sadness.

"Not meant for this?" she repeated, her voice trembling.

He looked away, letting the silence stretch between them. "I don’t know how to be what you want me to be, Ilya," he finally said, his voice barely audible over the crashing waves. "I thought… I thought maybe I could, but…"

Her heart clenched, and for a moment, she felt as if she were standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down into an endless void. She wanted to reach for him, to pull him close and hold him until the distance between them vanished, but she knew, deep down, that it never would. She was grasping at a mirage, an illusion of intimacy that would never be real.

He left her standing there on the shore, the wind whipping her hair around her face as he turned and walked away. She watched his figure grow smaller in the distance, feeling a hollow ache settle in her chest, a weight that felt like it might crush her. She wanted to scream, to run after him, to make him stay, but she stayed rooted to the spot, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

After that night, something shifted between them. They met less frequently, their conversations shorter, each exchange laced with an unspoken tension that left her feeling raw and exposed. She kept waiting for him to say something, to reach out to her, but Jonah remained as distant as ever, slipping through her fingers like sand.

One evening, alone in her apartment, Ilya found herself staring at the mirror, studying the face of a stranger. There were faint lines around her eyes, the slightest hint of shadows beneath them. She looked tired, worn down, as though she’d been chipped away bit by bit until there was barely anything left.

Her phone buzzed on the counter, a text from Jonah: Can we meet?

She stared at the message, feeling a familiar pull, the ache of wanting to be the one he reached for. But as her gaze drifted back to the mirror, she saw herself clearly—saw the toll their fractured relationship had taken on her. She’d given so much of herself, chipped away her own edges to fit into his life, but it was never enough. She was holding onto a ghost, a version of him that existed only in her mind.

And just like that, she knew she had to let go.

With a deep breath, she deleted his message, her fingers shaking as she put the phone down. It felt like ripping out a part of herself, a sharp pain that left her gasping, but beneath the hurt was a strange, unfamiliar lightness. She was finally free of the illusion, free to rebuild herself from the ashes of what she’d once been.

The next morning, she packed her things, leaving the city and the memories of him behind. She drove through the early morning fog, the horizon stretching out before her, open and boundless. The road ahead was uncertain, but for the first time in months, she felt a glimmer of hope, a sense that maybe, just maybe, she could find herself again.

As she drove, she thought of him one last time, a faint shadow at the edge of her memory. She let herself remember the way he’d looked at her in the bar, the quiet moments they’d shared, the hope she’d held onto for so long. She let the memories wash over her, bittersweet and raw, and then, like the ashes of a fire long burned out, she let them scatter to the wind.

***

The road stretched on, unbroken, the fog slowly lifting as the morning light began to seep through. The trees on either side of the highway were bare, their branches twisting against the gray sky like the skeletal hands of forgotten things. Ilya’s hands gripped the steering wheel with a tightness that felt unfamiliar, her palms slick with the residue of a decision that had taken too long to make.

She didn’t know where she was going—not really. She’d just packed up her life, sold what she could, and left. The freedom felt as much like an absence as it did a release. It was the hollow between breaths, the pause before the next thought, the transitional space between who she’d been and who she was still becoming.

As she drove, she thought of the city, of the places they used to go together—the coffee shop with the cracked tile floor where they’d sit for hours without speaking, just watching the world outside. She could still feel the weight of his gaze on her, like a memory clinging to her skin. But it was fading now, like something viewed through fog, half-formed, distorted. His absence was a presence she could almost touch, and yet it was already slipping away.

Her thoughts drifted back to that night on the shore, when everything had unraveled in front of her. Jonah’s words echoed in her mind: Maybe I was never meant for this.

She had tried to force him into something he wasn’t, something he couldn’t be. And in the process, she had lost herself. In trying to save him, she’d almost drowned in the current of her own desires—desires that had never aligned with his, and maybe, had never aligned with hers either.

The truth had been there all along, written in the silences between them. She had convinced herself that love was about healing, about fixing what was broken, but she had never asked herself what she needed to heal from. The answer had been right in front of her, just beneath the surface, waiting for her to see it. She wasn’t broken. She didn’t need saving. She had just needed to stop giving away pieces of herself to people who would never value them.

The car hummed steadily, the rhythm of the engine calming her thoughts. She passed through small towns, the signs offering nothing but the quiet promise of more emptiness. And for the first time in a long time, the emptiness didn’t feel suffocating. It felt open, like the sky above her, vast and endless.

After hours of driving, she stopped at a diner on the outskirts of a sleepy town, the kind of place where the waitstaff called you "hon" and the coffee tasted like burnt sugar and memories. She ordered a coffee and sat by the window, watching as a few cars passed by, each one a blur of motion in a world that felt too still.

She took a sip of the coffee, the warmth spreading through her chest, and stared out the window at the vast stretch of highway ahead.

She had left everything behind, but it was okay. She wasn’t sure where she was going, or what would come next, but she knew one thing for certain: she was done being the ghost in someone else’s life. She was done playing the role of the martyr, the one who loved enough to heal. She could never heal Jonah, and in trying to do so, she had forgotten that she was worthy of being loved for who she was, not for who she could fix.

It was a strange, exhilarating freedom—this blank slate of her life. There were no expectations, no promises made to anyone but herself. For the first time in years, she could breathe without the weight of someone else’s silence pressing down on her chest. She didn’t need to be enough for someone else. She was enough, just as she was.

She thought about her future—not the one she’d imagined with Jonah, but the one that could belong to her. It could be messy, it could be uncertain, but it could also be her own. The idea didn’t scare her as much as it used to. It wasn’t about finding someone else to complete her; it was about becoming whole on her own.

The waitress brought her check, and as Ilya reached for her purse, something caught her eye outside the window—a couple walking hand-in-hand, their laughter light and easy. For a moment, a pang of longing flickered in her chest, a flicker of what might have been, but she quickly dismissed it. She wasn’t looking for love anymore, not in the way she had once thought she needed it. Love, she realized, was never meant to fix anyone. It was about acceptance. It was about showing up in the mess of each other’s lives, without expectations. She could give that love to herself.

She stood, leaving cash on the table and walking out of the diner with a steady pace. The air was cool against her skin, a reminder that life, like the weather, was constantly changing. As she slid into her car and drove away, the weight on her shoulders seemed to lessen with each mile. She wasn’t leaving anything behind; she was setting it all down.

The road twisted and turned ahead, the landscape unfolding like an open book with no final page. And for the first time in what felt like forever, she felt her heart begin to beat for herself—not for the echo of a love she could never hold, but for the life she was now free to create.

Ilya didn’t know where she would end up. She didn’t know what the future held. But for the first time, she wasn’t afraid to find out. And for the first time, she wasn’t searching for someone else to fill her spaces. She was learning to occupy them on her own.

***

The drive continued as the sun began to dip below the horizon, casting long shadows across the road. Ilya had crossed into a new state—physically and emotionally. She hadn’t known exactly when the shift happened, but somewhere along the way, she'd shed the skin of someone else’s expectations and started wearing the quiet comfort of her own desires.

There was no grand revelation, no perfect moment of enlightenment. It wasn’t like the movies where everything snapped into focus in an instant. It was more like a slow, unfolding understanding, like watching the fog lift, one clear sight at a time, until the world was visible again. She wasn’t healed in a single moment; she was healing, one breath at a time.

For the first time in months, maybe years, Ilya felt the possibility of a life unmarked by the shadows of a man who had never truly seen her. And in that open space, she could finally hear the whispers of her own soul. It wasn’t about fixing anyone anymore. It was about fixing herself.

And so, she drove on.