Burning Ash Anastasia Puhachuk

Liam and I agreed on a new meeting.

I didn’t want to pressure him, but he insisted we meet at his home. He said he was tired of neutral places — cafés, parks, streets where he could keep walking if the conversation became too heavy.When I arrived, the curtains were half drawn. The room felt dim, like it was holding its breath.

“You know,” I began carefully, “I want to learn as much about you as possible. But there’s one thing that keeps bothering me. I’ll understand if you don’t want to answer.”

 “And what is it you want to know, detective?” he asked, attempting a smile.

“You don’t hide your face for no reason. I want to know what broke you. What made you hide behind masks.”

“Do you really want to know? It’s not the most pleasant story.”

“Yes.”

He exhaled slowly. “Then listen. It happened relatively recently. I lost someone close to me over something so trivial. Just simple carelessness.”

Silence stretched between us.

 “I had promised to protect her.” He continued. “But fate is cruel. I wasn’t ready to let go of someone who had just made my life better. She gave me meaning and then it was taken away.”

 “How?” My voice barely rose above a whisper.

 “A stupid argument,” he said bitterly. “I insisted on driving. I was distracted. Just for a second.” He swallowed. “A second is enough.”

I felt the air leave my lungs. “She…”

 “She didn’t survive.”The words were steady, but his hands were not.

 “That person never found out that…” He stopped, pressing his knuckles against his lips.

“Found out what?” I asked gently.

“That she was the most precious person in the world to me.”

 “Oh, Liam…”

“I tried to come to terms with it,” he went on hoarsely. “I told myself everything was fine. That it was meant to be. But that’s a lie. Nothing was ‘meant to be.’ It was a mistake. My mistake.”

“You can’t carry all of it on yourself.”

 “I can,” he interrupted sharply. “I do. The voices in my head were the greatest punishment. No one destroyed me the way I destroyed myself.”

-“Sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t know.”

 “Of course you didn’t. I don’t let anyone know.”

“Why not?”

“Because weakness disgusts my mother,” he said flatly. “Even if I had had the strength to admit that I was going mad from this loss — that the memories were suffocating me — she would have looked at me with cold disappointment.”

“That’s cruel.”

“That’s reality.”He leaned back, staring at the ceiling.

 “She came from a poor family,” he added: “My parents didn’t want to accept her. They thought she was with me only for the money.”

“And you?”

“I would have given her everything.”

I gave him a sad smile.

“She fell in love with me without touching my wallet and i fell in love with her,” he replied, voice breaking slightly, “without touching her body.”