It had been sixteen days since Aarielle last saw Seth.
The summit had ended, the tents taken down, the grass left with footprints and echoes. She was home now, back in her quiet little apartment filled with houseplants and sunlight and the smell of brewed tea. Life had returned to rhythm.
But something had shifted inside of her.
She didn't hear from Seth.
No texts. No updates. Not even a seen-zoned Instagram story. And for a while, she tried not to care. She told herself it was better this way. That God had answered her prayer.
"If he's not from You... take him away."
But the ache in her chest didn't feel like peace.
It felt like a pause.
A quiet, God-ordained pause that makes her wait for something deeper is being written.
So she waited.
In prayer. In stillness. In worship.
And then, one morning, her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
Seth.
"Hey. I didn't disappear. I just... stepped off the edge a bit. Can I call you sometime?"
She stared at the message for five full minutes.
Then replied.
"If God sent you to your knees, I'm not going to pull you back up too early. But yes. You can call."
That evening, her phone rang.
She answered on the third ring, voice soft, "Hi."
There was a beat of silence.
Then Seth exhaled. "I thought I'd forgotten what your voice sounded like."
Aarielle smiled. "Still dramatic."
He chuckled, and for the first time in a long time, it sounded real.
"Okay," he said. "I deserved that."
There was a pause. Then she asked, gently, "Where have you been?"
His voice dropped to something raw.
"In a church."
Aarielle's heart slowed.
"I didn't know what I was doing," he continued. "I walked in wearing a designer jacket and nearly got hugged by a grandma named Linda who gave me a peppermint and told me I looked 'tormented.' I think she might be a prophet."
A laugh escaped Aarielle's lips before she could stop it.
He smiled at the sound. "I knew that would get you."
"So what happened?" she asked, voice softer now.
He took a deep breath.
"I stayed. Every day. I sat in the back. I watched people lift their hands and cry and laugh and sing off-key. I didn't understand any of it. But I couldn't leave."
"Why?"
"Because no one wanted anything from me."
Silence.
Then Seth added, "And I wanted something I couldn't buy."
Aarielle blinked back tears.
"And what do you want now?" she whispered.
He didn't answer right away.
"God, the God you talk to like He breathes next to you. The one you sing to like He's holding your hand."
Her throat tightened.
--
The next week, they met for coffee.
It was... peaceful.
Seth showed up in a plain gray hoodie, hair messy, no cologne, just tired eyes and a journal he carried like it meant something now.
They sat at a small outdoor café near the church he'd been attending.
"Guess what," he said with a proud smile as he sipped his bitter black coffee. "I prayed before ordering this."
She raised an eyebrow. "That God would make it less disgusting?"
He laughed "Yes. He didn't."
"You could just add cream."
"No. I'm trying to do hard things now."
She grinned.
Then, more seriously, he opened his journal and said, "I've been writing songs."
Her heart thudded.
He slid the notebook across the table.
She opened it carefully.
The handwriting was rough. The lines messy. But the words...
"I tried to earn You.
I tried to buy light.
But You sat with me,
In the dark of my pride.
You waited.
You stayed.
You built an altar with my ashes."Aarielle closed the notebook slowly.
Tears welled.
Seth was quiet, watching her with a gentleness she hadn't seen in him before.
"You're changing," she said softly.
He nodded. "I didn't ask for it."
"I know."
"It's because of God," he said. "But He used you to show me what He looked like."
Her heart almost broke with the weight of that.
That night, Aarielle knelt in her room again.
"Thank You. Thank You for not letting me settle. Thank You for the silence, the ache, the prayer. Thank You that I didn't chase him. Thank You that You did."

YOU ARE READING
Ashes and Altars
SpiritualAarielle never prayed for someone like Seth but God sent him. She sang for heaven. He chased after the world. But when their paths collide, can grace rewrite the story of two hearts shaped by different fires?