Hello friends,
After Bayaan Cafe, this is my new story — “My Blank Love,” the journey of Zoboriya.
I hope you will love it just as much as you loved Bayaan Cafe.
Readers from 42 countries have supported my previous story — thank you so much for your love.
Don’t forget to comment and share this story.
Your support means everything.
Thank you! ❤️
My Blank Love
Chapter One – The River That Remembered
The wind moved slowly, brushing against the lonely strands of Zoboriya’s hair that had escaped her scarf. The river beside her flowed with a hush — a quiet lullaby that only those carrying silent grief could understand.
She stood still, hands folded in front of her, the smell of wet stone and distant jasmine thick in the air. Behind her, the small Turkish town of Safranbolu breathed in its soft morning calm. But inside her?
A storm she hadn’t named.
A love she hadn’t confessed.
A pain she never expected to carry.
She looked at the water again, wondering if it remembered that moment —
the exact second her world had shifted.
“If only he hadn’t come that day…” she whispered, her voice barely audible.
“If only Abu Zarr had never stood in front of me.”
But he had.
And like a sudden gust in the middle of a still afternoon, he had shaken her soul awake.
It was early spring, the trees still dressing themselves in fresh green, and the cafés along the cobbled path hadn’t yet filled with tourists. That afternoon, three years ago, she had come to this same river, carrying nothing but a journal and a tired heart.
She had wanted silence.
She had wanted to sit and not be seen.
But he had found her anyway.
“Zoboriya.”
His voice had come from behind — firm, familiar, breaking the very air around her.
She had closed her eyes first.
Then turned.
And there he was.
Not as the Abu Zarr she remembered — the boy with laughter tucked in his collar and stars in his voice — but a man now. Quieter. Older. And with eyes that looked like they hadn’t rested in weeks.
He hadn’t smiled.
He hadn’t spoken again.
He had just looked at her —
like she was a story he still didn’t understand how to finish.
“Why did you come?” she had asked, her fingers tightening around the pen in her lap.
He had shrugged slightly, his gaze not leaving hers.
“Because I wasn’t done.”
She had laughed. Not the soft kind, but the one that hides wounds.
“You were the one who left. You were the one who turned your love into silence.”
He didn’t defend himself. He just stepped closer.
“Maybe I thought your silence would match mine.”
That day, everything blurred — the river, the air, her breath.
He had come back,
but not to explain.
Not to apologize.
Not to say he still loved her.
He had just come — and in that moment, it was both too much and never enough.
Now, years later, standing again by the same river, Zoboriya wondered what remained of that afternoon.
Maybe nothing.
Maybe everything.
“You left your noise behind, Abu Zarr.
But you left your silence inside me.”
The wind answered her this time, rustling the pages of her old notebook — the one that still carried his name in ink that had begun to fade.
To be continued…
My Blank Love
In the grand library of the most prestigious university in Turkey,
Zoboriya sat in a quiet corner,
surrounded by hundreds — yet feeling utterly alone.
A gentle yellow light fell on her book,
casting soft shadows on her fingers that trembled slightly.
She was holding a book titled:
“He Was Mine, Yet Never Truly Mine”
— and every word felt like an echo from her own life.
Each page pulled her heartstrings, each line carried the weight of an old memory —
and every moment mirrored the face of Abu Zar.
Tears streamed down quietly, one by one,
as if something inside her was slowly unraveling.
She closed the book gently, took a deep breath, and looked around — thankfully, no one seemed to notice.
She reached for her handkerchief, wiped her tears, and whispered under her breath:
“Oh Abu Zar… why did you do this to me?”
There was a storm within, but her face remained calm — like the surface of still water hiding a sea of pain beneath.
But she didn’t know…
that someone,
from across the table,
hidden behind a wall of books,
had been watching her all this time.
Those eyes had a depth —
as if they, too, carried an unshed tear.
They didn’t blink much,
as if afraid to miss a single moment.
The owner of those eyes remained silent.
He wasn’t Abu Zar…
but he wasn’t any less than him either.
His gaze followed Zoboriya’s every blink,
every breath she took in Abu Zar’s name.
He saw something in her pain —
something familiar, something unfinished.
His name did not reach her lips, but Zoboriya somehow felt the presence.
She turned her head slowly —
her senses alert to the soundless presence.
And just then…
the boy behind the pile of books shifted away, trying to hide.
But it was too late.
Zoboriya had caught the echo — the feeling that someone was silently listening to the cracks of her broken love.
Chapter 5 – A Place Where Love Speaks Without Words
Leaving behind the cold silence of the library, Zoboriya walked out, carrying her heavy heart like an invisible book.
She looked up at the sky — blue, vast, yet strangely hollow.
Her feet instinctively walked the path
toward her secret place —
a quiet corner of the world
she called “her refuge.”
She had to cross a trail of stones,
each one echoing with soft whispers of wind.
And finally…
she arrived.
Trees surrounded her —
branches full of green whispers, birds chirping from above as if the world still believed in forgotten songs.
A small stream flowed beside her —
its slow, hesitant waters
mirroring her own unsaid thoughts.
Far away, a couple sat close, laughing softly, lost in each other’s gaze.
A sad smile brushed across Zoboriya’s lips —
but it never touched her eyes.
She sat down silently on a familiar stone — as if it had been waiting for her all along.
Her scarf fluttered in the breeze, slipping off her shoulder and brushing against the earth — like her soul, tired and seeking rest.
She rested her hands in her lap,
and exhaled a long, deep breath.
“Sometimes the world seems full of color,”
she thought,
“but all I ever hold is a grey mist —
a fog that devours every light I try to find.”
Her eyes were still moist,
but the tears no longer fell.
They had become a quiet companion — a part of her now.
She didn’t know…
that the boy from the library —
the one with unread eyes —
had followed the same path.
He stood at a distance, watching her again.
He had never truly known love.
He had only witnessed its breaking.
And perhaps, for the first time, he saw someone who was just like him.
Someone whose silence was also a language.
"My Blank Love"
Your name still lives in my breath,
like a scent that lingers on a dried branch.
You were never fully mine, yet never truly gone,
like a story that forgot to write its final chapter.
You came... but left without saying a word,
and I sat there, quietly reading your silence.
We were love — voiceless and unfinished,
like a book missing its last page.
Zoboriya still sees that evening —
the one when Abu Zar’s single glance
had awakened her soul.
But after that glance, he left her trapped in a dream called love — a dream where even waking up hurts.
He was never a dream… nor a reality.
But in every memory,
his name is inked.
His return brought no peace to her,
because he was present —
but never truly there.
Some loves don’t need words.
They ask questions with just their eyes.
Abu Zar and Zoboriya…
an unfinished question
that’s too afraid of its answer.
My Blank Love
— “The Name That Was Never Spoken”
Zoboriya read the last line of her book —
and just then, her eyes found a boy sitting a little far from the stage.
It was him...
The one who never spoke her name,
yet understood every silence she lived through.
He didn’t clap,
didn’t take a photo,
just sat there…
his eyes holding the same peace —
As if he wished to be a witness
to all that Zoboriya had never said out loud.
The event ended.
People came forward, praised her, took autographs.
But Zoboriya’s eyes searched for only one face.
When she stepped outside,
she saw him on a bench across the way —
holding an umbrella, as light rain fell around him.
She walked up to him.
Said nothing.
Just sat beside him.
Minutes passed like that —
as if the rain had quietly allowed them to be wet… together.
Then Zoboriya asked:
“Why did you leave that day, when I wrote in my diary: ‘Maybe now, I’m beginning to understand’?”
The boy smiled.
His eyes were still soaked — and not just with the rain.
“Because I wanted you to have the right
to step out of Abu Zarr’s shadow…
and I didn’t want to be an obstacle in that.”
“So you were afraid to become a part of me?” Zoboriya asked softly.
“No,” he said,
“I just wanted to be a part of you that belonged to your ‘today,’ not your memories.”
“And your name?”
Zoboriya’s voice trembled.
“I never asked…”
The boy lowered his head. Then gently said:
“Safwaan.”
Safwaan —
a name that settled in Zoboriya’s heart like the final page of a long unread book.
He pulled out a crumpled paper from his pocket.
“I wrote this before I ever read your book…”
Zoboriya read the lines:
“I am a name that was never spoken in prayer,
yet somehow found a quiet corner on a forgotten page.”
Zoboriya looked at him — truly, for the first time.
He was no longer a stranger.
Even his silence now had a voice.
And his presence, though quiet, felt familiar… almost like home.
From that day forward,
Zoboriya and Safwaan were often seen together.
No confusion.
No forgotten names.
Just a friendship —
not rushing to become love.
“Maybe every love begins as friendship first…”
Zoboriya wrote in her next diary.
“The One Who Left… But Was Never Gone”
Winter had slowly crept into the university campus.
Falling leaves, quiet tea stalls —
everything looked exactly like the days
when Abu Zarr and Zoboriya would walk the same paths, side by side.
Abu Zarr doesn’t come anymore —
but oddly enough, he’s all everyone still talks about.
“Where did Abu Zarr go?”
“Someone said he left the university.”
“No, someone saw him near the old shrine in the city.”
But no one really knows.
Because Abu Zarr was always like that —
more present in his absence, than in his presence.
He was the merchant of silences —
the one who never confessed his love,
but left parts of his soul in Zoboriya’s gaze.
Now, Zoboriya sits alone in the library.
A chair remains empty across from her.
Sometimes she places a book there —
as if Abu Zarr might show up and start reading silently.
“People say I’ve learned to move on…”
she writes in her diary.
“But no one knows —
behind every step I’ve taken forward…
Abu Zarr is standing there.”
Safwaan is still around.
He understands her silences.
But he knows —
he may be the last page of her story,
but Abu Zarr was her very first ink.
Some nights, a single line wakes Zoboriya:
“Does Abu Zarr still walk through the same alley?”
“Has he ever tried to read someone else?”
“Or is he still frozen… at the exact place we left each other?”
Some professors still say:
“Abu Zarr was an unknown poet —
the kind who loved just one girl…
and stayed silent for her.”
Maybe that was his truest form of love —
to never say anything, and yet… say everything.
Zoboriya never forgot him.
She never could.
Because some loves don’t need names —
they live on in prayers.
And when someone asks her about Abu Zarr —
she just says:
“He was my answer —
the one I kept finding in every silence.”
Let me know if you'd like the next chapter:
A secret letter from Abu Zarr?
Zoboriya accidentally finding him again?
Or perhaps a final moment… where he finally speaks?
💌
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