My Blank Love
Sadness floated in the air, as if even the sky had cried over something unseen. Standing quietly in the corner of the room, Abu Zar stared ahead, unable to gather the courage to meet Zoboria’s eyes.
Zoboria stood a few steps away — silent, frozen — yet inside her raged a storm of questions. The still moisture in her eyes deepened further with Abu Zar’s silence.
“Zoboria…”
Abu Zar’s voice was barely audible, as if he was afraid of his own words.
“You want to know, don’t you… why I distanced myself from you?”
He still couldn’t look at her. There was no exhaustion in his voice — only a deep fracture, the kind that forms when a secret is buried under years of pain.
“So listen…”
He closed his eyes, as though each word was being torn out of his chest.
“I was diagnosed with an illness… one in which living long isn’t expected.”
He took a long breath — as if he had been carrying years of weight inside him.
“I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want to see pity in your eyes… or fear. I didn’t want you to break a little every day… dying slowly along with me.”
His eyes remained fixed on the ground, but his lips began to tremble.
“I loved you, Zoboria… and perhaps that’s why I hid the truth.”
He paused for a moment, then spoke softly:
“But I couldn’t hide my love… it kept reaching you. In every silence, in every distance — my love was always there.”
Zoboria’s throat tightened. Tears flowed silently down her face. She wanted to speak, but she had already heard Abu Zar’s punishment.
And now… it was her turn to decide.
Zoboria smiled after hearing Abu Zar’s confession…
But it wasn’t an ordinary smile.
It was like a cracked wall suddenly letting sunlight seep in — like a wave stirring in eyes that had been still for years — like the word “waiting” written on sand finally being shown to the sea.
She spoke softly,
“If you were truly breaking… did you think I was so weak, Abu Zar, that I couldn’t break with you?”
Her voice was gentle, without complaint.
What it held was only that love — still standing where it had stopped, the day Abu Zar walked away.
Moisture filled Abu Zar’s eyes. Even then, he couldn’t look at her.
But Zoboria no longer needed his face — she had learned to read his silence.
And in that silence was only one truth…
Love had never become incomplete.
Zoboria left quietly…
She said nothing, asked nothing, didn’t even look back.
Her steps were light, yet they left deep marks on the ground — as if an answer was being abandoned with every step, as if every breath carried a farewell.
Abu Zar remained standing there —
His words never reached Zoboria’s shoulders, but his silence pierced straight into his own chest.
He closed his eyes for a moment and felt everything he had never been able to say.
“Zoboria…”
He whispered her name into the air — as if her name itself was now his final love.
But the air stayed silent. Zoboria was gone.
Yet Abu Zar knew one thing —
His silence held an answer, and perhaps that answer would never return as words again.
Zoboria returned home and collapsed into her mother’s arms.
The moment she opened the door, her tears poured out as if she had fought the entire world and was finally exhausted — wanting only to gather her broken soul in her mother’s embrace.
“Ammi…” her voice trembled.
Her mother rushed out of the kitchen, alarmed at the sight of her daughter.
“What happened, my child? Why are you crying?”
She pulled Zoboria into a tight hug.
Clinging to her mother’s chest, Zoboria sobbed uncontrollably.
“Ammi… Abu Zar… he’s ill. Very ill. He hid everything from me…”
Her mother’s eyes filled instantly.
“What illness? What are you saying?”
“He was diagnosed with a disease that doesn’t leave much time to live… and he distanced himself because he didn’t want me to break…” Her voice choked.
“And I… I kept thinking he had changed… I thought he abandoned me…
But Ammi, he was fighting a war with himself… and I couldn’t even understand him…”
Her mother gently stroked her back.
“My child… love isn’t just about staying together. Sometimes the greatest love is the one hidden even from oneself — just so the other doesn’t suffer.”
“But Ammi…” Zoboria said through tear-filled eyes,
“He endured everything alone… Did I look so weak that he was afraid to tell me?”
Her mother wiped her tears.
“No… you are not weak.
But when someone loves deeply, they have only one wish — not to cause pain to the one they love. Abu Zar did exactly that… he took the pain upon himself and tried to protect you.”
Zoboria lay silently with her head in her mother’s lap, yet tears continued to slip from the corners of her eyes.
One question echoed endlessly in her heart —
Does Abu Zar still love her just as much?
And is there still time left between them?
Safwan sat alone in his darkened room.
Evening had fallen outside, but inside his room time seemed frozen — like a blurred memory.
Cigarette butts were scattered everywhere; the ashtray held more smoldering silences than ash. He had smoked countless cigarettes, yet with every drag it felt as if he was trying to expel Zoboria’s memory from within — but her memory was like smoke itself, sinking deeper with every breath.
An old song played softly in the background —
“If you’re not here, then nothing exists…”
Every lyric tore through his chest.
He opened the window. A cool breeze entered the room, but it couldn’t soothe the heat trapped inside him.
From somewhere down the street, a girl’s laughter echoed — like salt rubbed into an open wound.
“Zoboria…”
For the first time, he didn’t call her name with his voice — he called it with his tears.
He had rehearsed life without her so many times — sitting alone in cafés, deleting old messages, forcing himself to hate the things she loved…
Yet the truth was, he was still standing at the very turn where Zoboria had left him.
“I wish… I had said something that day…”
Tears spilled from his eyes.
“I wish I were Abu Zar.
I wish I had been your first and your last, Zoboria.”
He stared at her photograph hanging on the wall for a long time, then whispered,
“I can’t even hate you… and love — that has already flowed into my veins.”
And then… he remained seated in the darkness.
He took another drag of his cigarette and said to himself,
“Maybe one day, this smoke itself will lead me back to you…”
🔹 Next Short Part – Short Scene
Abu Zar was sitting in the hospital corridor.
The white walls, the smell of medicines, and the growing fear in his heart — everything was breaking him at once.
He took his phone out of his pocket.
Zoboria’s name was glowing on the screen…
but he didn’t call her.
“If I call her today,” he whispered to himself,
“maybe I won’t survive tomorrow…”
On the other side, Zoboria sat by the window, staring at the sky.
Her heart kept repeating one thing —
Something is wrong… terribly wrong.
And somewhere far away, Safwan put out his cigarette for the first time.
Maybe today,
a decision was about to be made…
(To be continued…)
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