“I don’t feel anything.”

That’s what Akif always told himself.

That people were just… people.

Nothing to attach to. Nothing to remember. Just passing characters in his story.

He wasn’t cold.

He was just... guarded.

Until Zoya.

---

He stared at the ceiling of his room that night, headphones in, volume down. The rain outside tapped against his windows like it was trying to speak.

> “You didn’t even read the damn book,” he muttered to himself.

He thought back to the library.

How her fingers brushed his.

How she laughed at his Pinterest poetry.

How she looked at him like he was a poem himself.

He closed his eyes.

> What is this?

---

He remembered the first time he noticed her.

Not the way everyone else did — not with gossip, or glances, or pity.

But really noticed her.

It was that one morning…

She was sitting on the edge of the steps, wearing a faded hoodie, sipping chai, and staring at the sky like it owed her answers.

Something about that moment…

He didn’t know why, but he had stopped.

And then he noticed the shadows under her eyes.

The silent pain behind her voice.

The way she always kept her back straight, like she was afraid to bend or she’d break.

> She’s not fragile, he thought.

She’s exhausted from surviving.

---

He rubbed his eyes and sat up, unable to sleep.

Why her?

Why not the dozens of girls who flirted with him, DM’d him, laughed too loud when he passed by?

Why Zoya — the quiet, storm-eyed girl who never asked for anything?

> “Because she doesn’t want attention,” he whispered.

“She wants peace.”

And for some reason…

He wanted to be the one who gave it to her.

---

> “This is stupid,” he told himself.

> “She’s new here. You’re just… reacting.”

> “You don’t feel things. You don’t fall.”

But then he remembered how her voice dropped when she said,

> “I wasn’t heartbroken by a boy.”

And he remembered what that felt like.

> That ache you carry from family.

From growing up in a house where love felt like a battle.

From fighting to be heard. To be safe. To be enough.

> He remembered — because he had lived it too.

---

Akif stood by the window now, staring out at the blinking city lights.

> She’s soft.

You’re sharp.

> She’s emotional.

You hide yours.

> She believes in people.

You stopped doing that a long time ago.

But still… when she’s around,

His voice softened.

His anger faded.

His walls? They cracked.

And every time she laughed — really laughed —

He felt something in his chest shift.

Something terrifying.

Something tender.

---

> “This isn’t love,” he told himself.

> “You don’t even know her enough.”

But he knew her tears.

He knew her silences.

He knew the way she stopped breathing when he stood too close.

And he knew that when she smiled — genuinely smiled —

It felt like the universe was trying to forgive him for something.

---

He lai

d back down, pulling the blanket over his face, whispering like a fool in the dark:

> “If this isn’t love…

Then what the hell is it?”

---

To be continued...