The Second First Time

The Second First Time

By Shehzad Ahmad

The first time Maya left, she didn’t say goodbye.

She was seventeen. Angry. The kind of angry that boils silently in the chest for years before erupting in a single suitcase. She walked out on a father who yelled too much, a mother who smiled too little, and a town that smelled like diesel, dampness, and someone else’s dreams.

She promised herself she’d never come back.

But seventeen is young. And youth makes dangerous promises.


---

Fourteen years later, Maya stood at the edge of Willow Street, staring at the rusting gate of a house that still existed in her dreams—sometimes as a memory, sometimes as a warning.

She hadn’t meant to return. It was only supposed to be a detour. A train delay. A coincidence.

But grief doesn’t believe in coincidences.

Her mother had passed away three days ago. Quietly, in her sleep. Alone. Maya found out through a neighbour who had tracked her down on Facebook with a simple message: “I thought you should know. She always said you'd come back.”

And so here she was—back in the town she swore off like a bad habit. Back in the house that knew all her secrets. Back on the porch where her father once stood screaming as she disappeared down the road.


---

The front door creaked open like it remembered her.

The air smelled the same—lavender, old wood, and time. The walls hadn’t been repainted. Her mother’s porcelain cats still lined the mantelpiece. A faint ring remained on the coffee table where Maya once spilled grape soda and cried for hours after failing a math test.

It felt like walking into a paused memory.

She wandered the house slowly. Her fingers grazing wallpaper, chipped photo frames, the ghost of her younger self.

The kitchen was exactly the same. The clock still frozen at 6:41—broken for over a decade. Maya had once joked it was symbolic, the house being stuck in time. Her mother hadn’t laughed.

On the fridge was a faded photo—Maya at fourteen, arms crossed, hair wild, a defiant look in her eyes. Next to it, a sticky note in her mother’s handwriting: “I forgive you.”

Maya sank into a chair.

She hadn’t cried at the news. Not on the train. Not when collecting the keys from the solicitor. Not even when walking into the house.

But now, in this kitchen filled with memory and dust, she sobbed.

Because this was the first time she was seeing her mother clearly.
And it felt like the second first time she was meeting her.


---

The funeral was small.

Maya didn’t know most of the faces—neighbors, church women, the florist who always gave her mother tulips on Thursdays. There was no grand eulogy. No speeches. Just quiet, gentle goodbyes.

Afterward, she sat on the porch, the same step she used to sneak out from as a teenager.

“Didn't think I’d see you again,” came a voice.

She turned.

He hadn’t changed much. Older, sure. His beard was thicker. His eyes a little softer. But it was still him. Aiden.

They’d been everything once—first kisses, missed curfews, midnight bike rides. He was the only good thing about that summer before she left. And she’d left him behind too.

“Hi,” she said.

“You cut your hair.”

“You still wear that ugly leather jacket.”

He smiled, and just like that, time folded in on itself.


---

They walked to the lake.

The same lake where they’d once carved their initials into a tree, hidden beneath a thick canopy of willows. Maya found the tree again. The carving was still there—weathered but proud.

“I came back a few years ago,” he said, skipping stones. “Couldn’t stand London anymore.”

She nodded. “I get that.”

He paused. “Why now?”

Maya exhaled. “I didn’t come back to stay. Just for the funeral. But being here… it feels different now. Less like punishment. More like… a memory I haven’t finished reading.”

Aiden looked at her. “Sometimes things need to break before we can see what they’re made of.”

She smiled. “You always were too poetic.”

“And you were always too stubborn.”

Silence settled between them—not heavy, just familiar.


---

That night, Maya stayed in her childhood room.

It was smaller than she remembered. Or maybe she was just finally big enough to see it properly.

She lay on the same creaky bed, stared at the same glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, and wondered why she had stayed away so long. Not from the town. Not even from the memories.

But from herself.

Because maybe the real return wasn’t to a place.
Maybe it was to a version of you that never got a proper goodbye.


---

The next morning, Maya stood in the kitchen making coffee.

She reached for the mug her mother always used—the one that said “Don’t Talk to Me Until This Is Empty.” It had a small chip on the rim. She remembered that chip. She remembered her mother complaining about it for weeks and never replacing it.

She smiled. For the first time, it wasn’t painful.

Later, Aiden picked her up, and they drove out to the old bridge. They walked slowly. He told her stories about what had changed—who got married, who left, who stayed.

She listened. Really listened.

At the edge of the bridge, they stopped.

“This is where we first kissed,” Aiden said.

“No,” Maya corrected. “It’s where I almost chickened out, and you leaned in first.”

“And you said, ‘About time.’”

They laughed.

And then, without thinking, she kissed him.

Not like the first time. Not desperate. Not clumsy. Not rushed.

But with the depth of someone who had been lost, wandered far, and finally circled home.


---

Maya stayed another week.

She cleaned out the attic. Donated clothes. Read old letters. She even found a dusty, unopened envelope addressed to her in her mother’s handwriting. Inside was a birthday card—her 25th. With a note:

> “I don’t know where you are. But I hope you’re safe. I hope you’re still dancing when no one’s watching. I hope you forgive me, the way I always forgave you. Come home when you’re ready. I’ll be here.”



It broke her.

And healed her at the same time.


---

Before leaving, she visited the lake one last time. The tree. Their initials.

Aiden met her there. He brought coffee and two muffins.

She looked at him, truly looked.

“I thought this place would always haunt me,” she said.

“And now?”

“It feels like the second first time I’ve lived.”