Just Second Chance

#### *JUST SECOND CHANCE*

#### *CHAPTER 1: THE RETURN*

The bus jolted to a stop at exactly 4:47pm.

The conductor shouted "Last stop!" and people started pulling bags from the roof rack. The air that rushed in smelled like dust, diesel, and suya. The same smell I remembered from five years ago.

I stepped down onto red earth. My sandals sank half an inch.

There it was. The baobab tree. Huge and crooked, like an old man with arms stretched to the sky. It was the first thing you saw coming into the village, and the last thing you saw leaving.

Five years.

Five years since I stood here with one backpack, ₦8,000 in my pocket, and a text message from Tunde that I never replied to: _"Don't go like this."_

My phone buzzed in my hand. Mom. 

_"Amaya, are you close? Papa is sleeping now. Doctor came today. He said it's his heart. Please hurry."_

I swallowed. "I'm here, Mama. At the junction."

"Thank God. Take a bike. Don't walk with that bag."

I hung up and looked around for an okada. But my feet weren't moving. Because across the road, by the mango stall, he was standing there.

Tunde Adebayo.

He was taller than I remembered. Or maybe I was smaller now. His white T-shirt was dusty from the farm. His jeans had patches at the knees. And that scar above his left eyebrow was still there. I put it there when we were 17 and fighting over the last meatpie during WAEC.

He saw me.

For a second, neither of us moved. The market noise faded. The children shouting. The generator humming. All of it went quiet.

Then he dropped the basket of mangoes he was holding and walked over.

"You came back," he said.

His voice was deeper. Rougher. Like he'd been using it to shout at farm workers instead of whispering my name at night.

"Temporarily," I said. My voice came out too fast. Too sharp.

His eyes did that thing they used to do — scanned my face like he was trying to memorize me. I'd cut my hair. I was wearing Lagos clothes. Ankara blouse, jeans, not the wrapper I grew up in.

"You look..." He stopped himself. "Your bag is heavy."

He reached for it before I could answer. I let him. Because my arms were tired, and because it felt normal. Like no time had passed.

We started walking.

The village hadn't changed much. The same zinc roofs. The same potholes. Aunty Ngozi was still selling akara by the roadside. She squinted at me. 

"Eh! Is this Amaya? Tunde's Amaya?"

Tunde didn't correct her. I didn't either.

"How's school?" Aunty asked. 

"I finished. I'm a nurse now. In Lagos." 

"Ah, Lagos! Big girl!" She laughed and turned to her oil.

We kept walking. Ten minutes of silence that felt like ten years.

"You didn't answer my letters," he said finally. Not looking at me. 

"You stopped writing after the third one," I replied. 

That was the truth and also a lie. I'd gotten the third letter. It said _"Come home. Or tell me to stop waiting."_ I was scared to answer. Scared that if I did, I'd get on the next bus back.

"I thought you wanted me to stop," he said.

We reached my gate. The blue paint was peeling. The hibiscus flowers were overgrown.

Tunde set my bag down. 

"Your dad will be okay," he said. 

"How do you know?" 

"Because Baba is the most stubborn man I know. He didn't raise a quitter."

He meant me.

I wanted to say thank you. I wanted to ask about his farm, about his sister Ireti who was now a doctor, about why he was still here when everyone else left for the city.

Instead I said, "I should go in."

He nodded. "Yeah."

He turned to leave, then stopped. 

"The clinic needs volunteers on Saturdays. If you're staying... if you have time." 

"I'll think about it," I said.

That was a lie too. I was already thinking about it.

He walked away down the dusty road. His back was broader. He walked slower than he used to. Like he had the weight of the whole village on him.

Inside, the house smelled like ginger and camphor. Mom ran to hug me and immediately started crying. 

"My daughter. My baby."

Dad was in the sitting room, in his chair. He looked smaller. Older. But when he saw me, his eyes lit up. 

"Amaya. You came."

"I came, Papa."

He reached for my hand. His was paper-thin and cold. 

"Don't leave again. Not like last time."

I nodded, even though I didn't know if I could promise that.

That night I slept in my old room. Same bed. Same mosquito net with the hole in the corner. Through the window I could hear crickets. And far away, someone playing highlife music from a phone.

I couldn't sleep.

At 2am I got up and looked out the window. The whole village was dark except for one light. By the clinic.

A lantern. Moving.

Probably Tunde. He always worked late.

I told myself I wasn't thinking about him.

I told myself I was only here for my father.

But this place had a way of pulling things out of you. Secrets. Memories. People you thought you'd buried.

I came back for my dad.

But as I lay there listening to the night, I knew the village wasn't done with me yet.