After five years of silence, I finally said yes to dinner with my first love. I thought it might be a beginning. But by the end of the night, I realized some people come back for the wrong reasons…
and this time, I wasn’t going to disappear quietly.
He slid the check toward me like the meal had been my idea.
“Go ahead, sweetheart,” he said with a smile, like he was offering me a chance to impress him.
I blinked. My hand hovered near my purse.
**
I was 68, and for five years after my husband, Warren, died, I didn’t really live.
I existed.
One Tuesday, I kissed him goodbye in the morning. By nightfall, I was a widow.
It was a stroke, the doctors said.
“It was sudden, ma’am. There wouldn’t have been any pain.”
After the funeral, I drifted. I stopped going places, I stopped answering friends.
I made a little world out of habits and called it peace. Every room in the house echoed.
Some days, I swore I could still hear him humming.
Brenna, my daughter, tried to pull me back. She brought over lemon bars and signed me up for senior yoga.
She sat beside me on the couch and asked questions I couldn’t answer.
But nothing stuck.
Until another Tuesday afternoon, when my phone buzzed with a name I hadn’t seen in 50 years.
Soren.
He had been my first love, the boy who used to slide notes under my locker and promise he’d marry me one day. He had a crooked grin, a slow drawl, and a way of making everything feel like it was happening for the first time.
He was bold where I was shy and charming in a way that made teachers forget he’d skipped his homework.
I clicked on the message, my breath hitching.
“Gracie, I heard about Warren. I’m so sorry.
I’ve thought about you for years. Would you like to have dinner?”
Just like that — no preamble, no small talk, and somehow, that made it harder to look away.
I didn’t reply. I stared at the screen so long the display dimmed, then shut off.
That night, Brenna walked in while I was still sitting in the same spot.
“You look like you saw a ghost,” she said gently, setting her bag down.
“In a way, I think I did,” I murmured, handing her my phone.
She read it once, then again.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say,” I whispered.
“What if I’m not ready for this?”
“Mom, you’re not marrying him. You’re not promising him anything. You’re just saying yes to a dinner.”
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
Tap READ MORE to discover the rest 🔎👇
