Page 20 of Second Chance

“Guess I’m proving her right,” he mutters to himself, but it doesn’t stop him throwing the car into reverse and pulling out of the drive. He barely notices the funky moment when the wheel doesn’t turn quite right because he’s so lost in thought.

Tony pulls up at Daniel’s building in Rhinebeck before he realizes that is where he intended to head. It’s three thirty.Daniel won’t be home for at least an hour yet, and Tony didn’t tell him he was coming over. For a second, he debates shooting Daniel a text or driving over to Lobell to see how he’s doing. Maybe he can find something out, or maybe Daniel will have already talked to Lily since he’s advising her, and maybe—

Maybe Tony will be more in the way at Lobell than he was at home.

Maybe Daniel won’t want him around when he’s in the middle of work. Tony can’t help. What does he know about how to react to a violent attack on a colleague? The closest he ever got was when Mrs. Cooper’s wiener dog hid in the back seat and tried to bite Pa.

The thought of his own uselessness makes him itchy and restless, and given he’s basically dressed in workout clothes anyway, there’s only one thing to do. Tony drops his phone and wallet in the glove compartment, gets out of the car, locks up, and starts to run.

He’s gone on runs this side of the river a couple of times, so he knows the way in theory. Usually, he has his phone with him to help him navigate. Usually, he has his earphones and his well-worn running playlist.

The silence is a comfort today.

It takes a mile or so before he starts feeling guilty for leaving Gianna and Lia alone. He should have stayed and kept babysitting, even though Gigi did send him away. She could probably use the help, and she’ll need to process eventually. That’s when she’ll need him—when she’s sent him away a few times, and he hasn’t let it go.

It’s been a little more than a year since she told him about Lia.

Of course, Lia wasn’t Lia then. Lia was a collection of cells in Gianna’s uterus that she didn’t know what to do with. Tony knew something was up for a while by then, Gianna had been withdrawn and secretive for months. Then one week in mid-July, Gianna stayed in her room for days, feigning a stomach flu. By Thursday, Tony was sure something was wrong, more wrong than her frequent trips to the bathroom to throw up. Usually, when she was sick, Gianna made it everyone else’s problem and moaned loudly about her misery; usually, when she was sick, she got better in a day or two.

The night she told him, it was too hot to sleep despite the rickety AC in his room. Tony lay awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to Gianna’s footsteps pacing around on the landing and wondering if he should go out and say something when she finally knocked on his door.

It’s September now, and the taste of the air has changed. The fresh air of early summer turns musty and unbearable by fall. The heat is still cloying despite it being two months later, though, the sweat creeping down Tony’s neck and chest and slicking his hair when he runs.

Those first days and weeks, the haze of summer made it hard to think clearly and make decisions. Maybe it was because the situation was so hard, but thinking back, Tony can’t find a good reason why it took them so long to tell their parents. He should have as soon as he knew, as soon as she told him anything, but he didn’t. He waited and waited for her to tell him what she wanted, and in the end, it took until September before their parents found out.

Tony remembers sitting in the boiling-hot car outside Gianna’s doctor’s office, waiting for her to get her vitamins and an ultrasound. Before Ma and Pa knew, he was on high alert the whole time, afraid one of their friends or neighbors would seethem and rat Gianna out. Hanging out in parking lots, trying not to be seen, made him feel like he was there for a drug deal instead of for support.

He remembers listening while she talked about dropping out of college, about how she couldn’t go back whenhewas there.

The road twists to the left, and Tony follows the forest trail off of it, welcoming the shade.

He remembers his parents’ faces when they found out. Their disappointment was the worst of it. They’ve never been the kind of parents who yell about serious things. Tony got in trouble more than once for not cleaning up his room to Ma’s standards, and she yelled then. But when it was serious—when Tony got in trouble for punching another kid in school who called Blake G something he refused to repeat to them—they were calm, grave, and sad it had come to this.

The day Gianna told them she was taking a leave of absence from college, almost exactly a year ago, was a very quiet day. Gianna cried for an hour, afterward, big wracking sobs that made her whole body shake with the effort to keep them quiet. He sat next to her on the squeaky-springed twin bed she’d slept in for fifteen years, stroking her shoulders and unable to do anything to fix this. The next morning, Gianna pretended she was fine, and he pretended with her.

Tony’s certain she’s doing the same thing now, pretending, and he should go home and get her to talk it out, to let it out. In their relationship, his role is to be there for her until his presence is so obnoxious she tells him what’s wrong. He sees it as his sacred big brother duty.

He remembers lying on Daniel’s couch a few days ago, how empty and replete he felt once he got the chance to talk a few things out. It didn’t change or do much of anything, but it madehim feel like a whole person instead of a collection of different faces for different situations. Gianna deserves to feel like that too.

Heck, Gianna’s studying psychology. She should know how important it is not to bury this stuff.

Maybe it’s not him she wants to talk to. He can learn to be okay with that. Maybe Lily’s the right person for her to talk to, although Tony gets the impression she’s not as stable as Daniel wishes she were. They went through something somewhat similar, after all. Tony can’t relate to how it feels to be in school with everyone knowing you were seeing a professor; he can’t relate to losing someone you love to a sudden and violent death.

He can, a nasty voice in the back of his head says, relate to dating a professor in general, and henearlylost Daniel to a sudden and violent death last year. But Tony tries his best not to think about how close he came to losing Daniel, and anyway, Gianna’s never asked about his relationship. In fact, she does her best to ignore Daniel when she can. She talks to him when he’s around, and she knows where Tony spends his time, but she never mentions they’re dating. Gianna never mentions who he is to Tony, and she’s never asked why Tony chose this, chose Daniel, now of all times.

Tony doesn’t know if he wants her to.

His feet pound into the pavement harder as the road goes slightly uphill.

It’s not that he’s angry at Gianna, he reasons. He just always thought it would be a bigger deal when he finally came out. Not that he came out in so many words. He’s never called Daniel his boyfriend in front of her. But she knows. She must have wondered over the last years why he stayed at home, why henever talked about dates or girlfriends. Maybe she suspected, but she never asked, and he never told.

With the way things panned out, no one had to ask, and Tony never had to tell anyone. It’s a relief except in all the ways it isn’t. He doesn’t want a big fuss or a heart-to-heart with Ma. He has the latter all the time, and the idea of the former makes his skin crawl. Tony doesn’t need to hear Ma say she doesn’t mind he’s gay. She shows him in the way she treats Daniel and how she insisted on meeting his parents when they were in town this summer. She shows him in the way she still treats Tony—like nothing at all has changed.

At the top of the hill, Tony comes to a stop, panting. He hasn’t run this far before, not in Rhinebeck. Looking around, he doesn’t recognize any of the houses or roads. He’ll have to return the way he came.

The way back is harder. He quickly gets a stitch in his side and has to pace himself.

Tony has all sorts of reasons why he didn’t come out earlier. Daniel asked—of course he did. Still living with his parents at age twenty-eight strikes people as odd; never bothering to tell them he isn’t straight strikes Tony himself as weird. Daniel seemed satisfied with the answers he gave, but Tony’s not sure he’s satisfied anymore. Tony told him he didn’t want to rock the boat, that he was worried about Pa’s regulars and Ma’s church friends, and he didn’t want them to lose their community because of him. He said he always thought he’d wait until there was something worth telling. Something like Daniel.

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