Page 53 of Second Chance

Gianna’s eyes narrow. “You sound like you’re in the NRA.”

Sean scoffs. “I mean, they have a legal right to bear arms. If the police started searching people’s homes in Alabama or whatever for assault rifles after every school shooting, you can bet the NRA would drag them to court. The laws are shitty, but they should still count for us even if the dorm rooms aren’ttechnicallyour property.”

“Maybe they’ll change their minds.” Lily rests her elbows on the table, her fingers drumming against the linoleum. “If enough people speak out and tell them it’s…it’s…”

“Illegal and a blatant misuse of power?” Fred-Frank offers.

“Yeah. We could do, like, a petition. Stop this from happening.” Interesting. Lily isn’t acting like a cold-blooded murderer or someone who would relish the chance to prove she doesn’t have the murder weapon. She’s acting as if she has something to hide.

Sean sprawls out across the table, forehead resting on the sticky top. “That’s so much work. God, Gianna, you’re so lucky you live off campus.”

Gianna snorts. “Bet,” she says, which doesn’t mean anything to Tony.

“Come on; it must be so chill.” Sean looks up at Gianna balefully. “No shitty dining hall food, more than two square feet of space, no police presence searching your room…”

“It’s such a drag.” Gianna pushes her hair out of her face. She needs to get it cut, or tie it up, or something. Lia’s always pulling at it. “Like, I’ll be twenty-three in a month. I shouldn’t still have my mom asking me if I want a hot drink before bed.” She doesn’t mention the detective’s visit to the shop or that she’s probably next on the list if the police find nothing on campus.

“That sounds kind of nice though.” Lily has her arms folded around herself, and she sounds wistful. She’s much too skinny. She should be eating something. “My parents barely talked to me when I was at home.”

Sean snorts. “You could not pay me to move back in with my parents. Playing happy families in suburbia? No, thank you. Going on my dad’s dumb wilderness trips? Double no.”

Tony thinks of how his mom still makes enough food for four, though Tony stays at Daniel’s more nights than not. How she sat Tony down before he started his associate’s degree in Poughkeepsie and told him he was an adult, and he didn’t have a curfew anymore. She didn’t want to bother him by expecting him to be home for dinner every day, but she did want him to talk to her when he wouldn’t be, so she wouldn’t worry.

Sean’s a dick.

“I wish,” Gianna groans around some monstrosity with asparagus and hollandaise sauce this place sells as a pizza. “But my chances of moving out any time in the next five years are basically zero.”

“Must be real rough.” Tony says it before the words bypass his brain, way too loud and way too angry. “Paying nothing inrent and childcare to eat shitty pizza with your friends while Ma and Pa bend over backward so you can finish college.”

He notices, in an abstract way, how Daniel freezes on the other side of the table. Tony doesn’t make eye contact. Instead, he dips a garlic knot halfway into the marinara sauce until it glops out the side of the bowl and spills onto the table.

“Tony?” Gianna twists in her chair to see him.

“Hi.” Tony stuffs the entire garlic knot in his mouth to avoid saying anything else.

Gianna rolls her eyes. “Guys, this is my big brother Tony. He’s twenty-eight and still lives at home, so his opinion is worthless.”

Tony chews methodically. There was an apartment in downtown Kingston, close to the water. Big windows, lots of light. A studio, but what more did Tony really need? He didn’t have a boyfriend, then, just the vague idea of maybe wanting one someday. He filled out the application immediately after touring the place. He decided to sleep on it, scan it in on the work computer, and email it to the landlady the next day.

That was the night Gianna knocked on his door at three in the morning.

Nausea and anxiety kept her up, one feeling piling onto the next until she couldn’t take it anymore. She told him everything then—that she’d fallen for a professor and still loved him, that she wasn’t sure if she was eight or ten weeks pregnant because she didn’t understand how people calculated pregnancies, and that she didn’t know what to do.

The next morning, he wheedled his dad into letting him take the day off work and drove Gianna to the Planned Parenthood in Hudson.

He killed the engine on his car and asked her what she wanted.

They sat in complete silence for over an hour before she told him she didn’t want an abortion.

While she and the baby were being examined by a harried nurse, he drove to the nearest CVS, crumpled up the application for the apartment and threw it in the trash can by the door. Then, he went inside, armed with a list of things the internet claimed were good for morning sickness.

“Tell me,” Tony says when he’s swallowed the last of his garlic knot, and Gianna’s friends have stopped laughing. “Who’s taking care of your baby right now?”

Gianna falls silent.

“Ma, right? You know we’re all picking up extra shifts at the garage to make up for you not being there anymore, right? And that’s on top of your tuition.”

He regrets it before he’s even done saying it. Gianna’s tuition has always been a source of guilt. Lobell’s one of the most expensive colleges in the country, and while she has a generous package of federal aid and student loans, her education still puts a hefty dent into their parents’ savings. She was all set to go to community college instead, but Ma talked her around, said it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Said she should be proud.

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