Page 96 of Second Chance

She must mean Sean, and she’s not wrong. She has gotten him into a lot of trouble, but there’s not much to be done about that now. Lily should have considered the consequences before she stabbed someone. She should have thought of the ramifications before she kidnapped a professor and called her boyfriend in to help.

“We can leave while he’s gone.” Tony realizes it’s the wrong offer to make as soon as Lily starts breathing much too fast. She’s going a little green around the nose again.

“Hey.” Gianna snaps her fingers in Lily’s face. “Breathe, Lily. Remember, slowly, in and out.” She demonstrates again, and Lily follows the pattern. “Come on. It’s only Sean. You can leave here.”

Lily shakes her head. “He says I can’t. He says then everyone will know I—will know—”

“About Professor Lawrence?” Gianna speaks softly, no trace of irritation or anger in her voice. It’s such a far cry from how she talks to Tony or even to Ma and Pa that it’s eerie.

“He says…he says if I talk to anyone, they’re going to know I did it.”

“Lily…” Gianna settles an arm around Lily’s shoulders, part comfort and part to keep her in place. “They’re going to find out anyway. You know that, right? Especially after everything with Professor Rosenbaum.”

“I know. It’s all my fault. I should never have come back here. I should have— If I hadn’t messed it all up last year, none of this would have happened.”

A trickle of unwanted sympathy keeps Tony from agreeing wholeheartedly. It’s true Lily is not so much a victim of circumstance as she is the perpetrator by now, but unlike Stacy, she never had a plan. She never tried to cover her tracks, to blame someone else. She’s just sick and desperate.

“I was so angry about the grade from last year, you know, and…and I went to her office. He helped me with what to say because it’s so hard not to give up and agree with whatever professors say, and he’s so much better at it. But then, I forgot everything he said, and the knife—”

“Why did you bring a knife?” Gianna asks.

It’s a valid question.

“I don’tknow.” Deep worry lines, too deep for someone her age, ravage Lily’s forehead before she buries her face in her hands. If Tony asks her now why she left the knife taped to Daniel’s door, he suspects she would say the same thing. Maybe it wasn’t a threat, as he’s been assuming; maybe in her muddled mind, it was a confession.

“We’ll figure it out.” Daniel sounds firm, calm, and nowhere near as incredulous as Tony’s feeling right about now. How are they supposed to figure anything out when she can’t even remember why she did what she did?

“But I—when I— Everyone knows I’m totally nuts. I can’t—”

“Yeah, well, you’re not.” Gianna rubs Lily’s arm comfortingly, still holding her. Belatedly, it strikes Tony that maybe he should be concerned about his sister being so close to a murderer, let alone blatantly lying to one to make her feel better. “Look, you need some help. You need—”

Lily wrenches out of Gianna’s grasp. “I’mtiredof needing help! Everyone looks at me like I’m…like I’m broken, or an idiot, orboth. This year was supposed to be my fresh start, my second chance, and I thought if I got all my grades from last year, I could finally stop thinking about—about—”

“About Mario,” Gianna finishes.

Lily nods wordlessly, looking away.

“You know, Mario was really good at making me feel as if everything was my idea.”

Tony freezes in place, not daring to look at Gianna. He’s never heard her talk about Mario or their relationship beyond the barest of bones.

Lily, though—Lily looks up as if every word Gianna says is the lifeline she needs.

“The first time he kissed me,” Gianna continues, “he got mad right after, said it was my fault. I mean, I wanted him to, and I thought he wanted to, as well, but he acted like I tempted him or something.” Gianna shakes her head with a forced laugh. “It took me a while to work out the pattern. Too long. He’d start something and then pretend I was the one who forced his hand. Made me feel guilty about it. Made me feel like I couldn’t tell anyone because I was the one who wanted him.”

Tucking her hair behind her ears, Lily quietly says, “When I went to his office hours, he would say I should stop looking athim ‘like that,’ or he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions. He said it as if it was a joke, but I still felt bad.”

Gianna nods. “Exactly, yeah. You know, I was actually excited when I first found out I was pregnant. I thought he’d take me seriously then. I thought maybe we would really be together.”

“What did he say?”

Tony leans in closer. This is the part Gianna never told him about. First, she said he hadn’t decided yet what he wanted to do about the baby. Later, he was dead.

“He said…” For the first time, Gianna looks down, away from Lily. “He said it was my fault. I should have been more careful. I was going to get him in trouble. He wanted me to get rid of it. Of her. Of Lia.”

Tony thinks back to the parking lot at the Planned Parenthood in Hudson. He’d been waiting to hear whatshewanted. She must have been going over it in her head, around and around in circles, whathewanted.

“And I mean, I understood,” Gianna barrels on. “It would have probably been the smart choice. But I couldn’t—I mean, Ilovedhim, or I thought I did. And I already loved that kid so much. I wasn’t—I couldn’t—”

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