“Make a left here,” I say, pointing in the direction. I live less than three minutes from the shop, so I walk to work listening to music. I love my new area in Brooklyn and will often spend time walking around taking pictures of the landscape.

I open the door to an empty apartment. Izzy went to visit her parents in Maine. I take off my lavender coat and toss it on the couch. He looks around the apartment and back at me. I move into the kitchen and grab us each a can of Coke from the vintage fridge.

Everything about us is different.

Play it cool, Gia.

Don’t mess this up, but more importantly, don’t have your guard up.

As I gather myself together, I walk back to the living room. He’s perched on the couch. I hand him the Coke, but he grabs both cans and places them on the coffee table.

Suddenly, my dumb heart beats freely and my palms are sweating.

“I need to get something off my chest.”

My eyes grow wide, and I stare at him, waiting for him to spit it out.

“I shot my dad in the head by accident.” His words are jagged as broken glass.

I cover my mouth as I gasp in horror. Gunner radiates so much grief and sorrow it chills me to my bones. He tells me how he met Cora and Rylee and Cora told him about the abuse.

“I confronted him in his basement about what he did to Rylee and told him how much of a piece of shit he was. He was drunk as usual. I threatened to kill him.” Gunner pauses, his eyes move rapidly, and pain etches his face. “I threatened to kill him if he put his hands on Rylee again. So he got out the revolver and told me to be a man. He aimed the gun at his forehead and grabbed my hand and said, ‘Be a man and pull the trigger. Put me out of my goddamn misery.’ And he squeezed my fingers on the trigger.”

Gunner runs his fingers through his hair and aims his head up at the ceiling fan, then he looks at me and I entwine my fingers with his and squeeze. “That’s when my ears rang. It happened so fast. I was in shock so I didn’t realize what had happened. I called Logan and told him everything while I stood there. He told me to wipe the gun clean and place his fingers on the trigger. So I did what he said.