Page 46 of It's Only Make Believe

He shakes his head again but he’s laughing,

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and say Mel is probably suspicious about something happening between us at this point,” he says.

“Or she just thinks you’re absolutely mental,” I add.

“Or that,” Luke agrees.

“So, I’m forgiven then I take it?” I say.

“Of course,” Luke says.

I stand up.

“I’d better get back to work then,” I say.

“Wait, I haven’t actually showed you what I called you here to show you,” Luke says.

“Oh. I thought you called me here to dump me,” I say.

“To dump you? What? Why would you think that?” Luke says and he looks genuinely puzzled.

“I didn’t think I’d made it clear enough that I did believe you,” I say. “And I figured you didn’t want to be with someone who doubted your word.”

Luke thinks for moment and then he looks up at me.

“Admittedly, I did think you only half believed me, but I didn’t want to dump you. I could understand from your point of view why you were struggling because Justin is your friend,” Luke says. “I went to get proof to show you. I’m still going to show you it, but I’m glad that we had this conversation first, because now I know for sure you believed me fully before I show you this.”

“I don’t need to see it,” I say. “Really.”

“I know you don’t need to see proof to believe me now, but aren’t you curious about what really happened to Justin?” Luke says and I nod. I definitely am. He shows me a thumb drive. “This is CCTV from outside of the pub we went to. I went to talk to the owner. Don’t tell anyone you’ve seen this because really, he’s not supposed to give it out to anyone other than an officer of the law, but it’s funny what promises of secrecy and a nice little cash incentive can make people do.”

He puts the thumb drive into the side of his computer and clicks to play the file. He fiddles around until he finds out how to skip it forward, and he does this a few times.

“We’re due to come out at any moment,” he says.

I expect the images to be grainy, but they aren’t at all. The damned thing is practically in HD. The door to the pub opens and I tense up, but it’s a stranger. Seconds later, it opens again, and this time, Luke steps out. He looks both ways and then turns and starts to walk.

He reaches out and pauses the footage.

“I was going to call a cab, but I heard Justin coming behind me. He had already told me he was into you and all of that shit, that’s why I walked away, and I didn’t want to discuss it further and I figured I would walk at least so far home and flag down a cab and he would walk the other way and avoid any further confrontation,” Luke explains and then he hits play again and the images start moving once more.

Luke walks a few more steps and then the pub door opens again and Justin steps out. He looks a bit unsteady on his feet but there’s no bruising on his face. I wonder if he managed to fall and hurt himself, but that would be some epic fall to do that much damage to his face. I keep watching.

Justin stalks along behind Luke and then Luke turns around. There’s no audio, but I see his mouth moving and he’s pointing. Justin says something back and then he goes for Luke. Luke pushes him away before he can do any damage and then Luke turns around and walks away, leaving Justin leaning against the wall of the pub. Luke pauses the footage again.

“That’s the last I saw of him. I walked the next block or two and flagged down a cab and went home,” Luke says.

I look at the time on the display.

“That’s only about half an hour before Justin arrived at my place. Say fifteen minutes for the cab ride. What the hell happened in the next fifteen minutes?” I say.

“Maybe he went back inside and got himself into trouble,” Luke says.

“Let’s see,” I say.

Luke hits play again and for a moment, Justin just stands there and then he pushes himself up from the wall he’s been leaning against. He stands in place swaying and then he says something which we can’t hear. I gasp as I see what comes next. Justin punches himself in the face.

Luke and I look at each other in shock and then we both look back at the screen. Justin spends the next few minutes punching himself hard in the face, slamming his face off the side of the building, and just generally beating the hell out of himself. Finally, he stops the onslaught and gets his cell phone out which is, I assume, when he calls the cab to bring him to my place.

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