Page 17 of Still With Me (She's With Me 3)

I keep chanting this statement in my head, but a lone tear escapes anyway. I discreetly swipe at it, trying not to draw any attention to myself.

Annalisa yanks her hand out of his grasp and bangs it on the table. “You are not going to prison for life. It’s bad enough you’re stuck in here while you wait for trial.”

A guard comes over at the commotion. “Hey, keep it down here.”

She nods to placate him and the guard goes back over to his position.

“Lise, I’m looking at twenty-five to life,” Luke warily reminds her.

“Not if you’re innocent,” she states.

“It’s not looking that way . . .” He deflates, the earlier hopefulness and confidence gone. “Besides, I don’t even remember what happened. There’s nothing I can do.”

“To hell with that!” Annalisa proclaims, earning her another warning from a guard.

She apologizes and returns her attention to her brother. “Of course you can’t do anything from in here, but we can. We’re going to put together what happened that night.”

“But you can’t even—”

“Just shut up and trust me,” she cuts him off, all evidence of her previous vulnerability gone with the return of her normal, confident demeanor.

Luke closes his mouth and waits for her to continue.

“I need you to tell us what you remember from that night.”

He shrugs. “I told you guys what I remember already when we met at Sweetie’s that night. That’s all I remember.”

“Just go over it again!” she demands. “Maybe you forgot something.”

He repeats the same story as before, about feeling down about himself and breaking his sobriety by going to an old bar. About running into some old friends who told him his old drug dealer was out of prison. About finding Greg and getting into a fight with him, but not remembering where he found Greg or how he woke up at home the next morning.

“And that’s everything, I swear. I’ve been racking my brain for weeks trying to put together the missing pieces, but it’s a big blank.”

“And you’re sure you weren’t high that night too? There was heroin in his system when he died,” she grills him.

“Yes, I’m sure,” he says emphatically. “I’m not going back down that road, ever. Plus, even if you don’t believe me, they gave me a test the night I was arrested, and it came back clean.”

Annalisa rubs her temples with her fingers. “I—I don’t know where to go from here.”

“Why don’t we search Luke’s apartment?” I suggest. “Maybe we can find some clues the cops overlooked as to where he was that night? A receipt or something?”

They agree it’s a good start and a guard comes over to tell us our time is up.

Luke quickly tells us his address and where we can find a key to get in as the guard hauls him up. Almost as if before she can change her mind, Annalisa stands up and rounds the table, wrapping her arms around Luke and hugging him close for what might be the first time in years. Luke looks almost as shocked as Annalisa is at herself, but he hugs her back just in time for the guard to order them apart.

Annalisa steps back, toeing the floor awkwardly. The guard leads Luke away, and he looks back at Annalisa the whole time, as if trying to drink in the memory of her while he can, like she’ll never come back. We stay there watching as they lead him out the door and handcuff him, until we’re forced to leave the room. That probably took more of an emotional toll on her than she let on.

“How do you feel?” I ask as the guard collects our visitor passes.

“Okay, I guess. I think I needed that,” she says. “Thanks for being there with me. I don’t know if I could’ve done that alone,” she admits with vulnerability in her voice.

“Hey, I barely said a word. You practically did it all by yourself. I felt like I was intruding on something that should’ve been private.”

She puts a hand on my arm to stop us walking, and stares right into my eyes with her piercing blue ones.

“No, really. There’s no one I would’ve wanted there more than you. You’re one of the most genuine people I know.”

Yeah. Supergenuine. I tug at the collar of my shirt. It’s not like I’m hiding a life-changing secret from you or anything. Or planning on ditching you and never speaking to you again in a few weeks.

---