She's With Me

by Jessica Cunsolo

  After a while, Vince is led by some officers to the back, and Brian comes to sit with us.

  “Dad, what’s going on?” Mason asks impatiently.

  “They have Aiden in holding right now. He’s still a few weeks shy of eighteen so they can’t question him without the presence of an appropriate adult, which I guess would be either Vince or me,” Brian explains, pulling out his phone and going through some contacts.

  “But they can’t question him without a lawyer! Shouldn’t we be getting him a lawyer?!” Annalisa exclaims, more agitated than she usually is.

  “He doesn’t need a lawyer because he didn’t do anything!” Noah defends Aiden. “He has, like, seven witnesses! Eight if you count the guy working the counter at the pizza place!”

  Brian ignores Noah and stands up. “I’m calling a lawyer now. Hopefully he’ll be here soon.”

  And with that, Brian walks away to find a quiet place to make his phone call, leaving the rest of us to our unproductive worrying.

  A half hour later, a professional-looking man in a pressed suit enters the police station, and Brian gets up to shake his hand. They talk to some officers, who hustle the man I’m assuming is Aiden’s lawyer into the back room.

  Charlotte is sitting beside Chase, and they’re talking in hushed tones between themselves. Annalisa is looking around the police station, glaring everyone down and looking like she’s trying very hard not to punch anyone who looks at her the wrong way.

  Julian’s sitting beside her, talking to Mason and Brian about what could possibly happen to Aiden and what’s going on back there.

  Noah’s beside me, his foot rapidly and incessantly tapping the floor in an anxious manner, the sound slowly driving me crazy.

  I’m just sitting in the uncomfortable chair, incapable of doing anything except try really hard to ignore the pit of anxiety and worry building up in my stomach.

  After a while, my irritability and stress come to a breaking point and I instinctively slap my hand on Noah’s thigh, effectively stopping the incessant tapping.

  “NOAH,” I snap.

  Noah glances at my hand still on his thigh, preventing him from continuing the repetitive anxious tapping. “I know I’m irresistible, Amelia, but now is not the time or place to get frisky.”

  I remove my hand and roll my eyes at him, in no mood for his Noah-ness at this highly stressful moment.

  I just don’t know what’s taking so long. Aiden didn’t do anything, so this all should’ve been sorted out already. Right?

  After a while, Charlotte’s strict parents start calling, so her older brother comes to pick her and Chase up, who has his own worried parents to get home to. We promise we’ll keep them both updated.

  It must have been an hour or two later when the lawyer and Vince come back out, unfortunately without Aiden.

  Brian goes over to talk to the other men, and we all sit up more attentively, straining to hear what they’re saying. They talk for a while with some other officers, and then the lawyer and Brian leave with two other police officers, leaving us all staring after them, confused.

  Vince heads over to us, looking tired but less frustrated, which I hope is a good thing. We all stand up as he approaches, ready to question him about what’s going on.

  2

  “They’re going to hold Aiden overnight until his alibi clears,” Vince informs us before any of us can interrogate him.

  “Aren’t we his alibi?” Julian replies.

  Julian’s father motions us over to the side of the tiny room for some privacy from the other random people in the waiting area.

  “Greg’s body was found beaten up and very much dead in front of Aiden’s house. Aiden’s cell phone was also found at the crime scene. They put the time of death around 6 p.m., but Aiden had been at Mason’s house since four thirty. Aiden and Mason left to pick up the pizza in Aiden’s car around ten to seven, and then they went straight to Amelia’s house. The cameras in front of Mason’s house can prove all the times, and Brian just left to get the police the tapes to clear Aiden.”

  We all look at each other, stunned.

  Greg’s body was found in front of Aiden’s house? With Aiden’s cell phone?

  “His cell phone? I know for a fact that his cell phone was with him at Amelia’s house,” Mason chimes in.

  “His old phone. Remember, he lost it a few weeks ago, at the Tr—school.” I very awkwardly cut myself off from saying “Tracks,” because Julian’s dad is there, and I’m not trying to nark on anyone.

  “But how did Aiden’s phone end up at the crime scene?” Annalisa asks uselessly, since none of us know the answer.

  “Never mind that, how did the dead body of Aiden’s despised stepfather end up in front of his house? Was it moved there?” Julian ponders.

  Vince rubs his eyes, clearly never having thought that he’d ever have to deal with a murder charge. “Forensics determined that it was the primary location, meaning that Greg died in front of Aiden’s house.”

  “That does not look good for our boy.” Noah grimaces.

  “He didn’t do it, Noah!” Annalisa snaps.

  “Geez, I know. I’m just saying . . .” he replies, mumbling about how Annalisa gets crankier than usual when she doesn’t get any sleep.

  “Noah’s right though,” Vince says. “With the location of the death, Aiden’s phone, and the bruising on Greg indicating a recent fight, it doesn’t look too good. Plus, Aiden and Greg’s past doesn’t help—it’s on record that Aiden petitioned against Greg’s parole. It could be reasoned that he had motive.”

  I scoff at how ludicrous this whole situation is. “Aiden is one of the smartest people I know, book and street-wise. He has one of the top GPAs not just in the school, but in the entire school district. I think if he were going to kill a guy, he wouldn’t leave the dead body in front of his house.”

  Everyone smiles tiredly and nods at the truth behind my statement. I mean, really. No one can actually be so dumb as to kill someone and just leave their dead body chillin’ in front of their house like no big deal while they go eat pizza and watch movies at their friend’s house.

  But if Aiden didn’t kill Greg, who did? Why was the primary crime scene in front of Aiden’s house? Is someone trying to frame him? But why?

  “Listen, everyone,” Vince commands, authority in his voice. “They’re going to clear this all up and Aiden should be out of here before you know it. He asked that you all go home instead of sitting here worrying about him. He wanted me to assure you all that he’s fine and that it’ll all be okay.”

  Aiden’s literally in jail (or in police holding, whatever, there’s still bars) and still, his first priority is his friends? That man literally cannot make me like him any more than I already do.

  Vince lightly slaps Julian’s back. “Come on, Son, let’s go home and get some rest. Everything will be sorted out soon. Annalisa, I’m guessing you’re staying at our house tonight?”

  Annalisa nods and starts putting on her jacket, and Vince looks at the rest of us. “Do you guys need a ride home?”

  “Yeah, I do,” Noah says, looking up from his phone. “But maybe I should stay at your house too. I have nineteen missed calls from my mother and don’t feel like dying tonight.”

  We smile at Noah despite the tense circumstances and the exhaustion that’s beginning to set in.

  “Tough break, kid. Judy’s one tough woman when she’s angry.” Vince chuckles before looking at Mason and me. “Do you kids need a ride home?”

  I shake my head no. “I drove here,” I inform him, leaving out the part that I have absolutely zero intention of leaving.

  Mason looks at me suspiciously, as if he can read my mind. “I’ll catch a ride with Amelia.”

  “Okay, then, you guys get home safe. Try not to worry, everything will be taken care of.”

  We say
good-bye to everyone and when they’re out of earshot, I turn to Mason.

  “You know I’m not leaving any time soon right?”

  He rolls his eyes at me and plants his butt firmly in the uncomfortable chair in the waiting area. “Of course I know that. I just messaged my dad and told him that I’m hitching a ride with you once this is all sorted out.”

  I take a seat beside him and slouch back, tired.

  Aiden has always been there for me; he’s always helped me out whenever I needed it, even if I didn’t ask him; even when I pissed him off or antagonized him.

  Like when he got Ethan Moore to take down the video of me that Ethan had posted on the internet. Or when he put up with all my attitude and tutored me in calculus, helping me pull up my failing grade. Or when Kaitlyn and Ryan trashed my car and he brought me to Charlotte’s to sleep while he dealt with the tow truck, the mechanic, and all the repairs, refusing to accept any money. Or like how he won four thousand dollars racing Ryan at the Tracks and gave it to me to spend however I wanted. That’s only naming a few; he’s done so much and cares so deeply for his family and friends.

  Aiden’s such a good person with such a genuinely kind soul; I can’t bear the thought of just leaving him in jail. I know he told us all to go home and stop worrying, but I can’t leave comfortably knowing that he’s here. I feel like I’d be abandoning him in a way, especially after he just found out the real truth about me, and wasn’t scared away.

  He opened up to me, something that I know is extremely hard for him to do, and I betrayed him. I was lying to him the entire time while he was always completely honest and transparent with me. He was so incredibly hurt in the moment when he found out that my entire identity is a lie. Just the memory of the look on his face when he found out what a huge hypocrite I am—the look of complete disbelief and betrayal—still breaks my heart.

  He knows my name isn’t Amelia—he found the shoebox that holds reminders of my past lives; he found out that I am a lying piece of garbage. But he understood. He’s not mad at me and he kissed me. He said that he’s all in—so I’m not going anywhere until he’s released.

  “What do you think he’s thinking about?” I ask Mason, trying to distract myself.

  “Probably his brothers,” he answers honestly.

  “You’re probably right. He loves Jason and Jackson more than anything.”

  “Do you think Ryan found out about his dad?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m one hundred percent certain that this is only going to make the hatred Ryan holds for Aiden so much stronger.”

  “You don’t think—” Mason pauses, thinking through his words. “You don’t think Ryan had something to do with this?”

  Mason and I look at each other intently for a second, letting the suggestion sink in, before shaking our heads to dismiss that notion.

  “No way,” I tell him. “Why would Ryan kill his own father then bring the body to Aiden’s house just to frame him? Even he’s not that psychotic.”

  “You’re right. Ryan is crazy, but not murder-my-own-dad-just-to-frame-my-archnemesis crazy.”

  I laugh half-heartedly with him, glad that Mason decided to wait here with me. There’s got to be an explanation for what happened. And none of us will stop until we know who really killed Greg.

  Stay With Me coming September 2020 from Wattpad Books.

  About the Author

  Jessica Cunsolo’s young adult series, With Me, has amassed over one hundred million reads on Wattpad since she posted her first story, She’s With Me, on the platform in 2015. The novel has since won a 2016 Watty Award for Best Teen Fiction, and has been published in French by Hachette Romans and in Spanish by Grupo Planeta. Jessica lives with her dog, Leo, just outside Toronto, where she enjoys the outdoors and transforming her real-life awkward situations into plotlines for her viral stories. You can find her on Twitter @AvaViolet17, on Instagram @jesscunsolo, or on Wattpad @AvaViolet.

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2020 Jessica Cunsolo. All rights reserved.

  Published in Canada by Wattpad Books, a division of Wattpad Corp. 36 Wellington Street E., Toronto ON, M5E 1C7

  www.wattpad.com

  No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of the copyright holders.

  First Wattpad Books edition: January 2020

  ISBN: 978-1-98936-502-1 (Softcover edition)

  ISBN: 978-1-98936-503-8 (E-book edition)

  Names, characters, places and incipdents featured in this publication are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales without satiric intent, is coincidental.

  Wattpad, Wattpad Books, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Wattpad Corp. All rights reserved.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication information is available upon request.

  Cover design by Sayre Street Books

  Images © wundervisuals on iStock

  About the Publisher

  About Wattpad Books

  Wattpad Books, a division of Wattpad, is the leader in data-backed publishing. Leveraging billions of daily insights from Wattpad’s global community of 80 million book lovers, Wattpad Books combines the best of art and science, using human expertise and story DNA machine learning technology to identify the trends, voices, and stories that are the future of publishing. By elevating the stories of diverse communities around the world, Wattpad Books is creating new space for writers and fans of every genre.

  Wattpad Books

  A division of Wattpad Corp.

  36 Wellington St. E.

  Toronto, ON M5E1C7

  www.wattpad.com