Triple Pines

The Tape

It was a day before the Summerween party and Mabel ended up ditching her original costume idea and decided to dress up with Candy and Grenda. But that didn't mean that she was gonna leave Dipper and I alone.

She gave me a skeleton hoodie and offered to use her glow in the dark costume makeup to make my face look like a skeleton too, which I hastily declined.

Mabel gave Dipper a full on zombie costume, but he instead talked her into letting him wear his Ghost Harassers t shirt under a green flannel.

Everyone gathered in the living room to watch a horror movie, which was way more stupid than scary to be honest. Wendy had gone to bed early and Soos and Melody had fallen asleep together in a bundle of pillows and blankets. Now it was just me, Mabel, and Dipper.

During the commercial break, Dipper's phone rang.

"I've gotta answer this, just a sec," he said before hurrying off to the gift shop.

Mabel glanced at me with a worried look on her face. I shrugged. Dipper didn't usually like talking on the phone, he always preferred texting, so this was kinda weird.

Mabel began to stand up to follow him, I grabbed her hand.

"Just leave him alone, he needs his privacy," I whispered.

Mabel looked at Dipper, sighed, and sat back down.

Later when the movie was over, Dipper still hadn't come back. Mabel was beginning to look seriously concerned.

"We need to see if he's okay. . . I have a bad feeling about this," she whispered. I agreed this time.

We crept into the gift shop and slowly creaked open the door to find the room was empty. Mabel gasped, "where did he go??"

We checked outside and found nothing. All what was left was the attic. I walked up the stairs slowly, careful to not make a sound. I opened the door to find Dipper, sound asleep.
I closed the door again.

"He's sleeping."

Mabel crossed her arms and looked at me anxiously. "What was that phone call all about?"

I suddenly had an idea.

"I think there's a way we can find out," I whispered.

.  .  .  .  .  .  .   .

"It's the security footage from today," I said after removing the tape from the security camera in the gift shop. The whole "give Dipper his privacy" thing was officially down the toilet.

"Woah, you're like a criminal mastermind!" Mabel whispered excitedly.

We went back to the living room and popped the tape into the VHS player in the TV. I grabbed the remote and pushed play, then fast-forward.

The footage sped through footage of crowds flooding in and out of the giftshop, the lighting in the room growing brighter or dimmer according to the time of day.

"Stop. . . there!" Mabel directed.

I paused, then pressed play.

The footage showed Dipper pacing back and forth. His voice was low so I turned up the volume.

". . . Paz? What's wrong? I-I can't hear you, wait, are you crying?" Dipper said worriedly.

"But I don't understand, did I do something wrong?"

"Paz-!"

Dipper fell silent for a few minutes, so I fast forwarded through this part.

"you want to stop? But you don't understand, I like you, a lot, Pacifica!" His voice was beginning to crack from emotion.

"I don't understand, please, let's just talk about this-" Pacifica hung up, leaving Dipper speechless and alone in the dark.

I turned off the TV.

Mabel and I didn't look at each other, we just stared into the darkness of the blank TV screen.

"Did they just. . ." Mabel whispered, afraid to finished the sentence.

I swallowed hard and nodded.

"Yeah, Mabe. . . I, I think they just broke up."