THE RECORD SHOP ⋆ 𝗱𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝗵𝗹

six

DEC 6 1990. OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON

FIVE days have passed since Evie last saw or spoke to Dave on the morning he dropped her home. He's called the house twice and both times Mia has answered the phone and Evie has made her tell him that she wasn't home. She feels terrible about it and knows she'll have to speak to him soon. He deserves an explanation and for Evie to tell him that it probably isn't going to work out right now.

Two days ago on December 4th her older brother Oliver came home and surprised them all. He always comes down from Seattle for their mom's birthday on December 8th, but he came a few days early this time which none of them were expecting. Evie is loving having him home, they've always been really close. Closer than Evie and Mia were. She thinks it's probably because they're not compared as much as her and her sister are. From the time Mia could speak and walk, people thought Evie and Mia were twins and always grouped them together, so Evie always drifted towards her older brother in order to seperate her and Mia.

If anything, Oliver and Evie were the ones who could pass as twins. They have basically all the same interests and all throughout high school they hung out with the same crowd, going to the same gigs, smoking the same weed. And they hardly fought, sure they would have little sibling squabbles, but they almost always saw eye to eye. It was hard for Evie to say goodbye to Oliver when he moved to Seattle a couple of years ago for school, but he still visits as much as he can and they speak on the phone every couple of weeks.

Evie is sitting out on their wooden back deck listening to the radio and just taking some time to slow down. She looks out into their backyard and watches the birds hop around the trees sweetly and it makes her smile. Mia and John are both in the shop, so it's just Evie and Oliver at home. 

"Hey," Oliver's soft voice breaks her from her trance of bird watching, sitting down and kicking his legs up onto the coffee table beside hers.

"Hey Ollie."

"Whatcha doin?" he asks, following her eye line.

"Just watching the birds," she tells him, pointing to the little one she's been watching scale the branches.

"Hey Eve can I ask you something?" He says hesitantly.

"Yeah. What's up?" Evie asks, sitting up a bit straighter and Oliver takes a moment before speaking up again.

"What happened between you and Nick?" Oliver asks.

"Ah, I should've seen this coming," Evie laughs emptily.

Nick of course, is her ex-boyfriend. The guy whose heart she broke because he couldn't understand why she didn't love him anymore. Nick, who was best friends with Oliver in high school. Nick who used to work at the shop with the family. Nick who was Evie's boyfriend of two years.

She loved him, she really did, but at some point she realised she didn't know how to keep loving him. It was too comfortable and she felt like she was only staying with him because she didn't know any different. So, she decided to bite the bullet and do the thing she had dreaded for months and break up with him. In simplest terms, he didn't take it well. He saw his whole life with her and truth be told, she just didn't. He was never who she saw herself with when she was old and grey. She knew they were young and enjoying the bliss of first love, but believed sincerely that it never lasts forever. He thought different.

He went around town telling people she broke his heart because she probably found some other, better guy to be with. This created the impression that Evie had been cheating on him, which she hadn't, it was just Nick's paranoia and heartache that pushed him to create this fictionalised version of her. Everyone important knows she didn't cheat on him, but it hit her hard that people were saying that she did.