Such a Bad Influence

c08

I don’t know why I expected Gavin to stop posting videos. To suddenly stop performing for all his followers. Maybe it was the way he had sounded on the phone that day—unsure of himself, scared. I couldn’t connect that voice with the twenty-year-old I had known before, all bravado and charisma. It didn’t take long to realize it was all still there, though. That maybe he was built for exactly this, a shining spotlight. A framework for drama.

The title of the first video was just two words: “Dear Evie.” It was simple, really. Him talking to the camera as if it was my sister, spilling his most romantic thoughts, trying to bring her back, or to win her back, depending on which comments you read. It was equal parts intimate and uncomfortable, like we were all watching something that we weren’t supposed to. I watched it with my finger hovering over the pause button, waiting for the disgust to hit me, but I couldn’t look away. It was a more casual video than his usual content. Just him in his bedroom, wearing a threadbare blue hoodie that matched his eyes. It was obvious he had been crying or barely sleeping or both, his lash line red and swollen. Even so, he looked good. I’m sure he knew it. His skin was rich and golden, browned by the sun, the color of a terra-cotta pot. His lashes were jet-black, the same color as his hair, though he kept it buzzed.

“It’s because he knows he doesn’t need it, right?” I teased Evie once. “That he’s so good-looking that he can just willingly, happily shave off a head of hair that most guys would kill for and still look that good? Men have literally gone to war for less.”

Evie had laughed, rolling her eyes. I could tell she was satisfied, though. Or proud. Happy to know that I thought he was handsome.

“It’s because he gets too hot,” she said. “It’s too thick.”

I had put my hand across my chest in faux sympathy. “His cross to bear.”

Since that first vlog, I’ve avoided all the ones that have come after, reading the Reddit recaps instead. Every day, there’s another video. One more letter to Evie. After the first went semiviral, I’m sure his plan was to capitalize on the curiosity and rumors and keep the content coming—and based on the comments and views, no one could stop watching them, or wondering if they were the surest sign that Evie Davis was really, truly missing.

But then something seemed to shift, the way public opinion does on the internet: slowly, then all at once. The more people watched and speculated on the videos, the more Gavin posted, and the more people started to believe it was all part of an elaborate prank. His biggest prank yet, because he’d finally convinced Evelyn Davis to join the trickery, too. The detectives told us to ignore him, to not entertain any of it. To not respond or set the record straight. And then Gavin posted today’s vlog.

“Today’s video changes things,” Buxton says, his voice booming from the speaker of my mom’s iPhone where it sits between us on the couch. “He’s involved himself in the investigation now. He’s implied he knows things he shouldn’t. It’s not as simple as some sad boyfriend crying online anymore.”

This vlog was different. I had watched it earlier, after the detectives had flagged it to us in an email. It wasn’t just a letter to Evie but an announcement that Gavin had decided to organize a search party for the following day. It was an effort to search Evie’s last known location with any friends and family who were willing to participate, Gavin had said, “with or without law enforcement’s cooperation.”

I was sure that it was the wording that had made Buxton and Williams panic, concerned it would make them look like they were the ones who should be organizing a search party, but instead were dragging their feet.

But it was a fair question: why hadn’t they suggested that already?

“I think this could actually be an opportunity, though,” Williams adds as if she could sense my question and wanted to deflect, her voice cutting through the speaker. “If he’s so determined to center himself in all of this…maybe there’s a reason why.”

I glance at my mom, whose expression is completely neutral. Why isn’t she as confused as I am? Haven’t the detectives interviewed Gavin by now? Isn’t that what he had said to me on the phone when he first called? Haven’t they cleared him already?

“Is he a suspect?” I ask.

There’s silence for a beat.

“He has a strong alibi,” Williams says.

“Rock-solid,” Buxton adds. “Doctor’s appointment. Scottsdale, not in LA. Security footage showing him going into the appointment. Nurses and doctors confirming he was there. Time stamps. Records for everything.”

“So, technically, no,” Williams says, getting to the point, “he’s not a suspect right now. But that doesn’t mean he might not know more than he says.”

What are they saying? That Gavin didn’t do anything to Evie himself, but he…what? Arranged for her to be taken? Is hiding her somewhere? Worse?

I play through the vlog in my head and another thought occurs to me.

“How does he know her last location? I mean, does he even know?” I ask, realizing he didn’t mention a location in the video. I’m relieved at the thought, knowing that without a place to gather, the search can’t attract the hundreds of curious fans that would be there otherwise. “Did someone tell him about Palm Springs? The car?”

“We’re not sure,” Williams says, and her tone is apologetic, or embarrassed maybe. “Based on this video…we don’t even know where he’s planning to go. If he’s going to go to Palm Springs or somewhere totally different. Maybe he’s just making things up. Trying to keep the content coming while he knows there’s no one to cross-check what he’s saying.”

“Can’t you just…ask him?” my mom says, and it somehow manages to sound naive instead of patronizing. Nonthreatening.

“Of course we could, Erin,” Buxton says, and my mother’s name might as well be babe. Gross. “But we think it’s more beneficial if we let him believe that we’re ignoring him. That we’ve cleared him and it’s as simple as that. Especially if there’s a way to see what he may know without making him second-guess anything he’s doing.”

“So…” I say, my brain already calculating what I think they’re going to suggest.

“We want you to join him,” Williams says. “To tell us what he knows, where he goes. What he’s trying to do, exactly.”

This is their best plan? After all these days and no progress? This is how they think we’re going to find my sister? Us spying on her dumb boyfriend? Following him around? Doing their job? It feels like a massive waste of our time, like the very last thing we should be paying attention to. Isn’t that what they had said just a few days ago? Ignore him. Don’t play into the drama, the theatrics.

“He’s trying to go viral,” I say, frustrated. “As many times as he can. This is how his brain works. It’s literally the only thing that’s there. His brain is the equivalent of one of those bulk containers of whey protein, but there’s nothing in there except his desire to get more views, more followers. I promise you. He’s not some mastermind sociopath inserting himself in the investigation, offering to help because he gets off on it. He’s a narcissist, I’m sure, but not that brand of narcissist.”

I sound like I’m trying to convince myself of this as much as I am them.

“Maybe so,” Williams says. “But that would be a pretty good reason to orchestrate all of this, don’t you think?”

I had thought about it, of course, that all of this was a detailed, layered, supremely fucked-up—and potentially illegal, given the involvement of law enforcement—prank. But I know enough about my sister to know she wouldn’t agree to this. She wouldn’t let us worry like this. She wouldn’t stay out of touch this long. Not for a joke. And certainly not for Gavin. There’s no way.

And the other option? That she said no and Gavin made it happen anyway? Forced it to happen? That feels equally unbelievable. Almost.

“When is this thing happening?” my mom says, her face going the faintest shade of red. It’s the first time she’s looked uncomfortable for the entire call. “If it’s tomorrow, I…I had a previously scheduled thing…

it’s…”

I stare at her, blinking wildly. A work thing? A hair appointment? Now?

“Therapy,” she says. “I really can’t miss it…not now.”

I lower my chin in her direction, my eyebrows raised. Since when does my mother go to therapy? And since when does therapy take the entire day?

But my brain sees an opening, an opportunity to be by myself, to get some space from my mother and to actually do something. To be useful.

“I’ll go,” I say. “I can go by myself. And…report back or whatever.”

“Great,” Williams says. “That would be great.”

“I’ll text him right now.”

I tap out the question quickly.

Can I come help tomorrow?

He reacts to the text with a thumbs-up almost immediately, and then ten seconds later, there’s an address in my inbox.

Museum Way and Belardo Road, Palm Springs, California

The meeting point turns out to be a newly renovated downtown park by the art museum. I had googled it beforehand, trying to get a lay of the land. To know what to expect. I arrived to find it looking the same as it had online, save for some minor construction in certain areas. The grounds are dotted with scraggly palm trees and an expansive water feature, a dozen fountains shooting straight up from the ground, cutting through the heavy curtain of heat.

I had been afraid that I’d arrive to find that Gavin had shared the address online anyway, that there would be hundreds of obsessed fans gathered to drool over him and the intrigue of it all. But in the end, there’s just a handful of us. Me, Gavin, plus a couple of girls I remember from Evie’s high school swim team, though I couldn’t recall them ever being particularly close to her otherwise. I wrack my brain for their names—for one of their names, even. Haley, maybe? Or Hallie? Kaleigh? I have no idea. Add it to the list of things I missed about my sister’s life, I guess.

I don’t know what I thought we would do once we got here—make small talk, or something more serious. Cry. Go over what we all know about the investigation, what we think. I half thought Gavin would instantly grill me for more information for his vlogs. Instead, he seems to keep his distance aside from greeting me with a quick hug, our bodies barely touching.

“We’re just waiting for one more person,” Gavin announces. “And then we’ll get started.”

I look around at the park, the fountains, a toddler running through the spouts of water half naked, squealing every time the water surprises them yet again. It is the epitome of innocence and joy. Delight. And then there’s this.

Gavin glances at his phone. “All right, she’s just about here.”

I instinctively look behind me, checking for who the mystery guest could be, wracking my brain for names of Evie’s friends. Old boyfriends. Distant family. Trying to figure out who would have watched Gavin’s videos, who he would have asked to join him, if not me or my mom. Who would have believed him enough to be here, or who would have been curious enough to come anyway.

“I must have had five hundred messages from strangers wanting to join us, wanting to help…but I wanted to keep this small,” Gavin starts, and I’m relieved to hear someone cutting through the awkward silence. “Just family and friends. This isn’t some spectacle. It’s real life.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Everything is a spectacle with Gavin. And that reminds me.

“I don’t want to be on camera,” I say.

“Don’t worry.” Gavin shakes his head, pushing his Wayfarers to the top of his brow, like he wants to make eye contact with me for this next part. It’s well over a hundred degrees now, and he hasn’t even broken a sweat yet. Of course. “I’m not filming today. The full focus is on looking for Evie today. For clues. On trying to figure out what happened. That’s all that matters to me.”

I’m about to push back, to make sure he really means what he’s saying, but then there’s a hand on my shoulder.

“Hi, guys,” a small, high voice says.

Ashlyn.

Ashlyn Price is here? For this? Now?

I spin around and she’s standing next to me, looking the same as she always has on my phone: smooth, golden, hydrated within an inch of her life. I instinctively stand up straighter, instantly self-conscious.

I see her hair first, all of it gathered to one side, woven together in a braid as elaborate as a sailor’s knot. It’s the color of honey and impossibly thick, so shiny and healthy-looking that it reminds me of an illustration of a Disney princess. If my brown curls are a biological inevitability, her hair is something else: a marvel, a thing to be thrown through a window and climbed.

My mind flashes to the time I was staring at photo of her wearing a ponytail and I showed it to Evie in awe. It was so thick and full that it made me wonder if I had been putting my hair in a ponytail the wrong way for my entire life. It cascaded from her crown perfectly, a bouncy, full shock of hair curving outward from her head, a section of it wrapped around the elastic holding it up, disguising the effort. These are the things that Ashlyn Price taught me to think about.

“Can you please explain to me why I look like a Revolutionary foot soldier when I attempt to do my hair like this?” I asked Evie, both of us lounging in her room one Saturday afternoon a few years ago. She and Ashlyn had been friends for about a year at that point, and though I had never met Ashlyn, I followed her even before she and Evie were close. It was one of those parasocial relationships that I couldn’t trace the beginning of anymore. It felt like as long as I had been on Instagram, Ashlyn Price had been in my feed, too, like that one U2 album that came preloaded on everyone’s iPods. Once she was there, she stuck.

“Because you, much like a Revolutionary War foot soldier, are not wearing seven hundred dollars of the best fake hair money can buy,” Evie replied casually.

I laughed, but she stopped staring at her own phone then, eyes narrowed in my direction.

“Wait, you don’t think my hair is real too, do you?” she asked as she took out a section of hair and threw it at me. “What? Do you think we’re all out here just consuming collagen powder by the fistful or something?”

I caught the section of hair in midair and attached it loosely on the top of my head. My own hair was much darker and frizzier than Evie’s, so I knew I must have looked ridiculous, and would have even if I had any idea how to insert it in a way that looked normal. I twirled it around my finger and placed one hand under my chin, modeling it dramatically.

“Of course I know it isn’t real,” I said, but the truth was that I had never once thought about it. “And honestly, based on about twenty ‘my daily routine’ TikToks I’ve seen in the past week, yes, the collagen powder things seems possible.”

She threw her head back and laughed.

I’m surprised to find the fake hair doesn’t even matter, though. Not in person. It doesn’t stand out even now, with the full power of the sun looming above us, illuminating everything. It looks real. Plus, I know Ashlyn is open about wearing extensions now. She’s beautiful, and she’s honest. What else matters?

I had played out this situation in my head before. What it’d be like to meet Ashlyn Price in real life. Even if she was my sister’s friend, she still felt distant to me. I pictured meeting her in person and knowing immediately that she and I weren’t that different, after all. She’d have pores. Acne. Extensions that I could spot from a mile away. I’d remember that no one is what they look like online. I thought I’d see all that effort that went into being beautiful and it would make me stand up straighter, but looking at her now, all I can find is the same beauty I’d been staring at on my phone for years. Not effortless, maybe, but real and undeniable.

She takes her hand off my shoulder, and I notice that each finger is dotted with an almond-shaped nail, each nail painted with tiny rainbow hearts. Instinctively, I look for the giant, oval-shaped engagement ring she had been wearing on Instagram for the past year but I’m surprised to find it’s gone. Instead, I’m searching her hands to try to spot the hallmark evidence of a spray tan, some tiny bit of orangey-brown residue left behind, to prove she’s just a person who’s trying, too, but there’s nothing but an even glow. She looks like goddamn human sunshine. I suddenly feel very small, hyperaware of my body, my outfit, the way I’m sweating. I haven’t prepared for any of this.

Before I can say anything, Gavin continues talking.

“Well, I want to start by saying thank you to everyone who made time to be here today. I know we’ve all known and loved Evie. And I know we all want to find her. And that most of us drove a hell of a long way to get here. So let’s not waste any more time.”

He splits us up into groups—he and Ashlyn take one area of the city, the swim team girls take another area, and I take a third on my own. I’m relieved, really, that I’m not stuck with Ashlyn, that I don’t have to pretend like it makes sense that she’s here right now, after what happened between her and Evie. I make a mental note that he and Ashlyn are searching the area where the car was found, though I don’t say anything, in case it’s a coincidence. It’s not until everyone has started to walk away that I speak up.

“What…” I say, clearing my throat. “What do you want us to look for…just, anything?”

Gavin hesitates for a minute, and I wonder how much he’s willing to reveal here—how much, exactly, he knows.

“The easiest thing to spot is her car. It’s a black 2021 Range Rover. Tan interior. A beauty, really,” he says. “I doubt you’d be able to miss it if it was just sitting untouched.”

I look at him, eyes narrowed, waiting for him to say more. So he does know her car was here.

He stares at me for a minute, and I watch the first beads of sweat form on his forehead.

“Anything,” he says calmly, though the question seems to fluster him, like he hasn’t really gotten that far. Maybe this is why he’s not filming right now. “Just…anything, I guess. Anything that could help find our Evie.”

I drive around my allotted twenty-mile radius without knowing what I’m looking for, feeling equally comforted and unsettled by the fact that my sister was here at some point, probably driving the same roads. Was she scared? Was she alone? Was she already bruised or bleeding? Begging? Desperate? I can’t imagine my sister pleading for anything, but I try to make myself see it now. Feel it. I’m getting worse at pushing back against the worst questions and images that pop up: In her most vulnerable moment, would she ask for Mom? Or me? Who would she need more as the world went to black? Why does it feel like there’s a right and wrong answer?

Three hours later, I’ve covered nearly every square inch of my part of the city and then some. I can’t look at the same buildings anymore, can’t imagine that the reason I’m not finding anything is because Evie is in one of the places I can’t see. Deep below the earth. Covered by bags of days-old trash. Locked in a room we’d never see from the outside. I can’t do that anymore.

We’d agreed to meet back at the park, but I arrive to find no one there. I consider going to wait in my car, conscious of how it will look to be the person who stopped looking for clues first, but before I can, I hear someone say my name. I look over to see Ashlyn getting up from a bench that was obscured by a palm tree.

“Hey,” she says quietly, her voice humming with a vocal fry that I have to remind myself not to judge. I cringe at my internalized misogyny, the way it lingers. Even my instinct to criticize her feels like a win in her column. The fact that I’m clearly the only one comparing the two of us another. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

I’m suddenly exhausted from the day, from everything. The temperature must be at least 110 degrees by now, tame compared to what I’ve gotten used to in Las Vegas these last few years but still overwhelming. I feel like an egg that’s been cooked on a driveway. I’m also nervous. I don’t have time to assess whether it’s because it’s Ashlyn Price, someone I’ve admired from afar for years, or because it’s my sister’s former best friend, or because between the two of us, she’s the one who knows why she and Evie don’t talk anymore. I’m the one who was shut out.

“I can’t imagine what you’ve been going through,” she starts, and I can’t ignore that her voice is all empathy, all warmth. I instantly understand, more than ever, why so many people online look up to her and take comfort in her posts. She’s only twenty-two, but it’s obvious to me already that she’s the mom of every friend group, the nurturer in every situation. And though I don’t want to admit it, it feels good. For someone to think of me now, too. “It must be so hard.”

“Thanks,” I say, fidgeting with the edge of my T-shirt. “Did…did Gavin ask you to come help?”

Part of me doesn’t want to know the answer. Why would Gavin have asked her, but not me? Is it because of her followers? Her platform?

“Yeah, I…well, I was in Arizona already,” she says sheepishly, and I remember that, of course: Ashlyn lives in Utah. Not here, and not Phoenix, either. “I was visiting my aunt and uncle for my cousin’s graduation party. I was supposed to go home a few days ago, but after all the rumors started popping up online, I don’t know…I just felt like it was important to stay for a bit. To make sure she was okay.”

I now remember Evie saying something about Ashlyn’s massive family, how she was close to her cousins, the dozen or so aunts and uncles she had spread out all across the west. Still, it’s convenient, isn’t it? That she was in town? I wait for her to go on, to talk more.

She clears her throat, continuing in my silence. “And Gavin said he could use the help.

“Look,” she says. “I don’t know how much Hazel told you about what happened with us last year. I know you were going through your own thing with Erin at the time…and it was all so stupid, really. So fucking dumb.”

My eyes go wide at the sound of her cursing, despite myself. Ashlyn’s brand of conservatism had evolved over the years, but there were still certain things that allowed her to be categorized as wholesome, or pure, or all the things that the conservative Christian corners of the internet need to feel safe. One of those things is language. But here we are, in our first-ever conversation, and she’s talking just like I would. I’m as unfazed by curse words as anyone, so why do I feel…annoyed? Like I’ve been fooled, too.

“I just…even if we hadn’t been talking…I still know my friend,” she says, her eyes fixed on where she’s tearing the edge of the cardboard sleeve of a watery iced coffee instead of on me, for the first time since she approached me. It’s the first time I’ve felt older than her, somehow. I wait for her to go on. “So when I started reading the rumors…after last year, after everything, I just knew that something was really wrong.”

My mind whirs at what she’s saying, what she’s implying. Does she know something about why Evie would have disappeared? About someone who could have hurt her? Or taken her?

“And then Gavin called you?”

She looks down at the disintegrating cardboard sleeve again.

“Yeah,” she says. “He told me. That it was real. But it was like…it was like I already knew. Gut feeling.”

Also convenient, I think.

“I have no idea what Evie told you about us. About what happened. And if she did, I’m sure you must think the worst of me, especially since I know you two have gotten closer in the last couple years and—”

“What does that mean?” I cut her off, my defensiveness a knee-jerk reaction. In the last couple years? What does she think—that I was just absent from Evie’s life before? Is that what Evie told her?

“No, no,” Ashlyn starts, her voice cracking with nervousness, the smallest hint of blush poking through her tan. “I just meant…I meant that, you know, she wasn’t the same with everyone. She’s not the same as she was online.”

“I know that,” I say, my jaw tightening.

What Ashlyn is telling me isn’t just obvious, it’s insulting.

“I’ve known her for her entire life,” I add, but what I really want to say is: I knew her before you did. Before anyone did. Before she was online at all.

“Right, of course,” Ashlyn says. “I know how much she meant to you…and vice versa. I do. But I guess I just mean…there was your version of Evie, and my version, and Gavin’s version, and…I don’t know which parts of her you got, I guess. And which I did. What overlapped.”

I picture a dozen different versions of Evie, strung together like paper dolls, each one wearing a different outfit that’s been drawn on with crayons.

“And you just assume that you knew the real version?” I ask. “That somehow you, the person she chose to stop talking to altogether, saw the real her?”

She looks wounded, and for a second I feel bad. Embarrassed. I know I sound overly defensive. Too sensitive. But my reaction doesn’t surprise me, either. This is how I’ve always operated. If Ashlyn was all warm and soft, I would be ice-cold, spiky. I would make us so different that no one could ever compare us in the first place.

“Right,” Ashlyn says, eyes turned downward, then shooting up again to meet mine. “So you know, then.”

I blink back at her, a challenge.

“About everything?” she adds, but I’m unsure if it’s a question. “Of course you know.”

She’s staring at me, her gaze earnest, and I’m suspicious of it, if all of this is just her calling my bluff. Before I can say anything, I spot the swim team girls walking toward us, whispering to each other, their eyes fixed on Ashlyn, who turns and looks toward them expectantly.

“Any luck?” she says, hopeful. “Hazel and I were just talking about what we found…a whole lot of nothing, really. I don’t even know what I was looking for. I feel so useless.”

It’s a definitive change of subject. She’s even angled her body away from me now, making it clear that our conversation is done. That she doesn’t want to talk about any of this around them, that she doesn’t trust them, and it confirms what I already thought: that they somehow snuck their way into this, inserted themselves into the drama in the same way the detectives think Gavin is doing. He isn’t far behind the other girls now, walking toward us. His shirt is so soaked in sweat now that it looks like he’s been walking since we left him hours earlier. It’s molded to his chest, all the knotted muscle more apparent than it is usually.

“He wanted to keep looking,” Ashlyn says quietly, explaining why they split up at some point, though I hadn’t thought of it until now. “He’s driving himself insane with all of this, I swear.”

I study him as he talks to the swim girls, shaking his head, a familiar version of defeat on his face, too. Unconsciously, my eyes drift down toward his midsection as he peels the shirt away from his torso to wipe sweat from his brow, all those abs. He looks healthy, vital, lush. I look away, suddenly aware that I’m staring, and blot the sweat from my upper lip.

He turns to Ashlyn and me and debriefs us on his search, his version of the afternoon sounding a lot like ours: aimless, pointless, fruitless. We’re all in the same spot we were when we started.

Was this his plan, exactly? To waste time like this? Or did he genuinely think we’d find something, see something? After all, Evie’s car was found here. Evie was here. And somehow, he knew that. I wait for someone to ask why here, why this spot, but no one does. I consider for a second if Ashlyn knows everything, too, and it makes me trust her less.

“Thank you all, anyway,” Gavin says, hands on his hips. “I know we’ve all got a long drive head of us…you know how to reach me if you think of anything. If anything clicks…” he trails off, shaking his head, like he isn’t even sure what he’s saying anymore, like it isn’t making sense to him either. “I don’t know. Just…thank you.”

It occurs to me that maybe I should be thanking everyone, as Evie’s only family member present, but I don’t have that in me. I am already looking forward to the four-hour drive back to my mom’s, to sitting in silence.

The swim team girls leave, hugging me before I can avoid it, their sweat pressing into my shoulders. I wait for Gavin to walk away too, to leave Ashlyn and me alone again. I wonder if she’ll ask me to go get a drink or a bite to eat. If we’ll talk like we’re friends and I’ll finally get answers to some of the questions I’ve been asking myself for the past five days, or the new ones I’m asking myself now. But that doesn’t happen.

“He’s my ride,” Ashlyn says quietly, tilting her head toward Gavin.

They carpooled here? Together? Or…did someone drop her off and she decided it’d just be better to go back with Gavin? I try to remember if they were ever friends when Ashlyn and Evie were close. Did they get along? Did Ashlyn hate him too? I hate that both options seem equally plausible. How have I forgotten something like that so quickly?

“We’ll…we’ll talk. I’ll send you my number,” Ashlyn says, her body lurching ever so slightly forward, like she’s about to hug me, before she steps a little farther away, toward Gavin, who is waving goodbye.

“I’m here if y’all need anything, Hazel,” he says, kindly. “Just like I told your mom. Anything you need. We’ll find her. I promise.”

I say thank you and turn in the opposite direction toward where I’m parked, but all I can think is: what did he tell my mom?

And then: what did she tell him?

r/UnresolvedMysteries

I was at the Evie Davis search party | June 23, 2023, 11:43 p.m. EDT

Butt3rflyButt3rcup

Long time lurker, first time poster. Trust me when I say this is *not* my usual thing…but here’s the thing: I know Evie Davis. Or did, I guess. I don’t want to dox myself, but let’s just say we had hobbies in common.

I never really gave a shit about @evelyn ~The Influencer~ in the same way everyone else did, but mean…I’m only human. It’s been basically impossible to ignore the rumors and the crazy ass shit Gavin has been posting on YouTube since she disappeared.

At first, I was skeptical of the whole thing tbh, but when he mentioned this friends and family search party thing…I thought…well, we were friends. Ish. I bet I could join. I could help. I DM’d Gavin and asked to go. And long story short, after sending him some photos I had of Evie and me to prove I wasn’t some random psycho, he gave me an address. I expected there to be more people, tbh, but it was a super small group. It made me wonder how tf I got in, but whatever. It ended up just being me and a friend of mine—another person who knew Evie—Gavin, and Evie’s older sister, Hazel. And get this: Ashlyn fucking Price showed up. Ashlyn. Isn’t that weird? I could have *sworn* they weren’t a thing anymore. Evie doesn’t even follow her anymore. I checked. But let me back up.

So, I got there early. Like an hour before the thing was supposed to start. Killed time and went to grab a coffee a few blocks away, but before I walked in…I noticed Gavin’s car across the street. I’m not some fan girl, but like…it’s a lifted vintage Bronco that he posts all over his Instagram. Not exactly subtle. At first I thought, whatever. He’s here early, too. And then I saw Ashlyn in the front seat, too. At first I was like: WTF is Ashlyn Price doing here? But then I thought…idk, maybe she and Evie reconciled. And I mean, did it really make any less sense that she was there than that I was there? So, whatever. But then I noticed…she looked upset. Not, “oh my god my best friend is missing” upset, not sad or worried, but like…pissed. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but she was sort of shouting at Gavin, and he mostly just looked annoyed. The search itself ended up being a bust (found nothing, by the way, no idea why we even dragged our asses all the way to Palm Springs), but I just keep thinking about the way the two of them had looked at first. What it could mean. Like, that must mean something, right? That they were so angry at each other?

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Don’tTrustGarthBrooks

Just so I’m clear here…your shocking, boots-on-the-ground theory that you’re bringing to us today is that…maybe the boyfriend had something to do with it?

IBlameThe0wl

I honestly think you’re giving OP too much credit here. This mostly just reads as gossip. Who knows if they were even really there…

NotAConspiracyIfTru3

Wait, what about the Palm Springs detail though…why were they in Palm Springs??? Is everyone just ignoring that!!

StayxxWeirdxStayxAlive

You know who’s probably absolutely loving this post right now, and the way its conveniently directing all attention away from them riiiiight when shit is about to really hit the fan? Erin fucking Davis.