Such a Bad Influence

CHAPTER 1

I am the one degree. I am the familiar link. I am the tiny line that separates everyone I know from someone else, the connection that makes a fun fact slightly more interesting than all the others shared during a forced get-to-know-you group activity, the thing that makes someone finally tune in, perk up, say, No. What? Really? I am the second someone. Not the first mentioned when an acquaintance says, "Well, actually, I do kind of know someone famous—well, someone who knows someone famous." I am what comes after the part that matters.

I’m more than just that, of course. I know that. I can still name the qualities I know to be true about myself in the way that a former therapist suggested: I am a good friend. A truly top-notch giver of gifts. A person who asks How are you? and means it, who can physically feel when there’s an undercurrent of shame or sadness moving through someone I love. I am a hard worker. A problem solver. More likely to get shit done than to complain about it. I am a seeker of beauty. I can see loveliness and humor in almost anything or anyone that isn’t me. I do it automatically, unconsciously. I am always pointing and laughing. Isn’t it funny? Isn’t it gorgeous? But then there’s everything else, the things I know to be just as true, that would make my former therapist slowly nod and close her eyes, as if she’s heard all of this before (she has) and say, Remember how we talked about being nicer to ourselves, Hazel? I always imagined her eyes were rolling under her lids. I’d try to track their movement, but I’d never know for sure.

It didn’t really matter, though, because niceness doesn’t have anything to do with the truth. And the truth is that I am suspicious of most everyone I meet, distrusting and awkward. And I am stubborn. Not headstrong, or willful, or brave. I am the kind of stubborn that means I’ve held on to every slight, every hurt, every worst quality that I should have grown out of and let fall away from me years ago. I’m all of that, too.

But I am my sister’s sister first. And mostly, I’ve learned to be okay with that. Mostly, I know the alternative is not much better.

There were years when it bothered me, of course. Huge swaths of my early twenties when the last thing I wanted to hear from a new friend was that they feel like they know my younger sister, that they’ve been following her since they first downloaded Instagram in college, or that she was the reason they started doing that one eyeliner trick that makes you look more awake, like you’ve gotten a full night of sleep. I always wanted to say, "Don’t you mean more like her?" but I never did. Because it didn’t really matter. Once they knew, once they confirmed that Evie Davis was my sister, I was something else to them already.

My sister would be the first to tell you that she isn’t for everyone, though. It’s what she’s been saying for years in response to nasty messages, or particularly cruel comments. No one’s for everyone, she’ll say, and shrug, seeming wise beyond her years, as if that explains a stranger leaving a vomiting emoji in response to her posting a selfie, or a direct message that just contains the copied-and-pasted Merriam-Webster definition of the word slut. I know she’s right, of course. That it would be impossible for everyone to approve of her. I’ve remembered it a thousand times when I’ve zoomed out and tried to see her internet presence, her brand, in the same way that any stranger would on any given day. An ad for an antiaging moisturizer that features a close-up of her poreless eighteen-year-old skin. A photo where the tiniest ripple of fat inches over the top of her low-rise leggings. A caption about how you’re beautiful just as you are. I’ve seen the daily story slides of Amazon finds, or cute dresses under $50, or must-have designer dupes. A lot of times, I’m tempted to hit BUY instantly, too. Sometimes I do. Other times, I do the rough math. I consider the single item she’s shared and all the tens of thousands of people who will then buy it because of her, the subsection of those people who will share that item again, bolstered by the reassurance that they’re endorsing something that Evie Davis loves, too. I’ve pictured hundreds of Evie Davis–specific landfills populating the earth. But then I circle back around. No one forced any of them to buy those things, right? No one forced any of them to follow her either. To stick around. No one’s for everyone, after all.

And if I’m being honest, the fact that Evie Davis is my sister has been everyone else’s fun fact almost as often as it’s been mine. I sometimes love the extra surge of attention that people pay me when I explain that yes, she is ten years younger than me with a different face and a different body and a vastly different life, but we’re sisters all the same. I liked knowing that everyone I met thought they knew her, but it was only me who actually did. It’s why I have to bite my tongue when someone says something like, So how much does an eighteen-year-old lifestyle content creator make, anyway? They’ll laugh, say something about how their most aspirational lifestyle content as a teenager would be the time they snuck out for a party or smoked weed in the school bathroom. I’ll laugh along with them, say something like, Yeah, same. She and I really couldn’t be more different. They’ll smile and nod, raise their eyebrows as they look me up and down as if to say, yeah, you’re sure right about that. It always stings, but at least I know. But she’s incredible at what she does, I’ll add, careful to sound both proud and protective. How big sisters should be. But that’s not why I watch out for her, not really. Mostly, I protect her because I know how she got here. I’ve seen exactly what it takes to grow up under a microscope that you never asked for, to put a camera on that microscope, to monetize it into oblivion.

A microscope isn’t so bad if it’s only pointing out the good stuff, Hazel, our mom used to say to me in high school when I’d explain why, exactly, I didn’t want to be on camera in the same way Evie seemed so happy to be. I could practically hear my mom’s eyes roll through my bedroom wall as I sat there, knees drawn toward my chest, back flat against the door to keep it shut. To keep everyone else out. Suit yourself, honey. Just don’t say I never asked you. These brands might only want your sister, but I’m out there fighting for you, okay? For all of us. We aren’t excluding you. The option is always there for you, too. I make sure the option is always, always there, no matter what. I’d make it happen.

Even before the viral video happened, before everything, my parents were always filming, snapping photos, reminding me again and again that this was for all of us. They were obsessed with documenting our life as a family of three via posts on a basic WordPress blog, then Facebook, then YouTube, and I rarely wanted anything to do with any of it. People want to see your face, Haze, my mom would explain when I’d grumble about her filming again, hiding myself behind a pillow. She always said this, that people wanted to see my face. I always got the feeling that she assumed I was insecure about how I looked, that that was the reason I was so camera shy. I knew I had acne. Hair that always seemed to be too frizzy or too greasy or, somehow, both. But that wasn’t the reason I was camera shy. In fact, it was her constant reassurance that first made me think that maybe I wasn’t physically cut out for the spotlight.

But she’d give other reasons, too. People want to see our house! Our life! Our beautiful family. You should be flattered, baby. It’s simple, really: people watch us because we have something they don’t. Isn’t that so special? I never felt particularly special, not really, but I knew what she was saying had an edge of truth to it. I had heard from enough friends at school that our life was indeed cool—that our house, a converted school bus, was amazing. And I agreed with them. I loved the bus, and the cross-country road trips it brought us on every summer and winter break, with stops from Disneyland to Acadia National Park and most landmarks in between. I loved the reading nook my dad built me in the back, the tiny cubby that was just big enough for me, the way it was surrounded by shelves, complete with tiny built-in straps for keeping the books secure while we were on the road. I loved the bus’s strange and comforting groans and creaks. Its mint-green exterior. The way that our home was always with us, no matter where we were. People like to say now that my parents were the first real family vloggers, the first to feature a child growing up on camera in real time. But in a way, they were early to it all. The school bus. The filming. The money.

But as much as my mom liked to remind me that people were invested in the three of us and, eventually, my baby sister, too, the first few years of posting brought few followers, and even fewer who weren’t curious friends or family. The Davis Family Scrapbook, as the blog (then the YouTube channel) was named, looked more like a family photo album than some sort of money-making machine. You can still scroll back through their blog and YouTube archives and find those early posts. Photos of my twelfth birthday party on the bus and our tiny Christmas tree, a miniature replica of our green bus in place of a star. Even my mom’s pregnancy announcement with Evie is still there, complete with one thousand words about just how long she and my dad had been trying for another baby, how hard it’d been, how sad, how after five years of accepting that another child just wasn’t in the cards it was finally happening. Everything was changing. It was a miracle. A complete family. Finally.

People have asked me sometimes why I didn’t push back then, take a stand. Set a hard limit. But I wasn’t thinking about boundaries then. About agency. About the fact that I had told them no to filming, to photos, to posting them, again and again, and they had brushed me off. I wasn’t concerned about my identity one day being stolen or a far-off stranger on the internet seeing a photo of me as a naked toddler in a bathtub. I was more concerned with the more realistic, more present fear that haunted me daily: that even one person I knew in real life would see them. So I fought smaller battles, begging my mom to delete the picture and corresponding blog post about the day I finally got my braces off. I hated that photo. Me standing next to a six-foot-tall papier-mâché tooth, beaming like it’s the best day of my life, and the caption reading, Hazel’s big day! I couldn’t imagine anything worse than that. Not yet.

Five years after Evie was born, there was the video. Evie and my dad, rehearsing for Evie’s first big recital on the tiny patch of grass that made up our front yard. My dad coaching her through every single step, reminding her of the transitions, the movements. My mom laughing from behind the camera and saying, Chris, did you memorize, like, this whole thing? Then him joining Evie, taking it from the top, the two of them dancing in sync, alternating between looking gravely serious and then giggling their way through it all.

I told her she could just look at me during the recital if she forgot something, my dad says with a shrug at the end of the performance. It was fun. I was fifteen then, and grateful (as I always was) to let Evie take center stage while I hung back, careful to stay out of the camera’s frame. I smiled at my sister’s tiny buns perched on either side of her head, ever so slightly crooked. I rolled my eyes at most things then, but this? This was adorable. All of it. Part of me wonders if the video would have gone viral anyway, even if it hadn’t turned into some kind of sick trauma porn, something that people talk about over lunch and say, God, have you ever seen anything so sad? That poor girl.

Realistically, there were probably a million different factors that made the video explode in the particular kind of way that things did then, little bits of it landing everywhere, coloring our lives. In those days, it wasn’t a question of if someone had seen that video that everyone was talking about, but an expectation. It was the era of the internet when a viral video, no matter how mundane, garnered you a daytime television interview almost immediately. Even without the cameras, the video, everything that happened as a result, that year would have been the hardest of my life. I knew I should have been grieving. I knew I should have been trying to process that I was fifteen and my dad was suddenly gone. That he was there one minute, spinning in front of me, alive and whole, and then he was somewhere else.

I sometimes wonder if strangers would be as protective of Evie as I am if they took a minute to remember. To trace backward from where she is now, to remember that she is that little girl from the video, that little girl who lost her dad when she was only five. I wonder if this would make people understand or empathize with her more. Not pity her, but rather consider each horrible stepping stone like I do, chart the ways that that kind of loss might change someone.

But aside from the most die-hard Evie fans, the ones who are as dedicated as they are unsettling, most people don’t want to do this. To them, Evie is whatever they see on their phones on any given day. Her story holds so much less power than what she is today, than her privilege and her platform. They’re more likely to ask me about who she’s dating. Is she really with that Gavin kid? The one who used to date that girl on the Netflix show? Or was it the singer? they’ll ask. I’ll shrug and say yes, that’s true (and he dated both). Yes, he sucks, but, you know…hasn’t everyone dated someone horrible? I mean, does anyone remember that guy I dated during junior year? We’ve all been there. I try to find the common thread that reminds them that she’s real.

Still, I wait for people to bring it up. To ask me about the one thing that Evie and I do have in common, that they could google and know about immediately. What’s it like to lose your dad? To have him there one minute and gone the next? To see his death become the starting point of a big, important life instead of the end of everything you knew? Those questions rarely come, though. Instead, people always seem to work up the courage to ask about money, if the rumors are true about exactly how much Evie makes from an Instagram post or a sponsored TikTok. I can pivot easily by now, change the subject. Nothing good ever comes from knowing those exact numbers, not even within our family.

Part of protecting my sister has always meant staying under the radar myself—being the one person who can love her without trying to auction off a piece of her, too. It was the same when I was sixteen and she was six, and it’s the same now, twelve years later, when our lives couldn’t be more different. In so many ways, I’m in the exact same place I’ve always been. Stuck. And she’s, well, she’s—

Ma’am. A voice cuts through the thought, shaking me. Can you repeat your name for the record? And state your relationship to Evelyn Davis? A little louder this time, please.

I’m her sister, I say again, my voice sounding flatter than I intended, the important part coming out first. Hazel Davis.

And can you tell us the last time you spoke to your sister? the man says.

I open my mouth, imagining the answer will fall out easily, but the words don’t come.

When was the last time we spoke?

And where were you, the voice presses, on the day she disappeared?

CHAPTER 2

Half sisters? the male detective named Buxton asks, his thin, nearly translucent eyebrows pushed together like he doesn’t trust what I’m saying, that it’s not quite adding up.

I’m ten years older, I say. And we don’t look alike.

Big age gap, huh? he says. His partner, Detective Williams, crosses her legs as she leans back in the lounge chair that sits in my mother’s sprawling living room. I wonder when my mom bought the chair, if she bought it. Most items in this house arrived with a catch instead of a price tag. Payment in the form of promotion. It’s what she does, and I can hardly blame her for that. But I wouldn’t know where, exactly, the chair came from because I haven’t been in this room, in this house, for a year now.

Surprise! I hear my mother from the kitchen, her voice moving closer to where the three of us are sitting. My skin prickles. Evie was a surprise.

She stops in the doorway at the edge of the living room and leans on the frame, drying her hands with a towel, like she was just baking bread or chopping fresh herbs from her garden. She throws the towel over her shoulder, letting it rest there as she starts to roll up the sleeves of her linen button-down, which manages to strike the perfect balance of lived-in without seeming wrinkled or sloppy. All of it, right down to that damn dish towel, makes her seem cozy and laid-back, but thoughtful. Warm. Straight out of a Nancy Meyers set. But I can’t be the only one here who realizes that most things in this house are like this. They can all double as props.

Best surprise ever, she says softly, her face breaking into a pained smile before it falls apart, and suddenly she’s pursing her lips to keep herself from crying.

Jesus Christ.

The ten years between Evelyn and me sometimes felt like they might as well have been a hundred. To grow up not side by side but staggered, not in the same world but in two vastly different ones, was exhausting. It made closeness something that required work, effort, energy that only I, as the older one, could give. It always seemed to feel so easy for Evie, but that was only because I made sure I was there. Present. That I tried. But as hard as that closeness could be, it was also wonderful.

I was old enough when Evie was born that I can remember it all. The scent of her skin, the fluffy patch of hair that would lift up from her head, staticky and soft as silk. The tiny curve of her finger around mine. The solid feel of her in my arms. I was ten when she was born, too young to mother her in any significant way, or to resent her for the chores she added to my only-child life. I was also old enough to appreciate the wonder of a newborn, then a baby, then a toddler. Unlike other sisters I knew, there was never competition between us when I was at home, never a battle over friends or being left out. We were in two separate worlds, and in a lot of ways, that made loving her that much easier. People sometimes assume that my fractured relationship with my mom has something to do with the way Evie was born and changed everything I had known. That I was used to a level of attention and then I suddenly had to share it. That I was jealous. But it was never that.

The thing that blew up all of that is not how old I was when Evie was born but how old I was when my mother hit POST on that first video, when that suddenly became the new foundation of our lives. Being old enough to have a choice and realizing that my sister wasn’t—that’s what changed it all.

But it’s also what makes us so close now, I explain to people who ask about what it’s like to be Evie’s older sister. It’s what helps me protect her. And I think she needs that, you know?

People usually nod then, somberly, like they understand the logistics of what it means to be eighteen and have the kind of influence that Evie has, the kind of connections, the kind of money. The kind of mother. Like they understand what it means to think you chose a life when you never could have. Like they really want to talk about the fact that no one has agency when they’re so young that they haven’t yet learned to read.

All right, ma’am, thank you. But we’re just wanting to talk to your daughter right now, Buxton says before cringing and realizing his word choice. Your other daughter, I mean. Hazel. He clears his throat and nods to where I’m sitting.

Well, someone had to remind her.

I give something like a half wave that says, Yup, here I am, and despite this being the worst day in the worst year I’ve had in my adult life, I almost laugh out loud at the absurdity of the interaction.

And then, right on cue, there are sobs.

My mother covers her mouth with her palm to stifle the noise. I steel myself to avoid rolling my eyes. I’m just as upset as she is, of course—or as she appears to be, anyway—but this is obscene. Utterly unhelpful. I don’t know why I thought she would have turned it off now, though. Of all times.

I understand this is a difficult situation, Williams says, softly. But it will make everything more organized if we really take our time with the interviews, make sure we talk to people one-on-one. My colleague spoke to you at length yesterday, correct?

Yes. She shakes her head in a way that says stupid, stupid me, like we’re all supposed to pity her. She inhales deeply, eyes closed. Of course. I understand. I’m so sorry. I’ll just be in here.

She heads back into the kitchen and the detectives watch her leave the room before they focus on me again.

So, Williams asks me, pausing in a way that resets the conversation. Would you say that you and Evelyn are close?

I meet her gaze and take a beat as I decide how to answer. All the years of being the one degree that separates everyone else from my internet-famous sister, and it finally matters. Finally, someone else is realizing the thing that I’ve always known: That it doesn’t matter how many people think my sister is their virtual best friend or little sister or big sister. It doesn’t matter that she’s beautiful enough to be aspirational and down-to-earth enough that it makes her impossible to despise. My sister makes everyone who follows her think that she’s talking to them personally, that they’re two people hanging out while she puts on her makeup or chooses an outfit, but it’s never, ever been as much of a two-way conversation as people think. That’s why the detectives are here talking to me and not them. It finally matters.

I’m sure the detectives have to ask these questions, all of them, even the obvious ones. But our relationship isn’t really the point. Like everything else about Evie Davis, what they’re looking for lives somewhere deeper, wedged between who she is and who she is to the world. That thing, the tiniest sliver of truth, is what it will take to figure out how, exactly, we got here. It’s also what will determine why, if I’m as close to my sister as I think I am, that I’m left with the same question everyone else in this room is asking: where is Evie Davis?

r/InfluencerSnark

EvieDavisThread | June 12, 2023, 2:05 p.m. EDT

Mytoxictraitisthis34

Umm…did anyone just catch Evie Davis on TikTok Live? That was BIZARRE.

67     44

LoneStarrrrr

Explain????

Mytoxictraitisthis34

OK, so. She was talking about…nothing, really (shocking), drinking out of that massive reusable cup she always has (side note: does she know liking Diet Coke is not a personality trait?) and then it just randomly cuts off. She hasn’t posted since then and it’s been like…hours, which, as we all know, is practically centuries for Eternally Online Evie. Eons, really.

ImNotHere200

Maybe she’s doing that ~social media cleanse~ that all the wellness influencers talk about now, like posting about it doesn’t defeat the whole point. Just put down the phone, girlie, it’s not that hard!!

SwipeUpForBS

LOL I can’t. It’s like her former pal Ashlyn who is always talking about how little she needs to be truly satisfied. Like you don’t need anything but your own soul to be happy but also please buy this gluten-free moisturizer I’m shilling. I unfollowed her months ago, but I can’t give up Evie for some reason. Too fun to hate.

PhoebeAllTheWay

You forgot to mention the weirdest thing of all…that she TOTALLY saw someone before the Live cut off. She looked to her left and *clearly* made eye contact with someone before it abruptly cut off.

SwipeUpForBS

Psh, come on. That seems a little dramatic. Also I just checked and Gavin literally JUST posted a photo of them—it’s old (from that stupid matching Christmas pajamas shoot they did), but why would you post a photo of you and your girlfriend if something serious is going on? If you know you’re the very first person people will have questions for?

KarenButNot1983

You *clearly* don’t spend much time in r/UnresolvedMysteries, my friend.

P0is0nandWine

Both of you are giving that man way too much credit. I’m pretty sure the most forethought he’s put into anything is that time he tried to set up a pay-per-view fight with the cow from Chick-fil-A.

WinnietheBish

Our ally king.

LostOnline2001

I can’t believe y’all are honestly complaining about having LESS Evelyn Davis in your feeds. Personally, I’ve never been happier. Shoutout to mysterious, nameless, faceless stranger entering stage left for taking care of that for us. We salute you.

ImNotHere200

Lmao. DARK yet…relatable?

LastGreatAmericanDynasty

And sooo fucked up if something is actually wrong.

HaroldsHouse

Please. She was just on that big beauty brand trip with literally every other influencer. They were all posting their swag bags and whatnot. She’ll be on stories in full glam and apologizing for how she looks like, SO rough in no time. Don’t you worry.

ImNotHere200

Tbh you’re probably right. But how else am I going to find the 135 Amazon basics that I *need* to transition my wardrobe from summer to fall in the meantime????

GatorChompCO2020

I guess we’re all going to have to suffer together lmao

OneHeadlightNight

Has anyone checked SABI??? Maybe she knows something.

RainDanceRecital4

SABI has been MIA for weeks now (months???). I’ve never craved pointless influencer gossip more in my life.

BluexandGoldx

Well, if anything is going to bring them (we don’t know it’s a HER, people!) out of hibernation, it’s this.

CHAPTER 3

I’ve always thought it was lazy to build a personality around what you dislike. Never I love this book but I can’t stand that best seller everyone’s raving about. Never I adored this TV show, this movie, this restaurant but You know what I think is overrated? It’s not that I don’t have opinions that seem to contradict what the general public seems to love. Everyone does. I just hate the idea that I would share my distaste for the beloved thing that everyone else seems to love and would unknowingly make someone else question something that had brought them joy, laughter. That I would make them feel wrong or out of place. This is how I walked through my twenties, ten steps ahead of myself and everyone else, accounting for each emotion in the room, the tiniest ripple of embarrassment or discomfort. It made me quieter than some, maybe, but when you grow up without anyone doing the same for you, you learn.

But flowers are different. I hate them. I hate them enough that I go against every impulse that tells me to be agreeable and flat-out say it, actively, openly dislike the thing that is universally beloved. I don’t want flowers, I’d tell boyfriends. Not ever. Oh, because they just rot and die and smell and all of that? they’d ask, or None of them? Really? I mean I know some people hate carnations, but…what about roses? Peonies? Tulips? None of them, I’d say. None of them ever. I’ve turned away florists at the door, avoided the aisle in the grocery store. Taken a different path at the farmers market. All of them reminded me of being fifteen, the way my dad had turned to me midrecital and said, Shit. I forgot to get her flowers. For after. Your mom said it’s a thing that the dads do. Think I should go now? I can sneak out during the older kids’ parts.

Yeah. I had smiled, eyes glued to the stage, imagining my sister beaming at a bright bouquet, feeling special. She won’t even notice. Go.

Go. I had actually said the word. Pushed him out the door. He would be dead fifteen minutes later, convenience store flowers miraculously unruffled in the passenger seat. Barely even bruised. I’ve imagined they were roses, maybe. Or carnations. Lilies. A medley. I didn’t remember the specifics now, just that they had been the more fragile thing, the stuff that was supposed to die and decompose first. Not him.

The police said it was instant. He sped through a yellow light turning red, likely trying to make sure he didn’t miss the end of the recital. The other driver feels terrible, they had said. But really, it’s no one’s fault. Isn’t it, though? I had wanted to say. Doesn’t it have to be? Someone had told him to go, after all.

I didn’t say anything for weeks after that. Didn’t cry, either. Instead, I watched my mother weep for hours on end, sobs wracking her body so intensely that I knew she had to be physically sore, using all those muscles for so long. Bodies aren’t supposed to work like this, I thought at the time, watching my mother wail that first week, her face constantly pinched, contorted. Evie was different. Not so much sad as lost, like she wasn’t fully processing what had happened. She was always wandering aimlessly around the bus looking for a toy those first few weeks. It always felt like she was looking for him, though, as if he had simply been misplaced. The two of them seemed to have grief that fit neatly into the other’s. My mom would weep and she’d pull my sister into a hug. I’d watch Evie rest her cheek on her shoulder, stroke my mother’s hair.

It’s okay, Mommy, she’d whisper. It’s all going to be okay.

I recognized the sadness in all of it—in myself, too—but I couldn’t access a physical response. I wanted to comfort them, my sister especially, but my lack of outward emotion felt like a mockery of their grief, their ceaseless crying. So I stayed away, silently moving through rooms, leaving them to their shared sadness, painfully aware that there wasn’t quite enough room for me, for whatever was going on in my head.

And then, after exactly two weeks of this, I walked in the kitchen to find my mom sitting at our small, fold-down table, silent. For the first time since it happened, there were no damp tissues spread around her, no snot running down her face. Instead there was just the laptop, our family camera, and a USB converter. Silently, she turned the laptop toward me. It was a YouTube video, a headline that I didn’t read at the time but now know said simply DADDY‘S LAST DANCE WITH HIS LITTLE GIRL—AND NEITHER OF THEM KNOW IT.

All I could see then were their faces. They were right there, dancing, happy, giggling. It seemed impossible that this was taken only hours before everything was so hopelessly wrecked, before I said Go so easily, a smile on my face. I said nothing, stunned by the vibrance of them, the lightness. The sudden recognition of a before, an after. I felt like I was