The Mixtape

I wasn’t the biggest fan of their new sounds, but I had quite a personal connection with the first two albums. Those albums felt as if they told the earliest chapters of my life.

Faulty Wires by Alex & Oliver was the soundtrack to my youth, and it meant the world to me. It was sad to think after the tragic events a few months back that we wouldn’t get any more true, authentic music from the duo. I’d been holding my breath in hopes of Oliver returning to his true core, but from the headlines, it seemed as if, after the tragedy he’d experienced, Oliver was on a downward spiral with no real drive to ever come back to life.

Last time I heard, he hadn’t left his house in the past six months, having become a complete recluse.

I couldn’t blame him, really.

I, too, would’ve spiraled.

As I played Alex & Oliver in the car, Reese sang along to the lyrics she had yet to understand. Lyrics of first loves, and hopes, and demons. Lyrics of struggles and triumphs. Lyrics of truths.

I sang along, too, and like every other woman in the world, I pretended Oliver wrote the lyrics solely for me.

3

EMERY

After spending all day looking for a job, I picked up Reese from summer camp, had dinner with her, and then dropped her off by Abigail’s so I could head to Seven for my shift. The bar was pretty much a hole-in-the-wall. You could walk right past the building without even knowing it was open. Still, people somehow seemed to always notice it.

I told the owner, Joey, that he should’ve invested in more signs and lighting fixtures outside the building, but he always just huffed and puffed about how business was fine—which it was. But it could’ve been so much better.

The bar didn’t have many people crawling in it that night. There was one guy sitting in the back-corner booth with a baseball cap on and a leather jacket. His hands were wrapped around a glass, and his shoulders were hunched forward. At the bar sat a younger couple who couldn’t have been over twenty-two, and it was obvious that this was their first or second date. The awkward exchanges and almost touches made me wonder if another date was a possibility.

Then there was another guy who sat down at the end of the bar—good ol’ Rob, the regular.

I swore, Rob had been sitting on that same barstool since Seven opened. He always had his coffee, which he brought in himself, with a few shots of whiskey that we added in for him. He’d do the crossword puzzles in the paper, or read about current events, but he never really spoke much.

I liked that about Rob—how he kept to himself and never minded anyone else’s business.

“A lively crowd tonight,” Joey said to me as I walked behind the bar to join him. He was just finishing up on his shift, and he nodded my way. “You think you can handle the wildness of this all on your own?”

I snickered. “I’ll do my best.” Tuesdays were the slowest days at the bar, and even though I would hardly make any tips, I figured it was better than nothing. On average about twenty to thirty people would wander in that night, which meant at least fifty dollars in tips if I was having a good Tuesday.

“Just a heads-up, there’s a big concert happening at the arena. So you might get a more lively crowd after the show.”

“A concert? Who’s performing?” I asked. Normally I tried to keep note of when big shows were happening, because I knew it meant busier nights in the bar, but I hadn’t seen anything over the previous days about a concert.

Joey shrugged. “I don’t know, some Oliver and Adam, or Adam and Oliver, or something?”

“Alex and Oliver?” I breathed out, stunned by his words.

“Yeah, that’s it. Sans one of the brothers, I guess. I heard it on the radio. One of the brothers was killed earlier this year. Sad.”

No way. Alex & Oliver were our favorite musicians. Their music defined my childhood. Not to sound like one of those fans—but my younger sister, Sammie, and I loved Alex & Oliver before they found fame. Even Reese knew every lyric to every single song. After Alex passed away, I cried for a good solid three days as I played their records on a loop.

After the third day of tears, it felt a bit silly to feel so much for someone I’d never truly known, but a part of me felt as if I had known him, through his music.

How was there a concert happening that night? How was Oliver going to perform without his brother by his side?

Joey seemed less interested in the fact that tonight was such a major night for Oliver Smith. “All right, then, I’m on my way out. Have a good one.”