The Girl Next Door (Chris Evans Fanfiction)

Chapter 30

"If you're here to talk to me about Chris, I don't want to hear it," Erica didn't even look up from the piece of furniture she was angrily sanding in her garage.

Dave just sighed, looking at his niece who sat on the garage floor in her sweatpants. He was incredibly worried about her. Ever since she came home from New York last week, she and Chris hadn't spoken to each other. The few times that they had seen each other in their backyard or in the driveway, they just pretended the other didn't exist which had become easier with Chris having barely been home in order to not have to be near Erica in any way.

Ever since Erica got home, Dave had been trying to pry out of her what had happened but he hadn't gotten very much from his niece. He had seen the interview Chris gave on Jimmy Fallon and assumed it was probably about that but he hadn't gotten many more details than the fact that the wedding was off.

"Erica why won't you even tell me what all of this is about?" He was frustrated with her.

"Because I don't want to talk about it," She huffed, still refusing to even look up at him.

Dave shook his head and walked over closer to her, "Just tell me what happened."

"I don't want to talk about it," Erica reiterated while sanding the furniture, most as a distraction than anything else.

Dave sat down on the floor and shouted, "Will you put down the damn sandpaper!"

This finally got Erica's attention and she loved and respected her uncle too much to keep ignoring this so she did as he said and put it down, finally looking up at him. Dave took a deep breath before he tried to lighten the mood and joked, "Don't make me put you in a headlock to get this out of you."

Erica heard Jacky softly barking before he scratched at the door, and she realized he probably was hungry. She got up and motioned for Dave to follow her into the kitchen where she dumped out some food for her happy dog and rubbed his fur, trying to figure out where to start with her uncle.

"So what happened?" Dave leaned against the kitchen counter, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"It was so stupid," Erica fought back her tears while running a hand through her chocolatey curls after pushing her bangs off to the side. "I had been on the internet reading all these articles that had pictures of Chris and I from the Oscars and a bunch of them were reporting our engagement and I was reading some of these terrible comments on them and they were just getting to me. I was thinking about how Chris needs someone who can handle all of this better than I can and then when I saw that Fallon interview that he told so much about me, it just freaked me out and I jumped on him when he got back to the hotel."

"And I'm taking it Chris didn't react well to it," Dave assumed since there no longer was a ring on Erica's left hand.

She just shook her head, "No, he was really upset and said that maybe this all was a mistake and that maybe we weren't right for each other. I was mad but I wasn't feeling like we shouldn't get married, but with as easily as he threw out that this was a mistake, that's obviously what he's been feeling so it's probably for the best."

Dave let out a long sigh, looking down at the white tile floor before shaking his head, "Kiddo, I really wish your mom was here at a time like this. But she's not, and if you want my opinion, this all just sounds like it was a big misunderstanding. You and Chris are both really passionate opinionated people so it stands to reason that you guys would throw down now and then."

"But he was ready to call it off so easily," Erica said. "It makes sense though, I mean I knew he wouldn't in reality want to be with me. He's this insanely gorgeous hollywood hunk and I'm just... well i'm just me. I mean, Uncle Dave, you should have seen me at that Oscar party, I looked like an idiot. It was so obvious I didn't belong there."

Dave recognized his niece's insecurity that was doing the talking for her and told her, "From what it sounds like, everyone loved you and thought you were adorable. Besides, the only person's opinion that matters if you belong there is Chris'. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks."

"Well he doesn't want me with him anymore," Erica looked down to pick at her chipping grey nail polish.

Dave didn't know what to say. He knew this wasn't good for them, it was obvious how much the pair adored one another. But the hardest thing was that he knew he couldn't fix it for them. He couldn't make Chris talk to Erica or Erica talk to Chris. They both had to choose to work it out and all he could do was encourage her and talk her through it.

He was silent for a long time, the only sound in the kitchen was that of Jacky crunching, before he finally asked the question he had been wanting to, "Do you still want to marry him?"

Erica finally stopped picking at her nails, slowly lifting her head up to look at her Uncle as tears began streaming down her face while she choked out, "Yes."

His eyes arched in sympathy while he walked the short distance to her and wrapped his arms around her. Erica buried her face in his chest, just as she did as a little girl and cried, "I love him so much, I can't think of my life without him."

"It's going to be okay," Dave was confident while he rubbed her back.

She didn't feel like it would though. How could it be okay when she didn't have Chris? Erica just cried and cried until her sobs were reduced to sniffles and she finally pulled away from Dave's embrace.

Jacky, sensing his master's distress, had come over to sit by her feet while Erica said, "This house feels like torture. It's like it's a prision. Every single thing makes me think about all I'm losing. When I look out in the backyard I don't see Dodger playing with Jacky. I don't wake up in the morning and sing out my window to see Chris' happy face singing right back. I don't trip over his damn shoes that he always leaves right in the middle of the hallway. He isn't taking up the entire couch when I go to watch a movie. I don't have him to dance with in the kitchen, or text me random movie quotes, or listen to when he's all excited about some NASA thing. It's all just so depressing and every time that I look down at my hand and don't see my ring, I realize that all of it wasn't just a bad dream, it was real."

Dave rubbed her shoulders before he wiped away her tears and said, "Squirt," He started with his lifelong nickname for her. "I can't make you do anything and I certainly would never want you to marry someone who you didn't want to marry, but don't you think you should at least talk to him before all of this all is called off?"

She took a deep breath, trying to hold in her tears to no avail before telling him, "I.....I did. I saw him go into his house yesterday so I knocked on the door and told him I wanted to talk because I wanted to apologize but he said he didn't want to talk to me so... I just left."

There was another silence before a few soft tears slid down Erica's blotchy red cheeks while telling him, "I thought it had just been a misunderstanding but yesterday made it obvious that he doesn't want me."

Dave wished he had the perfect thing to say but all he could do was hug her while she cried. Erica was completely heartbroken but the fact remained that she loved Chris with all of her heart, and loving someone means you want the best for them and it was obvious to her that she wasn't it.