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(ao3 link in the notes! title from a world alone by lorde)
The summer is quiet.
Impossibly quiet, really; itâs like the whole world decides to hold its breath and count to ten, like everyone is so used to the silence that the globe itself slows its rotations and stills, stretching out the days until everyoneâs shadows are long on the sidewalks and the sky is painted in a million colors. The humidity in the air clings to everything and weighs it down until it rests on the burnt-out grass, watching, waiting.
Quiet is not quite a large enough word to encompass what the summer is.
(ao3 link in the notes! title from a world alone by lorde)
The summer is quiet.
Impossibly quiet, really; itâs like the whole world decides to hold its breath and count to ten, like everyone is so used to the silence that the globe itself slows its rotations and stills, stretching out the days until everyoneâs shadows are long on the sidewalks and the sky is painted in a million colors. The humidity in the air clings to everything and weighs it down until it rests on the burnt-out grass, watching, waiting.
Quiet is not quite a large enough word to encompass what the summer is.
Even in the hum of air conditioning units working overtime to provide some relief to those inside of their houses, thereâs a peace that will never be felt in the autumn or the winter or the spring. That peace canât be found unless youâre sitting with the sun hot on the back of your neck and the top of your head, full of worries, yes, but without any true care.
Zoe sits on one such day. Her converse stretches out into the street with her legs, and from where she perches on the curb, she can see only what is immediately in front of her: houses that look the same as the houses next to them, rows of minivans and gardenias and shrubbery. She hears the hum of the air conditioners and she wishes she were inside, benefiting from their overtime instead of sweating through her class t-shirt like the eggs everyone always jokes about cooking on the sidewalk, but she knows she wonât. Shouldnât. Canât. There is too much turmoil, too much dust settling, and she doesnât want to choke and accidentally set off another mine.
Is this house her childhood home or a cleverly disguised game of Minesweeper? Probably both.
Someone sits next to her, and she knows itâs Evan before anything else. Sheâs always known when itâs him; she can sense the difference between him and everyone else with eerie clarity. Evan sits, as though thereâs nowhere heâd rather be than sitting beside her on the dusty, rough curb. As though he were designed for this and nothing else. Zoe doesnât quite look at him, but from the corner of her eye, she sees everything he does. She couldnât stop seeing him if she tried.
He offers her his hand. In the grand scheme of things - of all the contact theyâve shared, hours theyâve clung to each other, years theyâve spent sharing beds and curling up on furniture and breathing in the same breaths - itâs nothing. But somehow it feels like something as she places her palm atop his, still not quite looking at him, and lets her fingers lock with his, trapping the heat between their sealed hands.
Because, in all the years before that, they were Zoe Murphy and Evan Hansen, all sharp elbows and gangly limbs and bare feet pounding on mid-July pavement and the faint smell of sugar that seemed to follow them everywhere. They were flickering street lamps illuminating nothing but some weeds poking through blacktop, hands covered in chalk and rainbows of drawings blooming across the crumbling sidewalks. They were the feeling of a playground ball rough under your uneven fingertips, and the sound of small hands tearing at the brittle, dried grass, and swinging so high up on a swing that the swingset groaned under the weight of it. They were handfuls of moments trickling from between their fingers like sand on a beach, a collection so bright and so mighty that it seemed inevitable it would explode.
But they were sixteen and seventeen, respectively, far from the days of running carefree without any adults to look after them. They would sometimes watch reruns of the Andy Griffithsâ Show at the Murphyâs with glasses of Cynthiaâs town-famous lemonade (which was really just half a pack of Crystal Light mixed with lemon juice, though Cynthia admitted this in whispers so low and conspiratorial to both kids that they would think they were guarding a national treasure of a secret), and they joked that they were Opie - between Zoeâs huge, monument-like home with her parents and brother and Evanâs tiny, cluttered house where his mother was never home, always picking up another shift at the hospital an hourâs drive away in the city, they rarely had any adults checking their whereabouts or any home to post up in just like their 1960s idol. Their laughs are more restrained but no less bright as teenagers, their smiles just as wide but more difficult to coax out, the smatters of freckles dashed across their faces just as strong from hours spent in front of the sun.
Summer brings out the children in them, even though you have to squint to see it.
Summers also used to be spent loudly, all the kids in town creating a general hum of excitement and wonder at the warm days and short nights. But when the summer before Zoeâs junior year hits, thereâs no laughter to be heard echoing down streets with the chimes of bike bells, no smacks or shattering sounds accompanying ball games on the elementary schoolâs playground, no fire hydrants busted open to give everyone an impromptu pool party. Itâs like the town itself can sense that something bad is coming and has silenced itself preemptively, like by keeping everyone taciturn and silent nothing bad can befall them. Itâs no peaceful silence, either. Itâs a loud silence, one that takes up space in every crack in every road; and it leaves everything looking off-kilter. Heidi is gone almost constantly, and Larry and Cynthiaâs blow-out fights have peaked at least three times a week, and Connor...well, Connor would always be a whole other story.
Despite the silence that weighs over the town like a blanket, Zoe is far from comforted by the town-wide hush. Sheâs filled with unbidden energy, leaving her restless and fidgety and ready to crawl out of her skin at almost every moment.
So she stands up, yanking Evan with her. He follows as though there is nothing else heâd rather do, as though she is the only force that can move him despite the fact that he stands a good 6 inches taller than her even slouched as he always is.
Thereâs a little cafe in the next town over. They rarely go there - thereâs not exactly a reason to, since they can do just fine finding their own food, and itâs a ripoff anyway. But occasionally, when the oppressive heat (one only a small town and the height of the summer can create) forces them into their lightest clothes and has them practically tearing their hair out, they make the trek just for something to do.
That day, they take Zoeâs car - sheâs technically not allowed to drive with just another teenager in the car, but no oneâs enforced that for as long as Zoe can remember. So they drive in her shiny, brand-new black Audi with paint you could practically eat off of and blast Lorde with the windows firmly shut, singing along because they know every word. Theyâve been living off of her two albums ever since theyâve come out, and she canât help but smile as she thinks of all the hours spent stretched out on her back on Evanâs bedroom floor, giggling as he dramatically mimics her deep tone in Ribs or sitting on her back porch where he tries to sing Liability in a high falsetto, forcing her water come out her nose with the strength of her laughs. Heâs quieter that day, but the whole summer has felt that way, not just him. Everyone seems to be pressed down but some invisible force, words poised on the tips of their tongues without ever breaking free.
Normally, sheâd be clinging onto his arm or throwing some limb around him to drag him towards the cafĂŠ, but the temperature in her car reads a toasty 96 degrees before even factoring in the humidity. She settles for dramatically opening the door for him, hiding a wince when the smooth flesh of her palm grills against the sun-heated metal door.
At first sight, the cafĂŠ appears to be empty, but as they look for another moment they see patrons dotted at the tables; theyâd blent so seamlessly in with the walls of the shop, as though they did nothing but sit there always, that their brains could not help but write them out of the initial picture. True to form, there is no one behind the counter, but Zoe and Evan wait in front of it all the same; there was a chime when the door opened, and they are far too used to the way businesses operate when thereâs little demand to expect anything more than this.
A woman barely three years older than them emerges from the back some minutes later while looking as though she stepped out from a sepia photo. Like the customers, she blends in. When she greets them, her voice is full of false cheer even though she seems to be wilting at the edges just like the poppies in their planters on the sidewalk.
âHi,â Zoe replies, tearing her eyes away from the small menu nailed to the wall. âUh, could I have a small blackberry iced tea and-â she glances at Evan, who fiddles with his shirt and lets his eyes jump around the air beside the server and decides to order for him. âAnd a small English Breakfast tea with cream?â
When the color-void server returns with the drinks and they take them out to the car, he thanks her from the passenger seat, but she just shushes him and starts up the ignition.
Zoe glances at him a lot over their drive home. Itâs nothing she hasnât seen before, but she still canât stop. She canât help but think that heâs so wildly different and so completely the same as heâs always been, even uncharacteristically silent on a car ride. He reaches one hand to adjust the sound on âA World Aloneâ and Lordeâs voice swells with his fingers twisting the dial.
âMaybe people are jerks, but not you.â
He starts to hum, then. His hair starts to fall into one eye, but he doesnât move it; he simply taps one hand against his thigh. Between sips of tea, he hums a harmony to Lordeâs main melody, and the sound soothes her heart more than anything else. His lashes flutter against his cheek as they get into the chorus.
âYouâre my best friend and weâre dancing in this world alone...â
At once, Evan sputters out a âZoe!â around a mouth of tea and she slams the break just in time to see the red light bright above them. A horn beeps one long, prolonged honking sound from the intersection immediately to their right.
Evan speaks, his voice pitching up to be high and breathless. âCouldâve been worse, I guess.â
Sheâs reminded, suddenly, of the time after Connorâs birthday party in middle school when they helped her parents take down the blue and white balloons taped up everywhere. Evan had untied one of the balloons, his fingers exceptionally nimble for someone so incapable of staying still, and inhaled the helium inside so heâd get a funny voice, and Zoe followed suit. His voice is almost the same in her car, albeit from fear rather than helium, but she gets a sudden urge to laugh anyway.
âI guess so,â she says at length, and before she knows it the two of them are looking at each other and laughing. âIâm - Iâm sorry, I did not mean to do that-â
âAh, really? I thought you were finally acting on your plans to get rid of me.â
She pulls a face. âFor what motive?â
He grins quickly before it fades again. âAnnoyance.â Evan points ahead of them towards the light, which is newly returned to green. âSpeaking of which, if we donât want to get honked at or rear-endedâŚâ
âThis town would,â she mutters darkly, resuming her driving.
Pulling into the Murphyâs driveway is achingly familiar. Her momâs tiny silver sedan gleams in the sun, contrasting the freshly-trimmed grass nicely. The imposing white of their house seems to melt into the air around it, making all edges soft and fuzzy as though distorted through water. (âYou could swim through this air,â she remarks lightly as she steps out of the car, and going by Evanâs small yuk of disgust, he agrees.) Her car slides to a stop across the uneven gravel of their driveway, and with that, their journey is over.
They practically glide past the perfectly-manicured shrubs and flowers, moving determinedly towards the door. Although Zoeâs key is warm in her hand, the condensation from her iced tea still cooling on her palm, the door is hot enough to burn and scar. It takes a moment for her to brave the temperature and open it.
The sunlight reflects harshly off of the freshly-painted white walls, nearly blinding them as they stumble in. Zoe blinks as she makes her way down the hallway, letting the sound of her sneakers against the hardwood ensure her that she moved in the right direction. Her vision starts to adjust just as she enters the kitchen, Evan just behind her.
Connor is in the kitchen, clearly intending to pass her and take the route out the front door, but when he catches sight of Zoe and Evan he stops short with his hands rested in the pockets of his black hoodie. The siblings freeze at the same time, memories of a thousand old fights in the kitchen surfacing at once.
The problem with their fights is that neither seeks them out. They donât know a storm is coming until the wind knocks them down.
âHey, Connor,â Evan says, his hands already jumping to his shirt hem, probably in an attempt to diffuse the sudden tension in the air.
Connor nods briefly in Evanâs direction. He might mutter a âheyâ back, but if he does itâs barely audible. He watches her as though gauging her mood when she finally regains control of her limbs and crosses to the kitchen table. Sheâs watching him, too, even if sheâs more subtle about it. The July heat still clings to her skin, and itâs all she can think of as she looks at Connorâs outfit.
âYouâre going to broil to death in that, Con,â she says before she can think to do otherwise. She stiffens almost immediately, and suddenly she can look anywhere in the room except her brother. Mentally shaking her head, she forces her hand to move and drop her sunglasses to the table, an action that is too nonchalant for the sudden tense air in the room. She just lets her fingers curl around her tea and waits with unavoidable acceptance for the blow-up to happen.
But it never comes.
âYouâre going to burn to a crisp in that outfit,â is all Connor mutters in reply. Zoe gets the sudden urge to grin, but she suppresses it, electing instead to glance down at her tank top and shorts combo.
âThereâs, like, a 90 percent humidity rate.â
Zoe finally meets Connorâs eye, and she could swear his muscles twitch as if with the urge to smile. âYou, like, burn to a crisp in two seconds of sunlight.â
âThatâs true,â Evan says just as Zoe exclaims that she âdoesnât burn,â she âfreckles.â
She just throws a faux glare in his direction, examining the dark, freckled skin of her forearm at the same time. Curse her brother and his ability to not burn in the sun; despite their skin being the same shade, she was infinitely more susceptible to the sunâs strength.
Connor clears his throat suddenly. âWell,â he says, with a brief nod. âIâll justâŚâ and, with that, he slips out the front door.
Zoe shakes her head in his wake, clutching her tea tighter. She looks at Evan. His mouth is shaped as though heâs about to say something, but she brushes past him to move towards the stairs, effectively cutting him off. Footsteps sound behind her on every stair, so she knows he follows.
He trails after her into her pastel-splashed room, shutting the door behind them. Cynthia or Larry being home is unlikely, but the illusion of privacy is nice all the same. She crosses the carpeted floor to crack a window open almost immediately, nearly spilling her drink in the process. Her room is stiflingly hot, leaving the air clinging damply to them. Evan pulls a face, falling into the desk chair while completely indifferent to the fact that itâs covered in hoodies.
âI forgot your room is actually a greenhouse,â he says, watching as she feels the slightly cooler air from outside settle on her cheeks.
âItâs like the air conditioning is actively avoiding it,â she agrees. She turns back around to face him, leaning against the window sill and readjusting her drink in hand.
The edges of Evanâs dark brows pull together, and she sees as his jaw clenches and unclenches in rapid succession. âSo, with C-â
âNo,â she cuts him off before he can even begin. âI donât think I canâŚâ
Although sheâs used to how heavy her head feels in the summer, the weight of her curls feels heavier than normal, and she tugs at the ends near her shoulders uncomfortably. When she doesnât move them, they cling to her shoulder blades and refuse to budge. Evanâs eyes, the infinite pools like aged whiskey that are almost as intoxicating that she knows so well, study her as she fidgets until he canât take it anymore and looks away. âOf course,â is all he says in response.
She drains the last of her tea and tosses it into the trashcan in one fluid motion.
At some point she puts some music on, no longer trusting Evanâs music taste even with her continued influence on him. They shift from activity to activity as they always do, sometimes speaking and sometimes just enjoying being with another person. Dodieâs voice fades to Paramore fades to Jasmine Cephas Jones fades to Hozier and then Zoe grabs her guitar to play along while perched on the edge of her bed. Evan, with his voice of an angel, sings as best as he can, laughing at the low notes and his attempts at a falsetto.
Sheâs so used to this, the notes of her guitar and the timbre of his laugh and the duvet under her legs, but in a summer that has felt entirely shifted just left of what she feels it should be something feels off all the same. Evan joins her on the bed, crossing his legs under him like a little kid, and sheâs so used to being close to him but like everything else it feels different. More charged. More conscious. Like if sheâs not careful sheâll tilt and land directly where she knows she can never be, her hands settling at the base of his jaw and sliding over his skin and his hair until thereâs even less space between them.
They fall asleep on top of the covers of her bed anyway, sometimes after they tire themselves of singing. Their bodies manage to curl just short of each other, just as theyâve been sleeping since they were little kids. Zoe drifts off without any blankets or even a pillow under her head since itâs far too hot for anything on her. Her fingertips lightly brush Evanâs and thatâs the last sensation she is aware of. Similarly, sheâs vaguely aware of the fact that he pulls away at some point, and she feels his absence like the weight of a necklace around her throat, but although sheâs aware of it, she isnât roused till the taps come from her window.
She mentioned, once, that she wanted to be awoken one night with someone throwing rocks at her window while she was still in high school. Zoe never thought Evan would do more than laugh it off, but sheâs proven wrong that night. The clock is barely gone eleven when quick, insistent taps sound at her windowpane, and she rouses - sheâs always been a light sleeper. Evanâs grinning face meets her gaze from about four feet below her, and she takes a minute-long detour to throw a flannel on and brush her teeth before coming back to the window with a bottle of red wine she knows her parents wonât notice is missing. She drops down the half-flight and lands like a cat on her feet.
Well, not quite. She feels her ankle buckle beneath her as her converse make contact with the ground, and her whole body follows it. Letting out an involuntary hiss, she reaches her free hand to Evan and heâs in front of her before she can fall at all, his hands finding her elbows and hoisting her upright. She and Evan are genuinely worried sheâs hurt it for a moment, and she hops into a more-standing position while leaning on Evan and bouncing on her good foot. But the pain passes quickly, and Evan laughs once heâs sure sheâs okay.
âWow, such an adult,â he says as she brandishes the bottle for him. She lightly shoves at his shoulder and just tells him to lead the way to wherever theyâre going.
Evan is in rare form; heâs never this confident, surging forward along cracked sidewalks only half-illuminated in the dim streetlights the town never decides to fix. One flickers out as they pass beneath it, and she almost stumbles before he reaches out and wraps an arm around her waist. She leans into the touch, letting out an involuntary shudder that she blames on the night chill, and they continue the walk in the same fashion.
When Zoe sees the familiar sign of Ellison Park, she just looks to him, her eyebrows furrowing, but he grabs her free hand and drags her through their normal haunts in the park - the huge oak towards the entrance, the lone statue of a kid reading a book, a bench Zoe once got stung by a bee on - and through a thick crop of trees.
âIf I get triple E from a goddamn mosquito, Iâm blaming you,â she grumbles, swatting at imaginary bugs.
He shrugs, still leading her to destinations unknown. âGo for it.â
She has another snarky reply posed on the top of her tongue, but it slides away as they break away onto what appears to be the side of a hill surrounded by trees. Above them, the stars shine down as though to smile at them, brighter than anywhere else in town. The whole place is bathed in a faint silver light like something out of a dream.
âHoly shit,â she breathes, but it comes out croaky and near-silent because her breath canât find its way out around the lump that has grown in her throat. âWhat is this place?â
Evan shrugs as a small half-smile crops onto his face. âFound it the other day. I canât believe we havenât seen it before.â
Wordlessly, Zoe trails over to the slight incline, letting herself flop over until she lies sprawled on her back. âHoly shit,â she says again, beckoning him over. Heâs over in an instant, lying at a slight angle to her so his head is right below hers and his feet trail away to her left. âI havenât seen Orion since I was a kidâŚâ
And thatâs how time moves, for them. The bottle of wine passes between them like a game of hot potato and Zoe points out constellations she knows Evan canât see, even when he tries his best. There is nothing to do but lay there with your best friend and see the universe stretched out in front of you, and Zoe is all at once breathlessly thankful for this little town and its glacial pace.
âIt looks so peaceful out there,â he mumbles as the wine starts to take effect in her brain.
She turns her face away from the sky for the first time that night; sheâd felt his gaze on the side of her face while she spoke, even when he pretended to be looking at the constellations, but now he really seems to just be looking at the stars. The silvery light gives his dark skin an almost pearlescent sheen, and Zoe thinks heâs never looked so beautiful as he does then, all the glow of the moon captured in his face and the shine of the stars reflected in his deep brown eyes like a long-lost galaxy.
For a moment, she wonders if sheâs been wrong this whole time. Maybe sheâd thought she was looking at the sky when the whole sky sheâd ever need was inches from her face.
âLike everything is where itâs meant to be,â he continues, indifferent to the way her thoughts have derailed. âBalanced. Purposeful. On some...predestined track, just thousands of particles and stars and novas being drawn together so we have something to look at and know that something larger exists.â
He doesnât turn to face her, but she wishes he would. Zoe longs to feel his breath hot against her cheek like an errant star falling from the sky, to feel the tingle of his lips so close to the skin of her face that entire galaxies bloom across her skin, to feel the star shine words he utters without any air between them. She wishes he would turn his face, let their noses brush in some pseudo kiss. She wishes he would kiss her, or she would kiss him, but theyâre caught in limbo instead.
And, tipsy under the stars in Ellison Park, Zoe reckons with the fact that she might be a little in love with Evan Hansen.
world at your fingers as you comb through your hair
based on Matthiasâs POV in Crooked Kingdom when he sees a man helping his wife unpin her hair: âMatthias couldnât name the ache he felt in that moment. He was a soldier. So was Nina. They werenât meant for such domestic scenes. But heâd envied those people and their ease. Their comfortable home, their comfort with each other.â (ao3 link is rbed, check the notes!)
In her room at the Van Eck Mansion, Nina can almost forget that sheâs ever felt fear.
She stumbles through the threshold when itâs nearing three in the morning, wine-drunk and giddy. Although she hasnât left Wylan and Jesperâs since early evening, their journey to Ketterdam left her limbs feeling unnaturally heavy. Seeing the Crows was beyond good for her, but Nina is privately relieved at the idea of curling up next to Matthias and sleeping for as long as possible. As tempting as the bed, of the finest quality just as she was used to in the Little Palace, looks to fall right into, she doubts falling asleep fully clothed would be comfortable.
world at your fingers as you comb through your hair
based on Matthiasâs POV in Crooked Kingdom when he sees a man helping his wife unpin her hair: "Matthias couldn't name the ache he felt in that moment. He was a soldier. So was Nina. They weren't meant for such domestic scenes. But he'd envied those people and their ease. Their comfortable home, their comfort with each other." (ao3 link is rbed, check the notes!)
In her room at the Van Eck Mansion, Nina can almost forget that sheâs ever felt fear.
She stumbles through the threshold when itâs nearing three in the morning, wine-drunk and giddy. Although she hasnât left Wylan and Jesperâs since early evening, their journey to Ketterdam left her limbs feeling unnaturally heavy. Seeing the Crows was beyond good for her, but Nina is privately relieved at the idea of curling up next to Matthias and sleeping for as long as possible. As tempting as the bed, of the finest quality just as she was used to in the Little Palace, looks to fall right into, she doubts falling asleep fully clothed would be comfortable.
Matthias is somewhere behind her, probably wrapping up his conversation with Wylan and Marya. This dinner was the first time either Nina or Matthias met Wylanâs mother, although their friends all knew her quite well. Her slightly skittish nature in the face of meeting unfamiliar people melted away as the night wore on. The true surprise of the evening came when she latched onto Matthias like a second blond son. For all the confusion nestled in his face, Nina could see the comfort her approval brought him. Matthias held more memories of his family than Nina did, but that didnât ease the ache of absence. If anything, his scattered recollection only made his worse than Ninaâs. She was happy to leave him be for a few more minutes if chatting idly with Marya brought him some peace from the images he could remember of gold-woven hair and Fjerdan lullabies. Still, she canât wait until he is with her again. She almost scolds herself for being so silly; theyâve spent nearly every moment together since entering Ketterdam, but the wine-soaked part of her is rarely rational. She yearns for him even when they are under the same roof.
As though thinking of him drew him to her as a moth follows a flame, Nina catches sight of shining gold hair in the vanity mirror. She grins at the sight, her heart warming in her chest as Matthias slides up against her back and rests his hands on her shoulders. His hair has grown out, and although she loves all of him, she has to admit his hair is her favorite part of his appearance. It meets his shoulders now, elegantly waving down past his face and ears. Sheâs filled with sudden sentimentality, probably a pleasant reaction of the reunion and journey and alcohol. Nina is not wired for sentiment and static life, but when her eyes meet Matthiasâs in the mirror she canât imagine moving from this moment.
âFinally tore yourself from the conversation?â she teases, afraid the moment will get too heavy if she doesnât. His eyes crinkle just the tiniest bit, the icy Fjerdan waters within them calm and still.
âMs. Hendricks was lovely,â he argues, although her words were not accusatory. His head falls so that his mouth rests mere centimeters away from her scalp, seemingly content to just be near her. Their long day draws out his lilting accent, his syllables heavier than normal.
âShe was,â Nina agrees, too tired to be contrary. âI see how Wylan is such a ray of sunshine.â The other part of the Wylan equation goes unspoken; to speak the elder Van Eckâs name would be to ruin the quiet peace they have in his home. She lifts a hand to her ear, making quick work of removing her earrings and holding them in her palm. The earrings patter softly on the vanity as she twists her wrist gracefully to free them before moving to the other ear. âSaints, Iâm full. I donât think Iâve ever had dessert waffles quite as good as the ones here.â
âIt does seem like they know what you like,â Matthias replies diplomatically, despite the fact he seemed more than a bit exasperated by the unending enthusiasm of the Van Eckâs servants. His eyes track the fall of the earrings from her hand as though entranced.
She reaches her hands behind her head to undo the clasp of her necklace. His hands move from where they rested on her shoulders to take over the task, and her hands drift back down to her lap. Heâs far from nimble, so the necklace pulls away from the back of her neck and tugs lightly at her skin. It will certainly take him longer to undo the clasp than it would take her, but she lets him do it anyway. The necklace is Fabrikator-made, which may be contributing to his difficulty, but sheâll never tell him.
A sliver of a memory pops into her mind. Kaz, a tidy five minutes late to their gathering, limping spryly to where Inej perched on the arm of the sitting room couch. His hand, without gloves for the first time Nina could ever recall seeing, brushing against her cheek as he shared a few quiet words with her. Inej had smiled before melting away just as she always did, leaving Kaz looking winded. Sheâd caught eyes with Nina right before she disappeared, an acknowledgment she would be back before dinner ended. âDid you see Kaz and Inej at dinner?â
âI will not gossip with you, Nina.â
She juts out her lower lip, trying to catch his eye in the mirror. âArenât you curious about those two?â
His gaze doesnât shift from his task at the nape of her neck, but his eyes untwist at the corners in silent acquiescence. Nina waits with something akin to triumph for him to speak. His Kerch vowels are softer than they had been during the Ice Court job, smoothed and sweetened by Ninaâs continued influence. âI do sometimes wonder how she can stand the demjin.â Â
Nina snorts, an abrupt and loud sound that nearly pierces the content little bubble of their room. âHow can anyone? Sheâs a better person than either of us, certainly.â
Matthias finally manages to undo the clasp of her necklace, and he slides it from her neck. She shivers as the metal drags away from her skin, Matthiasâs breath hot on the back of her head. The chain slides around his fingers as he drops it to the vanity, gold slipping through his pale fingers and pooling to a tiny puddle with a hiss. His attention returns to her at once, and he leans forward again. âCertainly,â he parrots in little more than a whisper.
His lips press to the back of her neck, warm and comforting, before he moves a gentle hand to the pins holding her hair aloft and away from her face. As he works, the gentle tugs on her scalp and the hair falling around her shoulders make her eyes drift shut. She can hear nothing but the mingled sound of their breaths and the tiny clink of pins on wood.
Once her hair is free, Matthias runs a hand through her hair. Nina leans into his touch. He snakes his arms around the front of her shoulders, pulling her closer to him. She raises her hand to hold his, her thumb running over the back of his knuckles. His head falls to rest in the crook of her neck, soft and cushioned and warm. She inhales sharply at first, his cold nose bumped against the beginning of her collarbone catching her by surprise, but she relaxes quickly into the embrace. Her eyes drift shut, lulled by Matthiasâs presence.
Nothing could touch them, not then. Not ever again if they managed to stay just like that. She knew they couldnât; it didnât run in their blood. They were wired to fight and never stop fighting, much as indulgence called to them. It would be easy to find a ceasefire, with eight million kruge between them and scores of friends willing to partake in laziness. But she knew neither of them could enjoy it. They would always think of those they left behind without helping, the odds that could have been tipped if they didnât run away. Ice and adrenaline burned through their veins where most sought comfort, making it impossible to rest. No, domestic life was not one for them, but all the same, Nina savored the thought that it could be.
Matthias presses a kiss to her shoulder before tugging away lightly, pushing past the noise of discontentment Nina makes. She doesnât open her eyes, but she sees the faux-stern look on his face all the same. âBed,â he says, tugging her in the right direction. âYou wonât be happy sleeping sitting at the vanity, my love.â
âIf youâre so desperate to get me into your bed you can just ask, Helvar,â she grumbles, but she lets him lead her over without opening her eyes all the same. He falls onto the mattress ahead of her, and she falls into him, letting the impossibly soft bedding cushion their fall. She twines her arms around his chest, resting her head over his heart. She canât sense heartbeats like she used to, and sometimes it makes moments like this difficult and heavy with loss. But hearing Matthiasâs heart, thundering its slow beat beneath his warm skin, soothes her like a familiar melody.
Just as she feels his grip slacken around her waist and his heartbeat slow, she drifts off with the sound of his whispered I love you breaking over her like a gentle wave.
The @sincerely-usâ gift exchange is always SO much fun to participate in, and Iâm so happy to share my gift on this summerâs holideh. As a fun little surprise for @thatfriendlyanonâ... we are 2 for 2! thank you for your gorgeous prompts and I hope I could do them justice đ (hereâs an ao3 link!)
***
Imagine, if you will, a dollhouse.
Imagine the façade first; imagine perfect white siding, trimmed and shaped plastic shrubs, pristine windows with freshly-painted sills. Now travel inside, moving past stickered-on wallpaper and furniture you are free to arrange at will. See the people living inside, their hair perfectly shaped and mouths curved into perpetual smiles. Nothing is complicated or difficult - there are shadows and there is light, and they never mix. There is Good and there is Bad, nothing beyond.
Imagine, if you will, that the Murphy familyâs house is a dollhouse.
It truly has every appearance of one, from the shrubs to the wallpaper to, at first glance, the people inside; carefully curated with a precision only money can buy, packaged together in a box to nod your head at as you pass in the store and not look at much for longer.
Now, if you will, crack the dollhouse open right down the middle.
Youâll first see the house, as impeccable as always, but the people inside are not congregated together in the kitchen as they were before. Only the newcomer remains in the kitchen, far less of a newcomer than he thought of himself. Slide your eyes to the left, over to the other half, and youâll see gray hair slicked back carefully and a painted-on shirt collar recently undone from hands worrying it standing over a box of memorabilia, a permanent crease molded between his brows. Slide them up over floors and walls to see hundreds of pages clutched between an ever-impeccable hand, another hand pressed to mouth to stifle something while seated on a bed that is not her own. And, finally, locate the final person, doll, pawn - over the grid of plastic that separates all of them, find her one room over, curled into a position you didnât know she can manage, her hands pressing to her face as though they alleviate building pressure. Imagine, if you will, them - that whole picture.
If you understand what it is to be falling apart inside a picture-perfect life, you may begin to understand what it is to be a Murphy.
I. something shatters
Evan read once that, after a sonic boom, all is deathly silent. Surprisingly, that isnât because all machinery and living beings present are completely destroyed; no, the silence is from the explosion itself. If the force is powerful enough, it will create a vacuum where air levels are so low that sound doesnât travel. You could curse, you could scream, you could beg to go back in time for a minute or an hour or a year and it wouldnât matter. Your lips would move and no sound would escape. That was what true silence was.
He passed physics as a freshman, so of course he understood that concept in theory, even if there was always a part of his brain that never fully registered just how awful and harsh and real that vacuum could be.
He never understood until he uttered those words, those explosive words, in the Murphyâs kitchen over the sounds of phones ringing and the people heâd grown to love breathing and speaking. He never understood until they rode the explosion out and away. He never understood until he was left in the aftershocks, no air left for him to speak with.
He wishes heâd understood that before, that kind of choking silence. Of course, that may just be guilt. Heidi always says that guilt is the most unproductive emotion - itâs useless, he can hear her say in his mind in between sniffles, you canât go back and change the past - but he knows he has no hope of curbing the swell of it inside of him all the same.
His ride was, originally, Zoe. How funny that seems looking back with hindsight. Not even an hour before, heâd felt that he belonged enough to have a guaranteed way back to his house, to monotony and crushing stability. Heâd been able to rely on that tiny routine.
Without it, he feels liable to break apart and shatter into a thousand pieces.
He still has to get home, though, and so he curbs that particular impulse and accepts the fact that heâs just ruined the only good things in his life. (You were bound to ruin them when you first lied to them, something in his mind says, which is nothing he doesnât know already.) He never sat down, so save for a brief pep talk (or mental beration) to his feet to get them moving he manages to make his exit from the Murphy household swiftly. Evan walks the whole way home, and he knows that he must pass some landmarks - trees, houses, even Ellison Park is on the path back. But when he reaches his front door, he canât remember anything about the walk. The only thing that reminds him of the walk he just made is his aching feet. And, of course. the house in front of him.
Heidiâs car is out front, and heâs not sure whether to be terrified or relieved. Heâs not given a chance to settle on one or the other before his right hand is cold on the handle of his front door as his left stays firmly planted in his pocket. The interior of the house is maybe a degree or so warmer than the outside air, and the contrast lands softly on his cheeks for a moment as the door clicks shut behind him.
His mother sits on the couch in the living room, only ten or so feet from the door. Sheâs still wearing her scrubs, but her laptop is on her lap all the same. Their eyes meet, and Evan knows he wonât be able to brush past her and get to his room. The suspicion only confirmed when she opens her mouth, and thatâs when he finally places the expression on her face; shock.
âHave you seen this? The note that Connor Murphy...?â
Evan nods, finally closing the distance between the living room half of the room and the entrance part. His limbs warm the further in he walks, but his hands continue to fiddle with his sweatshirt hem all the same, his neck bowed. He canât bring himself to meet Heidiâs eyes.
âItâs all over everyoneâs Facebook.â
She looks back at her computer screen.
âDear Evan HansenâŚâ She shakes her head slowly, letting out one long sigh like a deflated and punctured balloon.âDid you⌠you wrote this? The note?â
Evan nods again.
âI didnât know.â
âNo one did,â Evan says, taking a tiny step forward. He gestures with one hand in the rush to assure her, still at the level of his hem.
âNo, thatâs not what I...I didnât know that you...that you wereâŚâ Her voice can be so soft, so gently imploring, almost tenuously polite even to her own son. Like sheâs terrified of saying the wrong thing, and she knows how to cushion her words in case it goes wrong. Hearing something that sounds so similar to his own brain pains him for a moment. â...hurting like that. That you felt so...I didnât know. How did I not know?â
âBecause I never told you.â
âYou shouldnât have had to.â
He shakes his head, bowing his neck further and pressing his lips into a line.âI lied. About...so many things. Not just Connor. Last summer, I just...I felt so aloneâŚâ
She speaks again as she always does, right in front of him when he needs her presence - soft, supportive, her voice gravelly with how serious it is. âYou can tell me.â
Shaking his head against the building pressure of tears, Evan chokes out âyouâll hate me.â
âOh, Evan.â
âYou should. If you knew what I tried to do. If you knew how I am, how,â the hand gestures return with a vengeance, emphasizing nothing in particular. â...broken I am.â
âI already know you, and I love you.â
That gets him to break. Heâd been slowly edging forward towards the couch throughout the conversation, but with that, he drops to perch on the edge of the cushion.
âIâm so sorry,â is all he can say, and Heidi takes his hands with a gesture that makes him feel more seven than seventeen, and itâs then that the vacuum around his throat finally lifts and he falls apart.
***
He feels like a goddamn fool.
Larry should be - well, he should be furious, shouldnât he? This kid waltzed into his life, his familyâs life, to build up some fairy tales about what his son was supposed to be and then he has to go and tear it all down just when they need them the most. He should be blind with a white-hot rage, like the one heâd felt when they got the call that early September day. He should be breaking things and making shout-filled phone calls.
Anger can be quiet, he reassures himself. Anger can be silent. Anger can be standing up from a table and staring down someone who lied without saying a word. Anger can be walking so that your steps make no noise against the floor and keeping heavy eye contact, being the last to leave the room. Anger can be leaving a kid who made a mistake to fend for himself when he was practically the son you never really had an hour before.
Larry passes a hand over his face with perhaps more force than necessary.
God, heâs not angry. Heâs just a fool.
Connorâs been buried six feet under the ground for over three months, but Larry still half expects to hear him call him a fool to his face. Or probably some expletive-riddled alternative. When the words never come, he appears strangely off-balance. He tilts right where he stands in the garage, driving his fist into the nearest object - conveniently, a wall. His knuckles crack on impact and he regrets the eruption immediately but still, he doesnât shed a tear for either the punch or for his son.
Apparently missing Connor turned Larry into some faded and worn version of his outbursts.
That thought sobers him right up, and he takes a deep, controlled breath in response. The movement reminds him of his daughter, how she does the same over almost every family breakfast and trying conversation. Heâd be admiring her self-control if he wasnât lacking so much himself. Still, he manages to calm himself enough that he lowers his fist from the wall, wincing all the way as his skin snags on the rough concrete. He turns back to his previous task. Any given member of the family would scold him at the sight of the baseball memorabilia, a fact that he knows well and has tested one too many times. The cards are an addiction he canât quite kick, but itâs a preferable one to pulling out the whiskey in his desk drawer. Or whatever the hell Connor had been hooked on. Dealing with the memorabilia is easier than dealing with the mediocre reaction and the stew of feelings he has. Breaking down into tears would be easier. Flying into a blind rage would be preferable. Instead, heâs just sedentary and mindlessly occupying himself.
Larry knows that he should be joining his girls, trying to be strong, to kick away habits in favor of human connection. He should be allowing himself to process grief in a natural way, as the grief counselor said at the very beginning of this whole nightmare. In so many ways, heâs right back at square one. But at least this time around, things are not as hazy. With Evan and his stories and his emails - things were better, happier. But they were fuzzy, too. Now heâs wide awake, but he canât find it in himself to tear away from the all-consuming sorting and looking and sorting and looking that the garage requires. The task is a thousand times emptier without Evan asking questions and filling up the negative space in the garage in a way he rarely filled up any other rooms, but itâs a distraction and a release, and Larry - who has always, always been a fool - takes the piles of Orioles cards under his hands for the blessing and curse that they are.
***
âI deluded myself to think that - to try and justify it as though maybe, maybe I wasnât the only person who craved a normal life - who craved being accepted, being part of something bigger than myself. Itâs no excuse, I know that - there is no excuse. But I hoped that I was helping other people when really all I was doing was bolstering myself. I hoped that maybe I wasnât the only broken person.â
The only broken person.
From the moment Evan spoke those words, Zoe hasnât been able to get them out of her head.
So many other parts of his speech present themselves for her to mull over, to cry over, to scream and be furious about. After all, quite a bit of deceit was revealed. The freshness of their presumed break-up, their family tensions being aired for the whole internet to see, and, of course, Evanâs backdated and misread and completely and blatantly nonexistent relationship with Connor all battle for dominance on her heavily-weighed mind, but above all are those echoing words.
The only broken person.
When she reaches her room, where sheâd run out of force of habit rather than any real intent, she collapses back against her door. It clicks satisfyingly against the frame. She barely hears the sound before sheâs cringing away. Something about the combined sensation of the door moving and the unexpected sound clash in her mind. Zoe expects the door to crash open at any second, and she chokes on tears and sobs and the stilted, heavy air in her room as she tries to put as much distance between the door and her as possible. Â
It takes a moment for reality to return to her, and she stills halfway between her door and her bed, the hardwood floor biting into her calloused fingers and sensitive palms. Her head aches, her heart aches, and all she can think is the only broken person, only theyâre not in Evanâs voice, theyâre in hers. The words drip with so much Murphy family venom that she can feel them trail a burning path down her throat and brand themselves into her upper mouth until her vision fills with little white dots.
But Zoe is nothing if not resilient. She has always been the last one standing, the strongest and sturdiest, the one with the best poker face who is willing to play the game. And so Zoe pushes herself up in a wave, hands to elbows to give herself the momentum needed to move upwards. Once she finds her feet she staggers forward towards the bed. She can barely see in her darkened room. The only light comes from the stars outside her window, but theyâre blurred around her tears. She curls onto her duvet without crawling underneath, bunching it between her arms as though it could be another person instead of just fabric. For a moment the blanket might be Evan - sheâs grown so used to his weight beside her that lying without him is cold and lonely by contrast. And a moment later she can even imagine itâs Connor like it had been when they were little kids. No matter what she thinks, however, it really is just cloth.
Itâs a step up from lying on the ground, at least. A small comfort in a day that has been filled with anything but.
Sheâd told him she loved him in this room. On this bed, this duvet. Heâd told her that he loved her, and sheâd felt safe, certain for the first time that no one was on the other side of the door. That they were truly alone in her room, the rest of the world falling to the wayside. Heâd murmured the words into her lips, peppered them across her face with her freckles, spoke them each time with a reverence deeper than any devotion sheâd ever heard until she was incapable of doubting the truth in the words. Not a single moment passed where she doubted that she was loved while they were together.
In the aftermath, she has to doubt every single moment, and that somehow makes everything worse.
So much hurts. There is a Connor-shaped hole in her that he punched into her himself, one that Evan expanded and twisted with his declarations that Connor really did love her, that he didnât want to hurt her. And thereâs a new Evan-shaped hole in her chest and in her bed and in her soul that she never would have expected existing in August. Her phone wonât stop ringing, either, and the ringtone her friends picked out as a joke about how bubbly Zoe was is starting to repeat so incessantly in her head that sheâs ready to crawl right out of her skin.
She could put her phone on do not disturb, but instead, she throws it as hard as she can across the room. Some part of her, the part of her that shadowed Connor incessantly and took some sick pleasure from the familiar rhythm of her parentâs fights, wants desperately to hear the phone shatter. But itâs thrown from an awkward angle, so her hopes arenât high for destruction. All the same, when she hears it buzzing against the floorboards she is disproportionately disappointed.
Zoe wants to scream. She wants to get up and really shatter her phone like Connor and Evan shattered her family. She wants to settle on her heart and her soul by feeling either love or hate and not some jagged mix of both. Mostly, though, sheâs tired. She has always been the strongest of all of them, the last one standing, the ever-composed and happiest, but her legs are beginning to shake under the strain of standing stock-still. For the first time, she thinks she understands why her family takes to shouting under the slightest duress. Anything must be better than leaving everything she experiences to weigh on her chest until she holds so much that the pain of it all starts to jolt her.
Maybe the most suffocating part of the whole situation is that she knew all along. Knew that his lies were too good to be true. Knew that Connor would never say those things, even if he didnât hate her (and now sheâll never know whether he did.) Knew that Evanâs stories, for all their sincerity, didnât hold up to any given timeline. From the moment he sat at her dinner table and fumbled over a conversation about the wretched skiing trips, she knew not a word that came out of his mouth was true. If she looks back, she knows she never really believed him. But instead of saying anything, she kept her mouth shut just like she always did. She swallowed her pride and his lies because they went down easier than the idea of never knowing for certain, of living the rest of her life in limbo over what Connor thought of her. They hurt less than the idea that sheâd helped lead to his demise.
She knew all along, but she went along with his story all the same because the cracks in her sentry became more pronounced day after day, the chest-crushing anxiety that sometimes made her wonder if her heart finally succumbed to a heart attack and the blatant disregard for her own physical safety as she moved through her day only multiplying into dizzying numbers. She splintered under the constant pressure and the unrelenting lights like she never had before, and she was seconds away from falling to the ground before Connor died and even closer than that when Evan walked into their lives. Before that dinner, she had wished with a futile hope - one she couldnât remember using since she was small - that Connor hadnât taken so much from her, including the only way out. His pain overshadowed everyone elseâs, and once he was gone nothing was left to hide hers behind. Evanâs lies eased it, propped her up. Maybe thatâs why she grit her teeth, flashed a smile, and accepted it.
Connor may have been broken, and Evan too, but they were far from the only ones.
Zoe curls further into her bed, searching for something solid to grip onto, before she pushes herself upright just as she always does.
***
Cynthia runs out of tears sometime around the fortieth email.
It was bound to happen at some point - she can only physically produce tears for so long, after all - but she canât help but feel hollow as her eyes dry and her breaths begin to steady out. Her head begins to grow heavier with the familiar fatigue that follows crying, but none of the satisfaction follows it. No resolution to the truth that made her cry appears. She wishes she would just continue crying instead of sitting still and empty on her sonâs bed.
Instead, she turns another page and reads until her eyelids dry out and her eyes catch on them as she moves them back and forth, left to right, as though her life depends on that one action.
Now - now she can see it. How much each one of these, even the ones from âConnor,â just drip Evan all over. Heâd had her fooled, he truly had, but now that she knows he wrote them she canât unsee it. The words are a little too stiff and structured to be her sonâs. They are so much like Evan himself, pieced together to try and make others happy while sacrificing his own happiness. Â Common sense dictates that sheâd miss that at first when she barely knew him (and barely understood Connor). Now that she knows him so well-
Well. Maybe she doesnât really know him at all. Thatâs the thought that really stings.
Cynthia looks up from the page. Her daughter had made it a foot or so into Connorâs room without Cynthia hearing at all. A pang of guilt hits her as she takes in Zoeâs bloodshot eyes and eerily still features, save for the bottom lip being worried between her teeth. Sheâd been forgotten again. Cynthia had forgotten her again.
The severity of the guilt feels dampened, somehow, but sheâs not quite sure why.
Zoe doesnât say anything. Where Cynthia is so accustomed to Connorâs explosive words, Zoe is always silent, something Cynthia never quite wraps her head around. The opposite is also true, of course. Where she is used to Connorâs weighty silence, Zoe always manages to surprise her with a sarcastic mutter or an occasional scathing sentence. Only since his death has her voice ever raised above a normal speaking tone when speaking with her or Larry, and only then to scold Cynthia for defending Connor.
Something has to replace Zoeâs occasional shouting at Connor, Cynthia supposes, but the earlier guilt crawls back and kills the thought.
Instead of speaking, Cynthia just watches as Zoe crosses the line of bookshelves on the front wall and nestles herself comfortably on the floor between two of them. The location is an odd choice, but Cynthia canât find it in herself to be surprised.
(Of course, Cynthia wouldnât know that that spot is where Zoe always used to sit, mostly in middle school before Connor completely tore their relationship to shreds. Back when Connor would let Zoe sit and do her homework while he drew or read instead of chasing her out of the room if she so much as crossed a foot in front of his door. She wouldnât know how many hours Zoe spent quietly consoling Connor and curling up to sleep on the floor in the months before Connor kicked her out and she was forced to sleep in front of his door instead, just so he knew she was close.
Zoe stopped halfway through freshman year. She had to. But the habit of sitting nestled between the two bookshelves remains two years later.)
Cynthia doesnât speak. She doesnât know what she would say if she did. She just sits, and Zoe sits near her. After a beat, Zoe holds one hand out expectantly. Cynthia divides about a fourth of the emails off the top of her stack after only a moment of deliberation to hand them to her. They look so large in her daughterâs hand, and Cynthia is abruptly reminded just how young Zoe is. She recognized the same fact the night that Connor - well. Zoe had a similarly lost edge in her eyes that night. Cynthia had looked into those eyes, the eyes that Zoe and Connor shared, and that's when Cynthia realized no one had ever taught her this. Sheâd read her fair share of parenting books once Connor started to go downhill, but no one prepared her for that moment. For the look in Zoeâs eyes when she realized Connor was gone, when Cynthia was the one to tell her for good. No one can ever teach you how to handle that.
That was the first time Cynthia realized just how young Zoe truly was since normally she was so carefully guarded and built up that she seemed several years older. But Cynthia had let herself forget, again, how young and small her daughter was.
Now Zoe, the version Cynthia is truly seeing for the first time, flips through pages at a rapid speed. Her eyes scan over every line.
âI canât believe I read these,â Zoe whispers. Cynthia canât tell if Zoe meant for her mother to hear it or not. âI canât believe IâŚâ
âBelieved it?â She offers, bitterness curling into the words. Theyâre nasally, probably because of all the crying. Zoe doesnât respond, just flips another page with a light scoff.
They read in silence for some time. A shadow falls across the doorway. When Cynthia glances up, itâs to see her husband leaning against the doorframe. His lips are in their same perpetual thinned form, his forehead creased and the corners of his eyes hardened.
No one taught her how to fix any of this. She should know how, shouldnât she? It should be on her to fix this. Not a group of teenagers who can barely hold themselves together while they scatter, no, it should have been her to provide that for them. She should have taken on their burden, their pain, because that was her job. She was too caught up in her own grief to save theirs and so they acted rashly and painfully, just as she has done by trusting them, just as Connor did - she canât let this all happen again, not when circumstances are so dire. She must fix everything for them.
But Larry is in Connorâs room, instead of hiding away downstairs, and so when he holds out a silent hand for more papers she relinquishes half of her stack without much thought. And the three of them stand their ground, flipping through fabricated pages silently but together. They are closer together than theyâve been in years.
Itâs a start, maybe.
Cynthia - for all that has been torn away from her day by day, second by second, as Evanâs lie crumbled apart slowly - can hope.
***
II. and slowly, quietly, imperfectly
Heidi insists on a session with Dr. Sherman first thing the next day.
Itâs a Saturday, so he canât really deny her request. And sheâs already bartered for the whole day off, or so she informs him.
That early winter chill fills the air, the one that makes him feel weirdly like a little kid. Everything is cold enough that snow should coat the ground and purify the landscape, cover in every broken crevice in the ground until the world is a blank slate. But itâs too early for that kind of snow, and he has to settle for greying skies and cheek-stinging wind. The weather is perfect for curling up under the covers with someone you care about, or for visiting your therapist and probably crying until your throat hurts.
But Heidi held him close for so long the night before, and when sheâd pulled away it was only when heâd initiated the separation. She had only strayed away from him to make him the matzo ball soup she always made him when he felt sick, anxiety-based or otherwise, as a little kid. Eating it is like stepping into little Evanâs life for just a blissful minute, and for that time he remembers just how much she loves him. It tastes like he thinks caring about someone feels, and Evan is certain he wonât be able to argue with his mother again.
Maybe that was her intent all along with the soup. That wouldâve been a pretty impressive con.
Almost all of the Dr. Sherman session is spent spilling his guts of every secret heâs kept over the past few months and chose not to share. All Dr. Sherman does is regard him over his steepled fingers for a moment, nodding all the way. He thought saying everything out loud would make the guilt in his stomach curdle and choke, which it did - he had to stop several times just to catch a breath when recounting everything, and heâd swear he was seconds from passing out or throwing up or something - but by the time his session is over, his soul feels a bit lighter, too. Like a weight has been lifted off of his shoulders. Heâs been experiencing the same sensation since standing in the Murphyâs dollhouse of a life to tear it to the ground - like for once, he can sit up a little straighter and nothing will come crashing down on him. Fewer things can crumble from the sky when everything is already lying on the ground in the rubble.
Heidiâs car waits for him outside - he sees it from the window of Dr. Shermanâs office - but when he finally exits with slightly bloodshot eyes he sees her sitting in the waiting room. She doesnât fidget like Evan does, her entire body almost wearily still at most times, but he catches her teeth biting at the edge of one nail before sheâs up and facing Evan and Dr. Sherman, composed as ever.
Afterward, sheâll ask all kinds of questions about his meds and how the session was and if heâs really okay. But for then itâs kind of nice to just have her there at all. Evan isnât naĂŻve enough to hope that sheâll be back again, but for that moment he draws strength from her arm looped in his and the warm car he knows is waiting outdoors.
âIâm a bad person,â he says once heâs buckled up in the passenger seat. Before Heidi reaches over to take his hand, he doesnât realize his hands are shaking. âIâm a terrible person. I knew that, I did, but I couldnât realize how much - just how terrible.â
âYouâre not,â is all Heidi says.
âI am. I did terrible things, and I canât fix them.â
âYou are not a bad person, Evan,â Heidi repeats, a little more forcefully. âIâm your mother. I know you. If you gained something from this situation it was...accidental. Youâd never have done this if you didnât want to help them.â
âBut I didnât,â he parrots, ignoring how completely she understood his motivation without him explaining it to her. âI mean - I wanted to help them, but I knew what I could gain. I...I knew I was hurting them but I did it anyway. I never helped them.â
Sheâs quiet for a moment, her other hand reaching to cup his left hand. âThe world isnât so binary, Ev,â she finally settles on. âThis may have been bad, but youâll find a way to balance it out. Just because this hurts now doesnât mean that youâre a bad person forever. If you were truly bad you wouldnât feel like this.â
He shrugs, trying to hide his burning eyes.
âYouâre a...a good person, with a kind heart,â she says, pushing past Evanâs noise of disbelief. âYou did something bad. But I know you, Evan. Youâll make it right. Life is messy and complicated, but you love so fiercely, Ev, and you care so much. Youâd never want to hurt someone. That doesnât make you bad. No one is really bad or good, anyway. We live in a complex, dark world, and youâre about as good as they come.â
At last, he shakes his head to break the fog around it. âYou have to say that. Youâre my mother.â
With an airy laugh, she withdraws her hands, choosing instead to wrap them around the wheel. âMaybe so,â she says, her crooked grin returning. Evan smiles back at her.
***
A Jazz Band concert is scheduled for the next week.
Zoe practically begs off sick. God, she wants to beg off sick. She doesnât want to plaster a smile on her face (because she canât do that without thinking about him) and she doesnât want to look out to the audience and see her parents looking politely interested but privately bored (because thatâs him all over, too) and she really doesnât want to play guitar in front of everyone.
Thatâs him, too. Both hims. Every all-consuming him in her life.
But if there is one thing Zoe has inherited from her family, itâs the all-consuming need to arrive where sheâs supposed to at the time sheâs supposed to. Her parents did, too, so they drive her and wait for the performance. Half-asleep, her feet make the journey backstage with her guitar case clasped in hand. She nods absently to some of her classmates, at least the ones who are nice enough to acknowledge her with some warmth. Between the letter and her relationship and subsequent breakup with Evan, most had taken to ignoring her or sending icy glares in her direction. Any true confrontations normally take place behind a screen, but Zoe is still distinctly shut out from most of the school.
As she pulls her guitar free from the case and begins tuning it back to standard instead of open D, as sheâd tuned it for the sake of an earlier song and was too lazy to change back, a girl who plays sax compliments her outfit. That comment is probably the nicest direct thing anyone has said to her since the letter came out. Though Zoe only abstractly remembers picking out an appropriate outfit and applying her festive winter makeup, she scrounges up a smile and thanks her classmate all the same.
The smile untucks something from the corner of her brain, and suddenly sheâs extremely hopeful Evan wonât be there.
He has no reason to be, she reminds herself when trailing out towards the stage. He has no reason to be, she repeats as she sits and everyone settles on stage and in the audience. He has no reason to be, she reminds herself as they launch into the first song after the directorâs brief remarks. Donât look. He has no reason to be here.
She looks anyway.
Zoe hopes thatâs not his outline lurking towards the back of the theater. She really hopes he wouldnât put them both through that. Zoe has to be at the concert, of course, since she has no choice. But Evan - Evan was at liberty to make the decision to stay home. Evan could stay away from this experience and spare them both a bit of pain. God knows they both have more than enough hurt to last a lifetime. For him to see her now would be too familiar, too intimate. After all those hours in her room, him tracing her movements with his eyes and applauding enthusiastically after each and every song - tracing the curve of the unconscious smile with his eyes while she played and then tracing it with his own mouth, both their hands tracing everywhere, every outline, every happy little smile line - him being in the same room is too much.
She knows itâs him. Not realizing the figure is him is probably impossible, when she knows - knew - knows him so well. But she pretends she doesnât recognize him all the same, letting her eyes fall back to the other side of the theater, a stupid little fake smile tucked in her lips and her fingers plucking out the familiar melody.
This is one of her first Jazz Band concerts without Connor. Although he normally sank so low in his seat that Zoe assumed he was sleeping, he was always present. And in her haste to forget Evan she remembers Connor all over again, because the two are forever and always linked directly in her mind. One doesnât come to mind without the other lurking just behind.
She half-expects to see Connor in the audience all the same, but when her gaze falls to her parents, they are only the two figures visible.
Her fingers never slip on the strings, but she forgets where she is for a moment. Instead, she is back in her room, Connor sunk low in her beanbag, clapping politely as she strums a basic chord progression. If she strains she can remember his eyes, how they softened and narrowed to see her, like looking into a mirror as always. Gentle, almost, although the word is laughable to her now. And then a fresher memory, when Connorâs eyes fill with steel and snatch the guitar from her grasp - the siblings are quiet now because Cynthia and Larry are asleep, but his words carry with the harshness laced through them. Anger, too. Not his normal anger, not senseless, not splintered doors and screaming âfuck youâ and the bitter scent of destruction, but instead something edged in concern, like an overused washcloth and a scabbing wound and blood sharp on her tongue from biting her cheek. Her memory is blurred because she was tipped over that hazy edge of intoxication where everything was cause for giggles and everything was a thousand times more consequential, but his eyes are clear where everything else is soft at the edges. Her intoxication causes his angry eyes - she drove herself home alone well past midnight, and he took it upon himself to be concerned. She has her own anger couched between giggles. Donât pretend you donât do this all the time, Connie, Iâm just trying to be like you, you know, thatâs all I ever wanted. And Connorâs strained voice just barely reaching normal volume, stone-cold sober for once, saying take that fucking back, you donât want to be me, Iâm a fuckup and youâre- when Zoe, startlingly honest in a way only being high can provoke, replies oh but Iâm already as good as dead on my feet so I might as well do as you do, whatâs the point in pretending Iâll ever be okay while you destroy yourself, canât I want this-
Connor takes the guitar from her hands and smashes it to pieces against her dresser before she can finish, and then sheâs back on stage with applause filtering through her ears.
***
Evan stands in the back of the auditorium, watching Zoe play guitar with an intensity he canât remember watching her with before, and suddenly itâs difficult to breathe.
Evan is no stranger to panic attacks, but this is not the same throat tightening that panic brings him. Panic is sharper and quicker, but this is all-encompassing and gradually taking over his lungs in a new and more frightening way. Tearing his eyes away from her, striking on the illuminated stage as she always is, he makes his way out of the double doors and into the empty hallway before he can even begin to understand why his breaths are difficult to come by. Guilt is a familiar force behind his pricking eyes, and he falls back against the (blessedly empty) corridor wall with perhaps a bit more force than necessary, his head tilted back to hit against the stone wall before the rest of his body. Guilt. Shame. Longing. Love. All of them are spurred from the sight of Zoe for the first time since the confession, and they make a bitter combination burning down his throat like the unwanted sting of alcohol. Theyâre just as all-consuming, too.
Evan brings his hands to his face and just tries to breathe.
(Itâs difficult because he used to breathe the same air as her. As often as sheâd taken the air from his lungs sheâd gifted it back to him, easing the painful jolt of being alive with a small smile and her hand in his. Heâd stolen hers in return, cut her off mid-song to feel her breath in a hot puff against his lips until it hitched in anticipation of his lips pressing to hers. Those safe moments where they breathed easier even though they shared almost every breath, every joke and giggle and sentence buried into each otherâs mouths. She made it so easy and natural where now there is only difficulty. Just seeing her makes it impossible to get air into his lungs. Itâs difficult because heâs reminded that he loves her too much to be healthy and heâs lost the right to do so.)
Once he catches his breath he pulls his phone out. He doesnât have a ton of options, but he hesitates all the same. Finally, he sends his mother a text, and she responds at once, so she must be out of class.
Leaving is probably the safest option for everyone involved.
He leaves his haunt outside the auditorium doors, opting instead to make the trek outside and wait. As soon as heâs out of the door thereâs a shock to his system, the cold night air washing over him like a bucket of freezing water. He breathes the air in anyways, and it goes down easier than any of the air indoors had. From the corner of his eye, he catches a flash of silver. His motherâs car.
Evan meets her halfway, jogging to meet the car and open the door quickly.
âHey,â she says, hesitant and cheery all at once. Her class must have gone well. She opens her mouth again as though to speak, but the words die on her lips. When Evan is silent, she tries again. âHow wasâŚI mean, did you talk to-â
âIt was fine,â he cuts off. His voice is soft out of fear that if he gets louder heâll get emotional. âI didnât. I saw them, but I didnât... do anything.â
âThatâs okay,â she hurries to say. âThatâs perfectly fine, sweetheart. Itâs probably better that way.â
Evan nods, tilting his head to hit the window pane.
âI guess you just want to go home?â Evan nods mutely for a second time. âIâll order a pizza or something, yeah? That sounds good?â With Evanâs third nod and a subsequent little smile on his face, Heidi nods herself and finally shifts back into drive.
***
Admittedly, they have a little difficulty focusing on high school jazz band jazz, but Larry and Cynthia make the attempt valiantly anyway.
In normal times, or times of pride instead of grief, both of them excel at small talk. Be it career schmoozing, dealing with extended family, or interacting with anyone from Connor and Zoeâs schools, itâs a necessary evil for almost every aspect of their lives. They have small talk down to a fine art, always ready to uphold their image and chat with a friendly face.
It is not normal times, but they try anyway.
The first parents they see avert their eyes and hurry through the theater doors before either of them open their mouths. The air is stiff with all the eyes on them, but the gazes are quick to drop away when they glance around as no one is keen on making eye contact. Cynthia goes out of her way to say hi to one of her friends from the Parentâs Association, but when sheâs only met with a strained smile and a wave, the Murphy parents wordlessly decide to cut their losses and just find seats.
By force of habit, they sit leaving one seat open on the aisle. Neither says anything about it, nor do they move to fill the seat. Better to leave it empty than to pretend they didnât wish it was full.
As far as Larry is concerned, the concert canât be over quickly enough. That urgent coil only grows in his chest when the kids file out and settle down on stage. No one exactly looks like they want to be at a Jazz Band concert because they are a bunch of high schoolers on a Friday night with better and stupider things to be doing. Impatience threads through everyone, and as an event the concert appears to be doomed.
Cynthiaâs gaze bounces between the students on stage, but Larry focuses on his daughter, his vision practically tunneling to her. Her eyes steady on a point towards the back wall, but her smile doesnât waver throughout. Larry absently wonders if sheâs employing the technique she used in middle school back when she had terrible stage fright, where she focused her attention on a focal point in the back instead of looking around the audience. He canât blame her if she is. But towards the bridge of the song (at least, Larry thinks itâs the bridge. He never can tell with jazz) her eyes slide along the rows of seats until they land right by him and Cynthia. Zoeâs face tightens almost imperceptibly, her grin thinning just the slightest bit. A shadow passes over her eyes, and Larryâs sure that if he werenât her father he wouldnât notice. Her eyes divert a moment later, but the shadow wonât get out of Larryâs head.
It's the closest he has seen to Connor in a long time.
The rest of the evening passes without incident, which is all they can truly hope for. They greet Zoe in the hallway afterward. Larry is a little late, as he made the trip back to the car for Zoeâs bouquet. When he nears Cynthia, he can see that sheâs finally gotten ahold of Zoe. Her eyebrows pinch together just slightly as her hands lightly rest on their daughterâs elbows. Still, Cynthia practically radiates pride, and neither Zoe, Larry, or the other students and parents are heartless enough to take that away from her.
Larry presents Zoe the bouquet with very little ceremony, simply bending down to press a kiss to her cheek. Zoe rolls her eyes when Larry straightens, but her unconscious smile is back all the same.
âCongrats, kid,â he says, gesturing to the flowers.
âItâs the same thing Iâve been doing since middle school.â
âItâs damn impressive-â Larry starts, but he never finishes the sentence.
âDidnât you help arrange some of those?â Cynthia presses with little preamble. âThatâs a first.â
âI mean, kind of?â Zoe replies, making a vague hand gesture towards the auditorium. âIt was a first, yeah, but I didnât really do-â
âNonsense, Iâm sure it was all your-â
âI really didnât-â
âEither way,â Larry cuts in, raising his voice just a little to cut off their identical, increasingly frustrated tones and scrunching faces, âWeâre proud of you, Zoâ.â
âWe are.â Cynthia seizes her in a sudden hug, and Zoe pretends to gag again, but Larry is pretty sure itâs at least seventy percent for show.
***
III. it all mends
Zoe drives herself to the orchard.
She canât even get out of the car. She doesnât think thatâs why she drove there at all, really. She didnât really intend to get out and exist in that space - the one that screams The Connor Project all over and hides Evan in every shadow. She didnât really intend to do anything, after all, except for getting in the car. Her hands guided her to her final destination.
Maybe the intention, all along, was just to see it. She hasnât even seen the outside, and that strikes her as wrong, for some reason. Because a dull ache wonât leave her chest, and seeing the orchard will either ease it or transform it into a sharp pain. At this point, sheâs willing to take either over the constant, infuriating, numbing guilt and grief slowly gnawing away at her.
It helps a little, and a little goes a long way.
Even though she just sits in the car, the air is easier to breathe, somehow. Knowing that something new, something with the possibility of a future, came out of the Connor Project Fiasco is...nice. What they did wasnât completely in vain. Something will live beyond Connor, beyond all of them, that shares his name.
A kind of karmic balance is in that cycle, Zoe thinks. For all the pain Connor caused her, something beautiful will share his name forever. Other kids can go to the orchard as they did, grow up and older and more mature. Maybe those kids will gain just an ounce of joy from the growing trees and emergency-landing lake. Maybe the bad things he did don't have to mean heâs remembered as bad forever. Maybe this orchard will be the grey area in Connorâs memory, where black and white mix and mingle and lay out some kind of future.
That grey area can live in her, as well. Because Connor was the brother who made her life a living hell with his fists and his raised voice, but he was also the brother that taught her the constellations and drew her doodles of flower-wielding superheroes as an apology until he hit middle school. He may have given her nightmares throughout her teen years, but before then he was the one to chase them away with an arm slung around her shoulders. He protected her and made her need protection all at once, and at that moment outside the orchard, with her head cradled in her hands as she sits in the driverâs seat, Zoe realizes she doesnât have to remember him as one or the other. The good and the bad of what he was can be simultaneously true.
Itâs that thought that accompanies her home safely and in relative peace.
***
Evan lies sprawled on his bed.
In terms of sitting down, sprawling quite different from what heâs used to. Normally he is a huncher rather than a sprawler, always sitting with his legs crossed or folded and curled over a book or a laptop instead of lying horizontally.
In that context, heâs definitely branching out in this new horizontal - or really diagonal - position, all across his bed at an obnoxious angle. He takes up space in a way he never used to, and for once, his spine doesnât curl reflexively as though in a shell. A journal is nestled under his fingertips, the possibility for creation only seconds away. Heâs sure the succulents nestled around his room in little bursts of green help ease the flow of oxygen into his lungs.
Itâs a nice day.
Itâs nice to let it just be a nice day. Heâd never appreciated nice days before, really.
âLazy day?â Heidi says, popping her head into his doorway. He nods absently, bent over a page with a pen clenched in his hand, before he really looks up and smiles at her. She smiles back. âIâm leaving for a shift in five. Enjoy it!â
âI will,â he promises, his voice quiet and steady. She smiles again.
âYouâre like a cat, always curled in the sun,â she comments with an easy finality before leaving his room. And, well. Evan canât really dispute that fact.
***
When Cynthia drives to the orchard, Larry is absorbed in his phone on the passenger side and Zoe gazes out the window in the back. They used to make that drive all the time, and something about the path is achingly familiar. As with all familiar things, it makes Connorâs absence clear as day to Cynthia. At this point, that ache is almost comforting to her. Though never quite gone completely, missing him has begun to dull out into something not as noticeable. She almost feels guilty that the experience has eased for her; some part of her thinks every day should be as painful as the first was. Maybe thatâs what Connor would have wanted, or maybe he would have wanted to just disappear from their minds completely. Sheâll never know, and she refuses to make up her mind about it, so she leaves herself to be guilty alone.
Once the familiar gate of Ellison park comes in sight, Cynthia parks the car in record time. They each grab an assortment of items and hurry past the plaques by the entrance. The day is too nice to spend fighting back tears.
Larry spreads a picnic blanket, and Zoe lays out their food with a practiced precision and a critical eye for plating. For once, nothing plastic hides in their movements. They really appear natural and relaxed. If Cynthia didnât know better, she may say they look happy. Â
It may be the closest they ever get, though what that says about them Cynthia doesnât know.
The Murphyâs are content to eat in silence. None are particularly adept with words, and fighting would only sully the beautiful afternoon sunshine. Thatâs why no one argues when Larry pulls a book free and flips it open. The same applies to Zoe popping in a pair of earbuds and scrolling idly through her phone. (Cynthia almost lets a snarky comment slip about enjoying nature instead of her music, but she bites her tongue at the last second.) That leaves Cynthia to enjoy the park, and she does so from her spot seated criss-cross on the ground. She gazes out to the horizon line. Saplings dot the bright sky, new life growing where destruction and deadeends once dominated. Their tiny frames stand in silhouette against the blue, and Cynthia's eyes burn a little with the contrast.
Change buzzes in their air and clings to her skin, and for once it seems like a good thing. A positive thing. Loss brought them to that point, and loss will trail them for all their future days, but the product of their grief is also the reason those trees will fight year after year and grow into something large enough for someone to climb and find comfort in. Some kind of balance is in that, isn't there? Some kind of benefit to living in the grey area between past pain and future hope. She and Zoe catch eyes over the edge of Zoeâs phone, and Zoe gives her a tiny smile. Her freckles, inherited from Cynthia, wrinkle a little in response to the movement.
âItâs balanced,â she says softly, as though she read Cynthiaâs thoughts. In the afternoon light, she almost looks like Connor used to. Cynthia, as Connorâs mother, will never see the similarities end. But somewhere in Zoeâs eyes is hope and life and a bright, albeit tumultuous, future. She will never see that in Connorâs eyes, although the two sets are so identical they were often mistaken for twins.
Cynthia nods, and her responding smile is genuine and strained and a little bittersweet.
For once, the ground is even beneath their feet, and that may be enough to go forward.
when things start changing (we'll be changing with them)
(read on ao3)
The night of her graduation, Zoe steps into her backyard and is greeted with the sight of her boyfriend sitting at the base of a tree, eagerly demonstrating to her little cousin how to fold the dandelions sprouting around the base of the tree into a proper flower crown.
She canât help the smile that comes to her face at the sight of him, sprawled out onto the grass as though he were designed to be there. Zoe has seen Evan Hansen in almost any scenario: folded into chairs, cross-legged on harsh tile, standing in a crowd and by himself and tucked neatly by her side. She considers herself well-versed in the many ways he can occupy a space. Itâs something she prides herself on, her general knowledge of him and how he may look in any given scenario. Thereâs something so beautiful about the way he exists - even though it can be cramped, contained, and achingly hopeful that heâll just be ignored, she can see the beauty even in those moments. And when he unfolds itâs even better. When he sits up a little straighter, lets his legs rest unlocked, and his hands - moving even when completely relaxed - make slower, more confident journeys around their surroundings, sheâs reminded of just how far heâs come from the anxious senior tripping over his own thoughts every time he opened his mouth in the course of two school years.
From where he lays sprawled on the grass, he looks almost relaxed. The grass doesnât seem to bother him, and his legs are crossed gently with one foot under his right knee while he leans over, his always-moving hands quick and gentle over the stems of the dandelions. She can hear snippets of his words, quick and defined but still somehow low and soothing. Heâs actually a very good storyteller, especially around little kids. By the sharp giggles that float over her momâs gardenias and the stone patio pavement to greet her, heâs pulled out his skills to wax poetic on the method.
In one fluid motion (and wow, she never thought sheâd be using the word fluid to describe any movement Evan Hansen made) he twists off the crown and drops it onto the little boyâs head. For a moment, the light caught by the dandelions seems to radiate through the kid, and she can only stare while he hops up and runs off to boast to the other kids, who are playing on the old, creaky swing set. Evan watches him run, the amusement and gentleness on his face fading so slowly a person less versed in Evan Hansen wouldnât have even noticed. His eyebrows furrowed, meeting to deepen the crease in his forehead, and her stomach dropped with his handâs descent to trail at his shirt hem, twisting and pulling in his constant, quiet gesture of anxiety. Before she tells her legs to move, sheâs already across the patio and halfway to where Evan sits. Her footsteps are nearly silent in the cushioned grass, but Evanâs eyes turn to her before she can fully reach him anyway as though he could feel her nearby. Automatically, she feels her lips curl into a grin, one that his gaze lingers on for a moment; sheâd applied a new, slightly darker lipstick for the occasion, redder for spring and for graduating and for the yellow sundress she also donned, and she knows that he thoroughly enjoys the novelty of it just as he seems to enjoy her in all forms.
She sinks to sit next to him, indifferent to her dress, letting her legs cross at the ankle stretched out in front of her. âThatâs cute,â she says, by way of greeting.
The responding shrug is felt against her shoulder, where the fabrics of their respective tops snag a little with Evanâs movement. âItâs easy. Little kids are cute, so whatever you give them is cute too.â
âTarantulas? Scissors? Stomach flu?â
âI...yeah,â he mutters, and she laughs. âI guess those arenât so cute.â
âYouâre right, though. Mostly. They are cute.â She turns her head away from her cousins and looks to his face in profile. The summer sun seems to soak into the smooth brown skin stretched over his cheeks, and he blinks quickly. âI didnât know you could make flower crowns.â
âI am a man of many talents.â
âHidden depths, as they say.â
âLike an onion,â Evan lets his head drop so his cheek rests on the top of her head.
âAn apt metaphor. All of those onions lying around with their depth, no layers to be found. Point to the writer for the fantastic metaphor.â
He laughs, but itâs a little weak. When he responds, his voice is low. âShrek has me mixing up my metaphors.â
âWell, thatâs obvious,â she murmurs back. She drops a hand to his thigh, warm even through his jeans. âWhatâs up?â
He shrugs again. âParties just - they arenât really my crowd.â And then, as though realizing a possible situation in which anyone could take a bit of offense, he rushes to neutralize it. âI mean, I didnât mean to, like, take off, I just. It was kind of a lot and it sucks because itâs your party and I want to celebrate you but, you know.â
Zoe is just thankful heâs not apologizing - even a few months before, that wouldâve been riddled with apologies that he didnât need to give. âNo, I get it. Itâs a lot of people, and theyâre not even nice, theyâre just - my family. There. Being a lot. Iâm glad you left when it was too much.â But he doesnât un-tense, and his fidgeting persists, so she does, too. âIâve barely had a chance to talk to you today.â
âWell, itâs been busy.â
âI know, but I still feel bad.â
âDonât,â he says immediately, with a sudden ferocity in the tone she never wouldâve expected. His hands still, and he lifts his head from hers to pull back and look her in the eye. âZoe, please donât - donât feel bad for living your life and accomplishing things, okay? Because Iâm here even when none of that is happening.â
She blinks once, slowly, and nods a top-to-bottom nod. âOkay,â she says, her eyes flicking over his expression. His lips thin into a line, and itâs then and there that she decides for blunt honesty over anything else. âI donât - I donât feel bad for that. I donât...that wasnât the right word to use. I just meant that I...I miss you. And itâs stupid because Iâve seen you all day, itâs not like weâre long separated and pining orâŚâ She thinks of the acceptance letter sitting on her desk, the train tickets already booked for mid-July, the textbooks and purple-and-gold paraphernalia sheâs yet to buy, and she wonders if the trove of emotion sheâs just struck in her own chest is the same one that Evan is feeling. âIâm proud of myself and Iâm happy to graduate, but that doesnât mean I wouldnât rather be sitting here and making flower crowns with you.â
Evan shakes his head, a quick, uncertain thing. âI donât - you canât mean that.â
âWhat?â she responds, trying to duck her head to catch his eye, but he wonât look at her. âI mean it. I mean it wholeheartedly. We only have...we only have so much time left. I donât want to miss it.â
He swallows harshly, and Zoe realizes that this is what was really on his mind. Her departure date for NYU is scheduled for a little over a month later. She reaches for his hand.
âI know things are changing,â Evan says finally. âAnd thatâs...thatâs okay.â
ââChange is okay,â said Evan Hansen, never,â Zoe says, only half-joking.
âNo, I...I mean it.â
She raises an eyebrow.
âIâm okay with it,â he says more firmly. âI know it has to happen. I know itâs good. NYU is your dream, Zoe. Iâd never dream of not wanting you there. Weâre changing along with everything else.â
This time, sheâs the one who swallows harshly. âI know we are. I wish thatâŚI wish that you could come with me. I want NYU, but I donât know if Iâll make it through without you.â
âYou will,â he says. âYouâre the strongest person I know, Zoe.â
âBut-â
âYou can - please donât let me hold you back.â
She stills. âWhat?â
âI-â Evan looks so different than he did before, so much more uncertain. His hands are fidgeting again, and she reaches over to rub circles into the back of his hand. âI can only think that I could be holding you back. I mean, Iâm working at Pottery Barn, the most boring of all stores. Community college is the best Iâll ever do. I donât know if I, Iâm not certain when Iâm gonna leave this town. So donât - I would absolutely hate it if I thought you were waiting for me. Itâs the other way around. Iâm waiting for you, okay? Because I want you to - to go to NYU, and have the time of your goddamn life. And I just want you to know that Iâm always here, no matter how long it is, no matter how much you change. Iâll change with you. Iâll learn. Iâll-â
âHey,â Zoe says gently to cut him off. She reaches forward to him, and he reaches for her like a little kid clutching a stuffed animal, like someone coming home after years away, like heâs afraid she might disappear. As he buries his face in her neck and her arms tighten around him, she realizes that this is not Evan panic. This is - this is Evan sadness and Evan worry. About her.
After stroking his hair for a moment, she speaks. âI promise you, I wonât stop doing things on your account. You have my word. But Iâm not going to get up there and forget about you, Evan. Iâm going to think about you - probably too many times to be healthy, to be honest, and Iâll force you to Facetime with me at all hours when Iâm procrastinating and youâre trying to convince me to just do the damn work, and Iâm going to keep loving you and Iâm not once going to doubt that youâre still here.â
Evan nods against her shoulder, and she continues. âYouâre my North Star, Evan,â she whispers. âI could pick you out from anywhere, and youâll always be the brightest light I see.â
âYouâre the same for me,â he whispers, his breath hot against her skin.
âI mean it. Iâm coming back to you no matter what,â she says, her words low but her tone sharp. âNothing could stop me from coming home to you.â
He pulls away after another moment and sighs. âWe should probably get back in. I know your mother spent weeks planning this.â
âMore like planning since I was in elementary school,â she says with a sigh to match Evanâs. As he moves to stand, she reaches out to grab his hand and halt his progress. âNot so fast, though,â she says, tugging him back down towards her. Sheâs not quite ready to give up this, his skin on hers under the June sun.
When he just raises an eyebrow, she raises one to match it. âDonât I get a flower crown?â
His laugh is sudden and bright, an explosion of color against a grey conversation. âOf course,â he says around a wide smile. âItâs your day, after all.â
âAlong with the other two-hundred students.â
âYours and yours alone.â
âOh, well, if you insist.â
As Evan sits down again and his fingers find purchase with the many small flowers popping up around them, Zoe allows herself to just look at him and be okay. Thereâs no pressure in their little haven around the tree, and in that comfort she thinks of her words from before. Iâll come home to you.
She canât help but think that the boy across from her is more of a home than the house they sit outside of, and when he presents her with her flower crown and presses a kiss to her cheek, sheâs only more certain of it.
They should really have learned their lesson a long time ago: donât base major life decisions on bets.
Amy reminds Jake of this after each and every one; after he moves into her apartment, when Hitchcock and Scully go to her bachelorette party, and when he wagers their car for some time off. Even, looking back on it, the bet that led to their first date and the bet with Holt that led to him proposing to her. Donât forget your bet with Rosa during the Jimmy Jabs, she realizes aloud at some point after they find out sheâs pregnant. Weâve just been betting everything for this whole relationship.
Amy reminds him of this, but itâs her who pulls out the final bet.
She starts to show - just a little bit, so little that Jake can barely tell, although she swears itâs obvious - three months into the pregnancy. A bit on the early side, her doctor tells them, but perfectly normal all the same. Amy curls up next to Jake on the couch when they get home with a crossword and a mug of herbal tea, one hand drifting down to her barely-perceptible bump every now and then.
âHeâs probably going to be giant,â she says absently, picking up her pencil again to mark a word. The scrape of graphite on paper is familiar and soothing, a sound that Jake has come to associate with their before-bed routine so strongly that just the sound makes him a little sleepy. âAll first Santiago sons are.â
He looks up at that, a smile beginning to tug at his lips. âHe?â Jake echoes, one hand reaching to brush Amyâs hair back from her face. âYouâve magically discovered the sex of our baby six weeks early?â
âItâs just logic. Santiagos have sons,â she replies without looking up from her puzzle.
âAnd when Peraltas have sons, they donât get along.â
âHush and stop listening to your father. You and our son will be just fine.â
âIâm not saying we wonât be. Maybe I just think weâre having a daughter.â
She looks away and up towards him, her deep brown eyes narrowing. âDo you really?â
âI really do.â
âYou and your puppy-dog eyes wonât sway me, Jake. I still think this kid is a boy.â
âWell, I guess weâll agree to disagree, then.â
âThatâs...very mature of you to say.â
âWhy do you sound so surprised?â He demands, looking back down towards her. âIâm a boring adult now, and Iâm just looking forward to meeting our little Holly Santiago-Peralta.â
She has the audacity to laugh at that. âWe are not naming our child after Holly Gennero.â
âI think our daughter will be lovely as a Holly.â
âOh yeah? How much are you willing to bet?â
Jake blinks. âWe share money.â
Amy swats him lightly with the backs of her fingers. âI was joking, dork.â She turns her eyes back to her crossword, and Jake looks back to the television after a moment, satisfied the topic is dropped. But another moment passes, and Amy speaks again, her voice just a little too casual and calculated. âOf course, we could bet something else.â
Jake turns his head so quickly his neck cracks. After he curses and Amy hides a laugh behind her smirk, he takes the bait. âAlright, Santiago, Iâm intrigued. What would this entail?â
âSantiago-Peralta,â she corrects, something she only ever does in the comfort of their apartment. âAnd nothing too drastic. But youâre certain the baby will be a girl, and Iâm sure theyâll be a boy. If youâre right, you get to name her, and if Iâm right, I get to name him. Within reason, of course.â
âBecause our bets are always in reason,â he mutters, earning himself an eye roll. âAlright,â he says finally, the old, competitive spark between them lighting somewhere in his ribcage. âI like those odds. You have a deal, Santiago-Peralta.â
Besides, heâs certain heâs got the bet won already.
***
He does not win the bet.
Itâs far from the first thing he thinks - mostly, heâs filled with panic over the fact that theyâve ruined the cake and his father and grandfather are about as far from getting along as theyâve ever been. He registers the fact that heâs having a son, and he feels all the excitement and anxiety at the prospect of a little boy that is half him and half Amy. Itâs only when she repeats the words back to him in the breakroom of the nine-nine, her excited cry of âweâre having a boy!â and the gentle grip of her hands on his forearms brings the nature of their bet back to mind.
He should really have learned by now not to bet against her.
She doesnât mention it, and so he doesnât, either - their general policy on personal matters at work. He doesnât mention it on the car ride home, although by that point heâs fit to burst with curiosity. As soon as they walk through the door, she announces she wants to get out of her uniform. He knows itâs become more uncomfortable for her to wear the longer the pregnancy goes on, so he resolves to ask when sheâs more comfortable and more willing to accept his incessant questions.
âI didnât want to ask you earlier, at the precinct,â Jake says as she re-emerges from their room divested of all police attire, âbut whatâre you thinking for the name?â
âName?â Amy says, with an air of loftiness that assures him she knows exactly what heâs asking. She settles about as gracefully as she can with her newly-growing stomach on the couch, her legs crossed at the ankle. And because he knows her so well - has lost so many bets to her - he knows what sheâs waiting for.
He collapses heavily onto the couch cushions beside her, nearly choking himself on his badge in the process, but itâs divested of nearly immediately by Amy and her nimble fingers warm on the back of his neck. He smiles at her gratefully before diving back into their post-bet rhythm.
âAny Santiago, love-â
âThatâs Amy Santiago-Peralta,â she interrupts, a smile already curling onto her lips. Her tone gives none of it away. âYouâd think that after three years youâd get it right.â
âOh damn, the sergeant voice,â Jake replies, his own voice lowered. âBe mean to me.â
âJake,â she says, widening her eyes a bit for emphasis. She pats her stomach.
âRight, right,â he mutters. âGotta pay homage. Amy Santiago-Peralta, love of my life, mother to our future child, crossword connoisseur, and possessor of one bomb-ass butt - your sex-discerning skills on the topic of the said unborn child are unrivaled, and you have thoroughly outmatched me in every way.â
Her dark brows furrow together. âThere was only one possible way to outmatch you.â
âAnd you did it, Ames! Every way!â Jake says, flashing a toothy grin up at her. âNow please tell me what youâre thinking of for a name because Iâm going to implode.â
âWell, thatâs a little dramatic.â
When she doesnât continue, he stares up at her in disbelief. âReally? Eight years as coworkers, three years of marriage, and a few months separated from having created a literal human being, and now is the time you become averse to all my drama?â
âWell, Iâm just not sure of the name yet, Jake,â she says, and the same loftiness is back in her tone.
âThere are three binders.â
âYou need at least five to get all the good contemporary names, and thatâs before Santiago family trad-â
âAmes,â Jake says, reaching for one of her hands where it rests on her thigh. âPlease. I wanna know how cursed this kid is gonna be.â
Her eyes soften at once, but her smile doesnât. She reaches her free hand to trace her thumb over his cheek, and he leans into the touch automatically, feeling a bit like a little kid again. âThis little Shrek could never be cursed,â she murmurs, and he laughs lightly. âYouâre his dad.â
âA Peralta dad isnât a good thing, Amy. I mean, we broke his sex reveal cake-â
âYour father and grandfather did,â she says, surprisingly sharp. âThe Peralta dads. You didnât do anything.â
âI never thought Iâd be so glad to hear those words,â he says under his breath, not quite reaching her eyes. Her hand on his face guides his eyes there, and he swallows hard once. âIâm gonna be one of them, though. I tried to - to bring them together, so itâs my fault. Iâm gonna be another Peralta dad with a son he canât take care of.â
âJake,â Amy says, firm again, although her eyes are soft. Her thumb traces over his cheek. âNot your fault. It was the Peralta dads. Jake Peralta-Santiago. Remember? Three whole years?â
He nods, hesitantly.
âYouâre gonna be the best Peralta-Santiago father there could ever be,â she whispers against his skin and leans down to press her lips to his. Itâs a quick kiss, but his eyes slide shut into it at the feel of her curved lips against his. She pulls away, and her hand drops away from his face.
âSo?â he says, a little breathless. âName?â
She smiles at him and reclaims both her hands to tuck her hair behind her ears. They drop to her stomach a moment after. âMac,â she says, a definite hint of pride laced in it.
âMac?â
âShort for McClane.â
He could swear his heart stops. âOh my God.â
Jake might just be projecting, but he swears he can see his wifeâs eyes growing misty. âOh my God, Ames, are you - are you sure? You were so against all of that, I donât want you picking a name you donât like just to make me happy.â
She shakes her head. âThatâs his name,â she half-whispers. âThatâs what he's meant to be.â
He can feel his own eyes softening as they are so wont to do around Amy, the very thought of their little son - little Mac, like every dream heâs ever had come true - filling him with such a surge of emotion that he catches Amy in another kiss, her laugh spilling into his mouth. Her hands grasp at his shirt, and he raises one hand to cup her elbow, and he could swear that heâs never been happier with his life than he is at that moment.
Once heâs pulled back, he lets out a sudden whoop, and Amy jolts forward and grabs his hand to still him. âThe neighbors!â She hisses, and they both go silent at once, waiting for the telltale banging from the floor above them that normally alerts them to the fact that their neighbor is pissed. When it doesnât sound, Jake exhales the same breath heâd been holding from his exclamation.
âMac,â he repeats. âItâs perfect.â
She smiles again, her cheeks flushed with everything from the conversation they just had. âIf itâs good enough for you and your hero, itâs perfect for me.â
âI wish I could propose to you again,â Jake says, and this time Amy reaches for him, wrapping her arms around him for a tight hug. âI love you so, so much.â
âSo much,â she echos into his shoulder. After a pause, she winces against him and Jake feels his heart nudge into his throat. âGod, heâs kicking so much.â
Every time he feels the baby move - his son, his Mac, their Mac - every nerve in his body jumps into action, and his heart into his throat. Heâs not sure if heâs ever felt a love so intense for anything in his life. He clears his throat, hoping Amy doesnât hear how thick his voice is. âYeah, I think I can feel it against my stomach.â
âGood,â she says. âThis kid is 50% you. Take some of the brunt of the head butting.â
âHappily, Ames. Heâs my kid, after all. Heâs got to burn off energy somehow.â
(Amy was truly right on both of her original accounts - Mac is a large baby, despite being born a little early, and his parents wouldnât have him any other way.)
022: âSometimes I just canât control myself when around you.â
023: âDo you believe in love at first sight?â
024: âI think Iâm in love.â
025: âIâd like it if you stayed.
026: âPeople are jerks, but not you.â
027: âIâll share the blankets with you.â
028: âI have never felt this way about anyone.â
029: âI want this to never endâŚâ
030: âCan I kiss you?â
LIVING TOGETHER
031: âI waxed the floors, grab your fluffy socks.â
032: âWho changed the thermostat settings? Iâm freezing to death.â
033: âCan we just watch a movie and fall asleep on the couch?â
034: âYou can put your cold feet on me.â
035: âYour stray red item turned my whites pink.â
036: âA thunderstorm is rolling through town and youâre scared of lightening/thunder so Iâll protect you.â
037: âThere was a power outage and now we have to have dinner by candlelight.â
038: âRock Paper Scissors to see who has to go talk to the neighbors upstairs for being too loud.â
039: âI just came home to you crying while watching a movie, please tell me whatâs going on.â
040: âOur AC is out and itâs the middle of the summer.â
041: âYou found me crying on the kitchen floor in the middle of the night surrounded by a shattered jelly jar.â
042: âMy parents are coming over in 10 minutes so please put some clothes onâ
043: âWeâre repainting the apartment and going to the hardware store together to pick out color swatches.â
044: âIF YOU USE UP ALL THE HOT WATER ONE MORE TIME IM GOING TO BAN YOU TO THE COUCH FOR A MONTH.â
045: âWeâre watching Toy Story 3 and we canât stop crying.â
WEDDINGS/PROPOSALS
046: âI caught the bouquetâ
047: âMy ex just invited me to their wedding and I need you to be my date so it doesnât look like Iâve spent the last few years failing to get over them.â
048: âWe accidentally got married in Vegas oopsâ
049: âIâm really drunk, please help me get safely out of the way so I donât ruin our friendâs wedding.â
050: âI planned out this super romantic proposal and you just ruined it by beating me to whole proposing thing.â
051: âI wasnât planning on asking you, but it appeared to me that life is short. Will you marry me? â
052: âIf you shove cake in my face this will be the worst wedding night of your life.â
053: âDo you take this man/woman to be your lawfully wedded husband/wife? â
054: âMay I have this dance, wife/husband? â
055: âYouâre the best thing thatâs ever happened to me. Iâm so happy I can finally call you my wife/husband.â
056: âI jokingly told you that the only way Iâd marry you was if you did this weird outlandish thing, and you actually did it, and Iâm kind of charmed.â
057: âThis is probably a bad time, but marry me?â
MARRIED LIFE
058: âWeâve become the clingy newlyweds you always complained about. â
060: âI know you havenât had the best experience with dogs in the past but look at its face please please can we keep it?â
061: âI wanted to surprise you for our anniversary, but everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.â
062: âI beat you at Mario Kart and now youâre banishing me to the couch for the night?â
063: âI surprised you with tickets to see our favorite band⌠WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU SURPRISED ME WITH TICKETS TO SEE THEM TOO?â
064: âI know we had a big fight but we still need to decorate the house for the holidays.â
065: âOh! Hey! Could you come and taste this to see if itâs okay?â
066: âWeâre arguing over book versus movie.â
067: âI came home to a Nerf gun on the front porch and a note that says âHere is your weapon. I have one too. Loser cooks dinner. Good luck. xoââ
068: âWeâve been celebrating our wedding anniversary on the wrong day for the past nine years.â
069: âYou had a business trip and I missed you so much that I kind of tore up the house in your absence like a dog with separation anxiety⌠sorry?â
070: âWe both have nowhere else to be so we get to spend our rare day off at home.â
PREGNANCY
071: âI bet itâs a girl/boy.â
072: âDo you think itâs possible that IâŚmight be⌠pregnant? â
073: âI thought I was pregnant but the test must have been wrong. Iâm not. â
074: âYouâre lucky Iâm pregnant!â
075: âCan you help me up, your child is pretty heavy.â
076: âI could really use a foot rub right now.â
077: âYour dad is really excited to meet you soon, itâs driving me crazy.â
078: âDo you wanna know the sex of the baby?â
079: âThe babyâs kicks are keeping me up at night.â
080: âDid you feel that?â
081: âI canât fit into my favorite dress anymore. â
082: âOH MY GOD IâM GOING INTO LABOR. WHAT DO WE DO NOW?!
083: "I canât be pregnant⌠orâŚ.OH MY GOD! â
084: âI think you might be pregnant.â
085: "Itâs 2 am but youâre craving cake and weâre both up anyway so letâs bake in our underwear.â
PARENTING
086: âI knew it was a mistake to get the twins matching clothes.â
087: âShâŚtheyâre asleep.â
088: âI think someone had a little accident with the finger paint.â
089: âMondays are your diaper days.â
090: âOur kid is totally the one who wanted to build a pillow fort, not me.â
091: âOohâŚsomeoneâs got a tummy ache.â
092: âAre you sure you donât want me to drop them off myself? I donât think you could handle seeing them off alone.â
093: âI told you we should have just gotten that German Shepherd puppy.â
094: âWhat do you think for their punishment? Grounding? No video games? No going out for a week?â
095: âMmâŚyour kid before five in the morning.â
096: âCome on now, I think youâre being too harsh. He/sheâs just a kid. Remember all of the stupid things we used to do when we were their age?â
097: âSo, how should we break the news that theyâre going to have a new baby brother or sister?â
098: âI think we should have another.â
099: âWhy wasnât I invited to your wedding?â
100: âOkay fine, one more story, but then you really have to go to bed.â
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
âOf all of the things El had done, sheâd never ended up sitting in the back of an ambulance. It only made the aftermath of Starcourt feel less real, ending the battle surrounded in a safe yet completely unfamiliar place. Only Mikeâs presence next to herâhis knee pressing into hers, the pressure of his arm around her shoulders, his ever-present warmth even as he shook slightlyâkept her grounded to the moment. Everything else was a waiting game, even though most of the battle had finished. A waiting game for the whining in her ears to quiet. A waiting game for the Mind Flayer to return. A waiting game for her powers - the only constant she ever had - to return.)
(A waiting game for Hop to resurface.)
Another car door slammed, nearly inaudible in the chaos of the parking lot. She felt herself flinch, even though she didnât mean to. Mikeâs arm tightened around her shoulders.
âTheyâll be back soon,â he says, and it comes out as more of a whisper. Sheâs not exactly sure what heâs referring to, but it comforts her in some way to hear him say it. â
So I borrowed a bunch of these fictional kisses from this post and made it up into a prompt list. Feel free to reblog of course!
breaking the kiss to say something, staying so close that youâre murmuring into each otherâs mouths
moving around while kissing, stumbling over things, pushing each other back against the wall/onto the bed
kissing so desperately that their whole body curves into the other personâsÂ
throwing their arms around the other person, holding them close while they kiss
hands on the other personâs back, fingertips pressing under their top, drawing gentle circles against that small strip of bare skin that make them break the kiss with a gasp
lazy morning kisses before theyâve even opened their eyes, still mumbling half-incoherently, not wanting to wake up
routine kisses where the other person presents their cheek/forehead for the hello/goodbye kiss without even looking up from what theyâre doing
being unable to open their eyes for a few moments afterward
one small kiss, pulling away for an instant, then devouring each other
staring at the otherâs lips, trying not to kiss them, before giving in
when one stops the kiss to whisper âIâm sorry, are you sure you-â and they answer by kissing them more
a hoarse whisper âkiss meâ
following the kiss with a series of kisses down the neck
starting with a kiss meant to be gentle, ending up in passion
a gentle âi love youâ whispered after a soft kiss, followed immediately by a stronger kiss
when one personâs face is scrunched up, and the other one kisses their lips/nose/forehead
height difference kisses where one person has to bend do wn and the other is on their tippy toes
kisses where one person is sitting in the otherâs lap
kisses meant to distract the other person from whatever they were intently doing
this fic is inspired by this post about a reverse AU by @fiddler-unroofed - if you want to be surprised and arenât familiar with the concept, iâd suggest looking at it after, but definitely kudos to them for this whole concept. thanks for sending that out into the world!
âThis isâŚConnorâŚhe wanted you to have this.â
For the first time in his life, Evan Hansen sat in the principalâs office. Not for the first time, he was at a loss for what to say, completely hinging his next actions on the actions of the people near him, studying them for some sign but unable to come up with much in the frantic, muddled place his anxious brain had become.
The woman across from him - Cynthia Murphy, mother of Connor and Zoe-suddenly reached out a hand. The paper sheâd pulled from her purse only moments before was now held in her outstretched hand. It was a sort of olive branch in Evanâs mind. Larry, her husband, looked at Evan expectantly. He took it uncertainly, casted arm still pressed against his thighs to hide the âConnorâ scrawled across it. As the room stood still, Evan unfolded the paper, which had clearly been rumpled and unfolded and refolded several times.
Dear Evan Hansen, it began. The room flashed for a moment, Larry and Cynthia gone and a printer in front of him, this letter clenched in Connorâs fist, where heâd seen it before. But Larryâs voice cut through the silence and he was back on the couch, the old, rough fabric sensible even through his jeans.
âWe didnâtâŚwe hadnât heard your name before, Connor neverâŚbut then we saw⌠âDear Evan Hansen.ââ
Evan shook his head, shaking the sound of a printer starting up from his mind. âHe, um, he gave you this?â
Cynthia finally spoke up, dodging his question. Her eyes were too bright, too shining and sad and desperate, as they bore a hole between his eyes. âWe didnât know you were friends.â
âWe didnât think that Connor had any friends,â Larry parroted. âAnd then we see this note and itâs, it seems to suggest pretty clearly that you and Connor were, or at least for Connor, he thought of you asâŚâ Larry gestured at the note in his hand, voice dying in his throat. He clearly wasnât used to that happening. âI mean, itâs right there. âDear Evan Hansen.â Itâs addressed to you. He wrote it to you.â
âIâm sorry, but what - why - you think he wrote this to me?â
âThese are the words he wanted to share with you. HisâŚlast words.â
âThis is what he wanted to leave you with,â Cynthia said, voice shaky and uncertain. Something in it was desperately familiar to Evan.
âIâm sorryâŚhis last words?â
Larry cleared his throat while Cynthia stifled a sob next to him. His eyes were the color of the wall behind him, drab and dark. The sound of a printer filled the air and Evanâs ears. Footsteps sounded behind him. Evan forced his eyes away from the printed letter to look into Larryâs eyes, those sad, dark, expectant eyes.
âConnorâŚuhâŚConnor took his own life.â
**
The computer lab was almost completely empty, save for a figure heâd barely given a second glance. It was empty enough for him, for his one goal of finishing this letter. He typed something out without paying much attention to what it was. It didnât matter. Each clack of the keys startled him more than the last. He wasnât thinking, only moving.
He clicked print on his document, immediately hearing the printer whoosh to life. It took a moment for him to stand up and move towards it, glancing at the first piece of paper to shoot out of the printer. He only stared at it for a moment before he heard footsteps behind him, heavy and expectant. The words flashed at him from the page.
âDear Evan Hansenâ.
The footsteps stopped behind him. He froze, unsure of what to do. His pulse quickened, blood rushing through his ears.
Connor stopped just next to him, clearing his throat to command attention, and Evanâs head swiveled to look. âHow did you break your arm?â He asked, almost monotone, like a kid forced to apologize by his teacher.
âOh, I, uh, I fell out of a tree.â He finished, voice trailing off towards the end.
âYou fell out of a tree?â Connor said, voice and face blank. He reminded Evan eerily of a voice in Google Translate when you clicked the speaker button - no breathing, little inflection, a robotic sense of detachement.
Evan nodded quickly, more of a jerk of the head than anything else.
Unexpectedly, Connor let out a laugh. The sound hit Evan full in the face, startling the still air. It felt familiar, almost. âThat is just the saddest fucking thing Iâve ever heard. Oh my God.â
âI know.â
Something in Evanâs tone must have pulled Connor out of his humor-induced reverie. His eyes dropped to the cast on Evanâs arm. âNo oneâs signed your cast.â
âNo, I-I know.â
âGuess I will, then.â
A swell of something rose in him. âYou donât - you donât have to-â
âDo you have a Sharpie?â
After a momentâs pause, Evan reached into his pocket and withdrew the sharpie. Connor accepted it. He wrote slowly, each squeak of the marker and giant stroke that shaped the letters filling the silence more effectively than words could. âNo pretending we have real friends, I guess.â He said, a dark note in his tone, as he passed the sharpie back to Evan.
âGood point.â
While Evan busied himself with the sharpie in his pocket, Connor reached for the paper in the tray. âIs this yours? It says âDear Evan Hansen.â Thatâs you, right?â
âOh, um, yeah, it is. Thatâs me. My name. It was a, uh, an assignment-â
But he couldnât stop Connorâs eyes from dropping back down to the paper. âBecause thereâs Zoe?â He said, all traces of friendliness gone from his tone.
Another swell of emotion. âWhat?â
âYou meant for me to find this, right? Because this is about my sister ? You wrote this because you wanted me to find this and freak out because of some creepy shit you said about my sister, and then you could tell everyone Iâm crazy, right?â
âWhat? I didnât - why would I-?â
âFuck you,â Connor spat, and this time he wasnât monotone. It was quiet anger - anger so great it almost shook, an anger that looked almost like sadness. He brushed past Evan, knocking his shoulder into him so that Evan fell against the printer right as it made another noise.
***
Barely three days later, Evan stopped short in the doorway to the principalâs office, heart already pounding out some uneven beat.
âUh, is Mr. HowardâŚ? I just, sorry, they said on the loudspeaker for me to come to the principalâs office.â
âMr. Howard is, uh, he stepped out.â
Evan nodded, unsure of what else to do or why he was there.
âWe wanted to speak to you in private. If youâd like to, maybeâŚâ
The man on the couch opposite the only free chair was intimidating. A grey suit stretched across his shoulders, the fit perfect. His voice commanded a certain attention, even as he hunched uncertainly and fiddled with his tie. It was evidently a voice that was used to having people obey its commands. The woman next to him was easy to look past until you saw her, and then you would wonder how you missed her in the first place. Although she was quiet and still, she had her own presence, too, a kind of presence that came with money and assurance and all the confidence of the two. Her face was a mask super glued back together from some broken part of her, the cracks so obvious youâd wonder how you hadnât seen them. They were people who knew who they were and exactly what they were worth, even though an obvious sorrow cut through their postures and controlled their expressions. They were pulled by invisible strings, strings they probably didnât know existed until this sorrow arrived to weigh them down. The strings were probably the only reason they were standing.
Evan knew he should be intimidated by them, but he, himself, knew something about sorrow, and unlike them, heâd never had strings to hold him up.
As he sat across from them, the man cleared his throat. Larry, Evan remembered, and Cynthia. The names came from some dark shadow in his mind. He could almost imagine a voice saying them, but he was cut off by the voice of Larry.
âWeâre, uh⌠weâre Connorâs parents.â
A flash of something in his chest, squeezing his heart. Letters on a page, the smell of sharpie and something bitter. Sunlight and fluorescent light at once. âOh?â
Without warning, Cynthia began to pull her purse open to grab something out. Larry, an expression Evan recognized as desperation on his face, filled the silence with âWhy donât you go ahead, honey-â
Tone fraught, Cynthia cut him off. âIâm going as fast as I can.â They were decidedly not looking at each other, choosing instead to train their eyes on the coffee table and the wall, respectively.
Larryâs voice was measured and thin as he responded. It was clear heâd been through this conversation before. âThatâs not what I said, is it?â
Cynthia ignored him. Evan counted the beats of silence in his head. For someone so terrible with music, heâd always been able to keep a rhythm. Heâd reached five before Cynthia turned back to him, hand outstretched and letter between her tightly clenched fingers.
And Dear Evan Hansen was staring up at him again.
There was more silence until Evan was pulled out of his own head, and heâd lost track of how long heâd been in silence. He said something or Cynthia said something or Larry said something, or maybe it was all three and it just blurred together, the words on the page in front of him obscuring his vision even while he looked away.
âConnor took his own life.â
âHis⌠last words.â
âWanted you toâŚâ
âItâs addressed to you.â
â...at least, he thought of you asâŚâ
âConnor didnât write this,â he said, coming back to the moment. He hadnât properly looked at the Murphyâs before then, but with that choked out statement, he did. Evan hadnât realized how his throat had narrowed and his eyes had burned until he had Cynthiaâs eyes staring at him, all crinkled around the corners in a way that made his heart twist. âI wrote it.â
âWhat?â She said, it coming out as though it had been dragged from her throat - a raw, guttural noise. He dropped his eyes from her face.
Larry made a similar disbelieving noise - all instinct, no planning. âHeâs in shock, he doesnât mean-â
âHe didnât write it,â Evan said a little louder, voice verging on hysterical and suddenly very aware of the tears splashing down his cheeks. He shook his head, one hand shoving the letter back to the Murphyâs in some sudden urge to get it as far away from his as possible, to have it out of his hands, have it gone. Shock may have been what was coursing through his veins, but for what, he didnât know. His other hand reached to his heart, tapping and massaging, before falling back to his shirt hem. âIt was, it was a, a therapy assignment. I wrote - wrote it. We didnât - Connor and I-â heâs choked off. âHe took it in the, the computer lab, where I, thatâs where I printed it-â
He could hear the printer clearly, once, then twice.
âIâm sorry, sorry, Iâm sorry, I should-â he made to stand, dropping the letter as though it had scalded him, and he tilted a little as his vision became obscured by sudden vertigo. He couldnât look at the Murphyâs, couldnât even if he could see through his tear-blurred eyes, couldnât see the disappointment in their eyes and grief in their faces, because heâd dashed their last hope of knowing their son, heâd ruined it, heâd-
A sob tore through the air. His own.
He stumbled on his feet, and suddenly a hand wrapped around his good armâs bicep, strong even as the person it was attached to clearly had trouble getting the words out around tears. A business card with other writing scribbled on the back was shoved in his direction, and he grabbed it blindly before wrenching his eyes up to the personâs face. Larry stared back at him, an emotion so unprocessed on his face that it very nearly tore another sob from Evanâs chest. âPlease,â he said, indicating the card with his free hand. âCome-come to dinner anyway, please.â
Evan nodded, knowing at that moment heâd have agreed to anything to get out of that office and finally breathe again.
Larry let go of his arm, his own hand dropping slowly to his side. He couldnât bring himself to look at Cynthia, but he could hear her weeping from across the office. His hand wrapped more tightly on the card. Summoning some unknown inner strength, he turned and forced himself to walk away before he became frozen to the spot.
***
âThey want you to go to dinner?â
âYeah.â
âWhy? I mean, what good does it do to hang out with the kid their dead son had nothing to do with whatsoever?â
âGod, Jared, do I seem like I know? Search me.â
âTheyâre crazy, probably.â
âThatâs harsh.â
âWhat? Theyâre the Murphyâs. Connorâs parents. They must be. Why else would they-â
âStop,â Evan said, and he was surprised by how harsh he sounded, especially given the fact that his eyes felt like they were burning for no reason. âTheyâre grieving. And Connor, heâsââ his voice trailed off.
âYeah, no shit, dude. Itâs just weird. Everyoneâs acting weirdly now.â
âItâs a weird situation,â Evan said softly.
âYou could say that again. Sabrina Patel was selling buttons at lunch.â
â Buttons? â
âYeah, like, In Memoriam buttons? In remembrance or some shit?â
âThatâs terrible,â Evan breathed.
He could practically see Jaredâs shrug. âI donât know. Sheâs just profiting, I guess. I thought of doing the same.â
Evan hung up before Jared could say anything else.
***
âWhy did you say that about me?â
âSay-?â
ââBecause thereâs Zoe. And all of my hope is pinned on Zoe.â Why did you say that?â
Evan felt something tug in his chest, Zoeâs words striking something deep. He inclined his head ever so slightly in her direction.
He inclined his head ever so slightly in his direction, a smile spreading across his face as he opened his mouth to respond.
âI donât know, you see, I just - thereâs this, thereâs this little smile thing you do, when youâre playing guitar in jazz band? Itâs like, your eyes kind of close and you get this tiny smile on your face like youâre totally content in that moment and you know what youâre doing, and itâs like, itâs like youâre letting us in on this secret without saying anything.â Her eyes meet his, brewing with confusion, and he taps a strange rhythm on his thigh, thoughts racing.
âYou know your smile? Itâs really nice. I never see it, it feels like, but when you smile, itâs like...itâs like everything is, hilarious, I guess, you know? Everything is, everything is good. It feels...like, like Iâve been accepted when you smile at me.â
He started again. âI went to your jazz band concerts, and there was something about your playing and your smile and all of it - there was something about it, something just really...something thatâs really, really subtle, and perfect, and...real, I guess.â He swallowed against a sudden lump in his throat. âIt made me feel...wonderful.â
He smiles, and his heart skips a beat. âThereâs something about a nice smile, I guess. If it is nice. If itâs nice, itâs really nice.â He pauses before he continues. âYou know, she has a nice smile. I always feel really...wonderful, when she smiles at me. Even if I canât show it.â
He doesnât need to say who she is. Â
âReally?â She said softly, and Evan looked back up, her eyes startlingly clear and focused. He couldnât quite read the expression on her face or the tone of her voice, but it had softened considerably, the freckles around her nose relaxing against the rest of her face rather than scrunching up in self-defense.
âYeah,â he said, the corners of his lips quirking. âAnd...and I noticed how youâd scribble stars on the,â he pointed to her crossed ankles, and her gaze dropped to them, her cheeks tingeing slightly pink, from what he could discern, âon the cuffs of your jeans, see? And Iâd see you in, in the library, and the hallways, and like, half of the time youâd be filling out one of those-those quizzes in those teen magazines.â
Her eyes flitted back up to his, still guarded. âDid you really?â
He nodded quickly, hand still tapping at his thigh.
The edge of her lip twitched momentarily, and Evan almost thought she was about to give him one of her thousand-watt smiles, but it became neutral a moment later. He hadnât noticed until just that moment, but sheâd been choosing and shaping her words so carefully before then - so clearly thought out, although heâd missed it. The next words were rushed and hurried, her lisp slipping in, syllables blending just ever so slightly more. He almost got lost in that different feel-how almost intimate it felt, to have her speak differently than heâd ever heard her, but he couldnât escape the feeling it was more from desperation than comfort. âDid...did you notice anything else?â
Still caught up in his train of thought, it took him a second to respond. âAbout...about you?â He said, voice tilting up at the âou.â
If her previous words had been lax, these were negligent: âNever mind, I donât really care anyways, itâs just-â
Maybe it was the way the guard immediately went back up in her eyes. Maybe it was the tone of what she said, the familiarity he felt at every moment of his life, the anxiety and disappointment and fear laced through the words. Maybe it was because she seemed upset more than anything. But suddenly he was rushing over everything else, to stop her from standing, from turning away, from slipping out of his fingers like on the first day of school.
From slipping out of his fingers that afternoon, a light hum and uncertainty hanging in the air, a glint in his eye he could understand but didnât know how to interpret. Â
âNo, I, uh, itâs just, there were more - many things, Iâm trying to think of - trying to think of the...best ones?â
She didnât respond, but she didn't leave, either, and so he forged ahead.
âUm,â his hand, which had been picking nervously at the edge of his cast, fell to his side as he finally thought of something. He ignored how his heart warmed at the memory, and he hoped she couldnât see right through him. âI know that I, I thought that you looked really pretty-er, uh, pretty cool!-when you put those, um, those indigo streaks in your hair.â
âYou did?â Zoe said, either genuinely not having heard his slip-up or graciously ignoring it. Something in her tone urged Evan to meet her eyes, and he identified it a moment later - hope, shining out from the uncertainty.
âYeah,â he said quickly, giving her a half-smile. âAnd, and, I saw you dance - that sounds creepy, but in the cafeteria sometimes youâd kind of - grab your friends and make them dance with you funnily? And at school dances, youâd just dance - youâd dance like no one else was there. And it was like, you didnât care what anyone else thought? Or if it was awkward and it was just - I thought it was - perfect? But I was too - I was always too scared to say anything-â
Heâs cut off by her lips, pressed against his. Theyâd been leaning ever so slightly forward towards each other as he talked, and at some point, heâd gained the courage to meet her eyes again, and the skin just in the corner had crinkled in some complicated way, and her nose had scrunched a little, and he could see her lips work ever so slightly, and heâd never been close enough to see those little pools of lighter brown in her eyes, and then sheâd closed the distance between them. Their lips were pressed together for maybe a second before she pulled away again, but it felt like simultaneously a lifetime and no time at all, the feeling of it played again and again on repeat, the jolt of the slightly rough feel of her lips had given him, the taste of chapstick and some fruity Seltzer, the way it felt as though theyâd melted together for just that one moment. As she pulled away and his eyes opened again (heâd closed them?) everything seemed sharper and more in focus, like every one of his nerves had been zapped awake.
âIâm sorry,â she said, and her words were once again careless. âIâm sorry, I donât know why I - what the hell,â she added, almost under her breath, more to herself than him, he knew. She looked away from him quickly.
âDinnerâs ready!â Cynthia called, her voice traveling up the stairs. They both jumped up immediately. Zoe quickly made to move past him. He couldâve sworn her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.
âAnd you were-you were always nice to me,â Evan said. She paused, back still to him. The caramel brown of her hair contrasted against the white of her blouse in a way that made it quite easy for him to look at it. âNot just me. To everyone. Even when it seemed like everyone else-â he cut off. âYou werenât. Even if you didnât realize it. You are - you are good, Zoe Murphy. And that first day of schoolâŚâ
âTell them to eat without me,â Zoe said, and Evan knew for sure that the force obstructing her voice was tears. âIâm sorry, I, I canât.â
His heart twisted as she hurried out of the door, her tear-choked voice hanging in the air.
âGuys?â Cynthia called, concern edging into her voice.
***
âWould anyone like more chicken?â
âI think youâre the only one with an appetite, Larry.â
Two days before Zoe kissed Evan, they sat across from each other at a dining table with five chairs. His was shoved hurriedly between Cynthia and Larryâs, and the one next closest to Zoe was simply (achingly) empty. He thought he could see a curved shadow in it for just a moment, but it was gone a second later.
âThe Harrises brought it over,â Larry said, defensiveness creeping into his tone. Evan didnât have to glance over at Cynthia to see the disapproving look she threw at Larry; he could feel it over his shoulder. He looked down at his plate instead, one hand picking at his cast. As his gaze moved downward, he couldnât help but notice Zoeâs eyes on him, one hand sluggishly pushing her chicken around with a fork.
âWe used to go skiing together,â Cynthia explained for Evan.
âConnor hated it,â Zoe bit out.
âZoe,â Larry said, and that was the end of that conversation.
âI, um. Iâve never skied.â Evan said, desperate to fill the heavy silence between the Murphyâs. Larry nodded, but that was the extent of his interaction.
âWhy did he sign your cast?â Zoe said suddenly. When Evan turned to look at her, her eyes were bright.
âUm-what?â
âYour cast.â She said, ignoring Cynthiaâs death glare. âHe signed it. In giant fucking letters.â (Larry interrupted with a scandalized âZoe!â, but she ignored him). âWhy did he do that if you werenât friends?â
Evanâs mouth twisted downwards. âHe, um. He offered. In the computer lab. Said something about pretending we had friends.â
It was the wrong thing to say. Cynthia looked down and away from him, but Zoe at least seemed to understand where he was coming from.
âThat makes sense,â she muttered. âYou know, itâs kind of weird. The only time I ever saw you guys together was when he shoved you at school last week.â
âConnor shoved you?â Cynthia breathed.
Looking back at Zoe, something hardened in her gaze, in the corners of her eyes, Evan wondered how heâd never seen the resemblance between her and Connor before. Maybe heâd never realized just how bitter they could look, their shared expression of trepidation. He didnât like hers leveled at him.
âI, um. I tripped.â
âHe pushed you. Hard. I saw the whole thing. Howâd he get from that to signing your cast?â
Evan closed his eyes, opened them again. The story sprang off of his tongue. âHe was upset. Someone - someone made a rude joke. I coughed and he thought I was laughing at him. He pushed me.â
Cynthia frowned. âThat wasnât very nice.â
âWell, Connor wasnât very nice, so that makes sense,â Zoe snapped.
She mustâve known she crossed a line, but she didnât seem to regret it at all. Cynthia shut her own eyes. Larry glanced up from his chicken sharply. The silence that settled over them was deadly. Evan was afraid to breathe for fear of breathing in the shrapnel coming off of their glares.
âConnor was a...complicated person.â
âNo, Connor was a bad person. Thereâs a difference.â
Larry finally decided to intervene. âZoe, thatâs enough.â
âYou agree with me. Donât pretend you donât,â Zoe said, her eyes flashing to Larry. He froze in his seat.
âYou refuse to see any of the good things!â Cynthia shouted.
âBecause there were none! What were the good things, mom?â Zoe returned her motherâs volume.
âThere were-â Cynthiaâs voice broke off, and her eyes cut to Evanâs face. Her meaning was clear. âNot here, Zoe. Not in front of our guest.â
âWhat were the good things, mom? Tell me!â
âThere were good things!â
âConnor could be good,â Evan found himself saying. All three sets of eyes snapped to him. He couldnât have handled watching Cynthia grow more distressed for another moment.
âWhat?â Zoe said. She seemed to regret how much edge there had been in her words a second later, but her eyes didnât yield a single inch.
Evan hedged. âI mean. He. He signed my cast? And he was, well. He was the only person who did that. Or even wanted to, really. No one else noticed. Or, or cared, I guess.â
Cynthiaâs eyes were latched onto him. Zoe looked away, back at her plate. He wondered if she could hear him saying no way, Jose just as clearly as he could.
âI think, I think there were a lot of those, um, those small moments,â he said finally.
His hand ghosted over a new scrape. âWhereâd that happen?â
âOh, I just got into a fight with a notebook.â
âThere arenât a lot - a lot of people who see those?â
âAre you sure youâre okay to be out tonight? You look tired.â
Evan shook his head a little. âHe did, though. With everyone, I think.â
Cynthia seemed to be on the verge of tears again, but they were a happier kind of tears.
He was invited back to dinner as often as he wanted to come.
***
Later, heâd stand in front of the Murphysâ table. âThe Connor Project,â he said, letting it sink in. Jared Kleinman and Alana Beck were on either side of him, makeshift pamphlets in their hands. Cynthia looked up from the pamphlet. For the first time, she seemed able to truly meet his eye. Â
âThe...Connor Project?â
âYeah,â Evan said. âSomething to make sure that no one else feels like Connor did. To, to preserve his memory.â
He was aware of Zoeâs eyes on his face. He didnât think theyâd ever left, but he couldnât be sure.
âThereâll be a massive online presence,â Jared said from his side. âResources, hotlines, chats that are heavily monitored, those types of things.â
Alana, after offering her condolences to the family, picked up her part of the pitch with great enthusiasm. âAnd a fundraising drive, so we can hopefully create more resources and do something in honor of Connor. All of it started with an all-school memorial assembly.â
Evanâs gaze angled to Zoe. She seemed surprised that he could even see her; sheâd been entirely quiet in this din of noise. âMaybe jazz band could do something.â
She nodded after a moment, seemingly caught off guard. âYeah, maybe,â she said quietly. He couldnât quite read the emotion on her face.
âI didnât realize Connor meant this much to people,â Larry said. Like his daughter, heâd barely said anything before. His thumb rubbed over the faux pamphlet, his mouth twisting into a deep frown.
âOh, Evan, this is wonderful,â Cynthia said half a second later. He was startled but not surprised to see tears sparkling in her eyes. She stood and crossed the kitchen in surprisingly short strides, her arms enveloping Evan in a warm hug for a minute. She hugged Jared after him; Jared didnât seem to know what to do, caught off-guard by the sudden affection. Alana was next; Cynthia whispered something to her, and Alana whispered something back, but Evan had no idea what either said. They each smiled a moment later. Evanâs gaze fell back to Zoe. Sheâd seemed to shrink back into herself at the table, but when he met her eyes, one of the corners of her lips tugged just the barest hint outwards. He was sure he was the only one to catch it. For whatever reason, to everyone but him, Zoe Murphy may as well have not been in the room at all.
***
Heâd stand in front of their kitchen table again, head ringing and tears imminent, Zoe so far from smiling heâd wonder how she was even functioning.
Everyone would see him again, and theyâd see her, too, but there would be something else to see, too. Someone. The Connor Project in its entirety, at its ugliest, at its core.
***
But Zoe smiled at him, over but not because of the Connor Project, and he could see her and she could see him. That was a pretty big deal, in and of itself. Sometimes thatâs all we need to feel like enough, one person seeing us. Sometimes thatâs all we need to think that someone else is enough to make us feel human again.
***
âWhatever happened when you fell from the tree?â
The question fell from Zoeâs lips where they rested just above his shoulder. Her head was resting on it while they sat outside one of the outer walls of the school. Her arm was wrapped tight around his waist, and his hand held hers with practiced ease. The way their fingers laced together still sent butterflies through his stomach at the first touch but quickly settled him afterward. Holding hands with Zoe was starting to feel as easy as breathing. He let his head drop to rest against the top of hers.
âWhat?â
âI mean...who found you? Your coworkers? Random park goers? It just sounds like it mustâve been a terrible fall.â
For a moment, he remembered the feel of a different hand in his and the catch of light on brown hair. But another second later and it was gone.
âNo one,â he said. âI had to go find my boss.â
Zoe took in a sharp breath. Her arm drew him even closer to her, and her head dropped more to press a kiss to his shoulder. He felt his heart warm and widen at the movement. More than anything, he just felt safe and content with Zoe next to him.
***
He shared what happened when he fell from the tree.
âGood morning, students and faculty. I would, um, I would just like to say a few words to you today about...our classmate, Connor Murphy, on behalf of the, um, the Connor Project community.â
He felt like he was going to choke. Like the lights would drown him and he'd disappear forever, lost in all but the minds of the entire school in front of him. The entire school.
âI didnât know Connor that well. But Connor was always there, whether we knew it or not. Whether we acknowledged him or not.â
His cards nearly fell from his hands. He choked on a building cough, but he kept going.
âI wish Connor were still here, because then maybe Iâd know him enough to give a proper speech about him. Maybe Iâd know him as more than the boy who was kind enough to sign, um, sign my cast when no one else would.â
He flipped a notecard.
âGood morning, students and...um, uh.â
This was his worst nightmare, coming to life. He shuffled through his notecards. He may have heard a laugh building up in the crowd, but he couldnât be certain.
All of the cards went flying and it was so silent you could hear a pin drop.
Instead, he dropped. He went to the ground, hands flying to pick them up. It was useless. He couldn't grab them. He looked up towards the sky, the lights, whispering um s that barely made it out of his throat, choking on tears of frustration and sorrow. He was trapped under those lights, harsh and unnatural. Why not sunlight over the horizon? Like when he broke his arm. These lights were artificial, but werenât they the same as the outside? Wasnât he the same person heâd been then?
He wanted to disappear, swallowed up by the light he could see as far as he looked. Why couldnât he just disappear?
Evan swore he could feel Connorâs gaze on him, the weight of his giant sharpie name on the cast on his arm.
Light on the horizon. Sharp pain in his arm. Connor saved him, right? (Not literally, of course. How would that be possible?) He wished everything was different. He wished someone noticed him. Them. The two of them. They shouldnât disappear into background noise, the deafening silence of a crowd of people waiting for him to fix things in their minds.
And after a deep breath, he stood, notecards forgotten on the ground. His eyes dropped to the first row of chairs, where he could swear a pair of eyes stared back into his like they did across the Murphyâs kitchen table.
Connor.
With a quick nod from him, a plastic, detached version of the real thing in the computer lab that day - with his robotic voice and jerky movements - words sprang off of Evanâs tongue.
â I, uh, I broke my arm this summer. Obviously.â
A chuckle went through the crowd, hesitant, uncertain, probably because of the tears still drying on his cheeks.
âUm. I was working at Ellison State Park. It was the morning, and it was just - it was so beautiful. I loved it, really. No one else was there. I was so-so lonely. All summer, really. I was, uh, I was invisible.
âWhen I fell from a tree, I thought it would be better. Maybe, like maybe Iâd be gone for good?â
There was a deafening silence, then.
âBut I just broke my arm. I was still there. No one, no one really saw me, still. Through the rest of the summer. Until-until Connor signed my cast, first day of school. He wasnât the person to find me that day I broke my arm. But in a roundabout way, he found me eventually. Just by being there, and being open to someone he barely knew. It was enough to feel seen.
âI wish I couldâve done that for him. Made him feel seen. I wish we all could have done that. And I hope thatâs what we do in the future. Provide some way for us all to be seen. We should all be found by each other. We will find each other, and we will help each other. We need to at least try.â
He almost ended it there, but then he said, âThere should always be someone to find you. Even if it looks like there isnât, keep your eyes open. Someone will find you when you fall from a tree and think thereâs no tomorrow. Someone will find you.â
The lights swallowed him up, and then they were gone. He was lying in the grass for a moment before the sunlight - no, the stage light - cleared from his eyes. The sound of applause was deafening, and when he searched for Connor in the front row he came up short.
He was just relieved to be done speaking, but that would be far from his last moment with that speech. The next morning, heâd be on almost every major news source, thanks to a video of his speech Alana posted on the Connor Project social media. Heâd rush to the Murphyâs, stand in front of their table, try to understand their gratitude at what heâd done. Heâd get a rush of Instagram followers. Heâd immediately start filming more videos with Alana. Heâd learn to see the outpouring of gratitude for his words, learn to share more as time went on.
His mother would see it, and sheâd barge into his room, face pale, and pull him into her arms. Sheâd hug him close and whisper apologies he said she didnât need to share, and sheâd tell him just how proud she was of him, how fantastic he is, her smart, brave boy who managed to say all of that in front of everyone.
And heâd find Zoe in her room, watching his speech on her laptop. Sheâd shut it as soon as he walked in, all of her attention focused on him. And sheâd start to say something, maybe, to thank him, to thank him for trying and for doing this all for her family and for making her realize the impact of his words, but heâd kiss her and pull away a second later. And before he could run, sheâd kiss him back, and some small, selfish corner of his brain may think that this made all the other parts of his speech worth it, just to feel Zoe Murphyâs fingers twined through his hair and his body pressing against hers. But deep down, he had a feeling it would come to all of that anyway, that he and Zoe were meant to be this version of themselves. Together. Larger than life, an emotion so strong he couldnât begin to imagine it.
***
For once in his life, Evan was more than just Evan. Â
(Once? a tiny corner of his brain said, a pair of eyes across from a table, a hand grasping his right hand with a fierce protectiveness and steady squeeze.)
It was so unspeakably nice to have the knowledge that, outside the four walls of his room and the screen of his laptop, people watched the videos he and Alana filmed. With every âHello, Connor Project Community!â he became just a little more seen, and even though Alana talked over him half of the time, there were a few time their eyes met in the webcam and they just smiled, because theyâd done something. It was the same with Jared; no more assertions of family friends, but then spent together working in a comfortable silence.
He never hears from his father as the weeks go by and his cast comes off. (âZoe must be happy, huh? Must be a real turn off, trying to get it on with her dead brotherâs name giant on your cast.â That didnât sit very well in his stomach.) But when Larry offers to go through stuff in the basement with him - and Cynthia and Zoe roll their eyes in exasperation - he really is happy to listen. Larry told him partway through that he was a really good listener, and he couldnât help but feel his chest inflate a bit with pride. He doesnât know anything about sports, doesnât even care. But itâs so nice to have Larry joke with him, show him his years and years of collecting, give him a glove like thereâs nothing in the world heâd rather be doing then spending the afternoon with Evan Hansen. Thatâs a nice feeling, the knowledge that someone wants to spend time with you.
And thereâs Zoe, of course. But she can barely be captured by words. Perhaps more than anyone else, sheâs the one that makes him feel least like just Evan. Because they are a pair, and it feels so nice to have someone else on his side, making the good parts of life seem fantastic and the bad parts seem inconsequential. When they make eye contact and laugh to themselves across the garage, or when she grabs his hand at school or after, or when they just sit next to each other, heads leaning onto each other, he doesnât feel like solitary, lonely Evan. He feels - knows - that he is part of a pair, and the other side will always be there so they can hold each other up.
***
âWe donât need to talk about the Connor Project.â
âOh,â Evan said. âOkay.â
âNo, I just...I want to know. But I also want...I want to have this time with you. Just for us.â
âFor our kegger?â
The corners of her mouth twitched. âObviously.â
âOh, good.â
After a pause, Zoe continued. âMy brother...he had so much of my life. So much of my time. I feel like everything in my family...it was his. And I really just need something...for me.â
Up this close, Evan was pulled in, again, by the look in her eyes, the freckles on her cheeks, the curve of her lips, the affection and determination in her eyes. The space between her eyebrows furrowed just the slightest bit, and he reached out and grabbed her hand. His heart jumped a beat into his throat. He swore he could count the stars in her eyes if he tried enough. She reached a hand up to cup his cheek.
âYou donât have to impress me, Evan. Youâre enough. Youâre more than enough. Youâre...everything. You donât have to convince me of anything, okay? I know who you are. I know what weâre in the middle of. Ignore that doubting voice in your head.â
He smiled at her, and her eyes softened. In the soft lighting of his bedroom, he felt she was an angel come to save him, the floral pattern of her dress caught in the reflection of the daylight and the sleeve of her denim jacket rubbing against their entwined hands. Sheâd taken all of the anxious energy that normally followed him in waves and sheâd thrown it out the window with a flick of her wrist. Sheâd stolen the air from his lungs and ignited every nerve in his body. Sheâd steadied the air around him, made him comfortable with the curve of her calloused fingers on his. He only hoped he could do the same for her.
âI know you, Evan Hansen. And I know you outside of anything else. Youâre...youâre mine. And Iâm yours. Itâs just us, okay? Nothing to live up to. Nothing to worry about.â She smiled. âJust us. Zoe and Evan.â
âZoe and Evan,â he echoed, unable to stop the grin on his face. A pair. A matching set. âI could get used to that.â
Her hand dropped from his face to his shoulder. âI plan on making you get used to it for quite a long time, actually.â
âI wouldnât want it any other way.â
When she kissed him, he swore he could have lifted the stars from the sky and brought them down to her simply with the sweeping wave of affection and joy and love he felt for Zoe Murphy, for every constellation splashed on her cheeks.
*** Â
âBecause I know what itâs like to feel invisible just like you did!â Alana said, her hand curling around her backpack strap. Evan chose to focus on that rather than the way the floor seemed to have bottomed out beneath him. âBut you donât seem to understand that thatâs why Iâm doing this.â
He swallowed past a lump in his throat. âI get it,â he said. âIâm sorry, Alana. I understand. I know. I know that feeling.â
âI think you might have forgotten that other people do, too. That Connor might have. Thatâs why weâre doing this.â
âI know! I know!â
âYouâre not showing that, Evan. Youâre not.â
âIâmâŚIâm sorry. Iâll try harder. Iâll do more.â
Alana just sighed. âPlease, Evan. Weâre trying to do something here. Weâre trying to help people. Raise money. Iâm not sure about your story, and neither are the community.â
His stomach flips unpleasantly, landing about six inches higher than it should. Â
âDo me a favor, from one invisible person to another,â she says. Something in her tone forced his eyes to meet hers. âDonât let someone else go forgotten, okay? Just...Iâd prefer you didnât lie to me, but God, at least admit everything to yourself.â
***
Evan wasnât quite sure when he first saw Connor. It may have been in the audience at his speech, or maybe curled into his chair in the Murphyâs kitchen at one of their countless meals.
In his mindâs eye, he fell from a tree.
âOh, thatâs a nice story. You let go?â
But with the fragments of his and Alanaâs conversation from the week before echoing in his ears, Connor was more present to him than he ever had been. Actually speaking instead of just staring.
âYes. Yes, I let go. I wanted toâŚI wanted toâŚâ
âDid you let go? Or did you fall?â
"At least admit everything to yourself.â
âIâŚI donât know what youâre saying.â
âIs it true that no one came to get you that day?â
âYes! I wasâŚI was alone. Just like I told Zoe.â
âI donât give a shit what you told Zoe. What happened?â
âI was alone.â
âOh, for fuckâs sake, Evan. You canât even tell the truth to yourself.â
âAdmit it to yourself.â
âItâs the truth! I donâtâŚâ
âOh yeah?â Connor, the fake and cleansed one, suddenly leaned in close to where Evanâs face was as he sat on the bed. âMaybe you should think again.â
Something wrong struck Evan just then. It turned over a dog eared page in his head, but he shook it rapidly and squeezed his eyes shut to keep it down. Shadows flicked at the edges of his vision and colors exploded against his eyelids with the force he closed them.
one
two
three
***
He had never thought of himself as a person of habit before, but he became rather attached to his new routine with the Murphyâs. His mother was home for dinner Tuesdays and Thursdays, so he stayed home those nights unless he could claim a Spanish project and say he needed to go to Jaredâs. But most nights, he walked to the Murphyâs with Zoe and stayed for dinner and sometimes slept over. He was used to that routine, and that day wasnât any different.
Looking back on it, Zoe, perhaps, seemed a bit bouncier than usual on the walk home, tugging Evan forward by their joined hands a bit more persistently than normal. And maybe heâd noticed the extra car parked down the street, but he didnât look closely enough to see that it was his car before Zoe wrapped a quick squeeze around his waist and bounced forward to her front door, leaving Evan to trail after her like a lovesick puppy.
And then they walked through the entryway and into the living room, and Evan felt his entire body jolt to a stop without planning it. His mother perched on the edge of a chair, a wine glass held in her hand so delicately he wondered if she wanted to be holding it at all.
Zoe smiled even more broadly, bounding forward and holding out a hand to shake as she was so wont to do. Heidi shook it with an air of confusion.
âThis, um, this was your idea?â Evan heard himself say. He wanted to smile at the look of joy on her face, but the overwhelming sense of confusion on his motherâs made it impossible. He had a creeping feeling of foreboding in his gut.
Evan sat in a free chair and Zoe perched on the armrest. He could feel his motherâs eyes on him, but he was truthfully on autopilot. He could feel himself curling into himself, trying to take up less space, but he didnât stop it. He knew, in his gut, that it would end poorly.
And then Larry and Cynthia offered to pay for his college tuition.
His first thought, stupidly, was of those printed-out college essay contests sitting in a stack on his bedside table. Heâd barely glanced at them, but his mother had gone to all that work to print them out.
âNo. No thank you,â Heidi said firmly, already standing to leave. âI appreciate it, but I assure you, we can make it on our own.â
That was the first time sheâd referred to Evan as part of the family unit in a while. Most of the time she placed all of the responsibility on herself whenever finances came up, but now she included Evan in the âwe.â It felt almost like she was trying to assert a claim over him, like she thought the Murphys were trying to use him as a proxy for Connor.
âOf course, no, Iâm so sorry. We simply meantâŚ.well, Evan has been such help with everything. We wanted to repay him some of his kindness,â Cynthia said, so earnestly no one could doubt it.
âThat wonât be necessary,â Heidi said, her eyes flicking over to Evan. âBut thank you. We appreciate it.â
âDo you know how humiliating it is? To see that your son has joined a new family and you didnât even know? To have someone offer you something I could never give you? Do you know that, Evan?â
âIf youâre sure,â Cynthia said softly. âBut I hope you recognize that itâs an open offer, anyways. For anything. We mean it.â
âI feel like you arenât telling me the whole truth, Evan, and that scares me.â
âI canât tell myself the truth!â He heard himself shout. âI donât know whatâs real anymore, mom, but I know that youâre never here. Thatâs enough for me to understand about you.â
He didnât really mean any of it, not the way that she meant her words. But hers werenât as harsh, while his cut deep. They were at a standstill, and neither knew how to proceed.
âIâm trying my hardest,â she said eventually, her jaw set and words measured. âI am trying my best. Shit, Evan. I am trying to give you the best life I can. Iâm sorry I canât give you what they can give you.â
âAt least they donât think Iâm some-Iâm some broken thing, some burden, just need to check on the meds and youâre-â
âShit, Evan. I am your mother! It is my job to make sure youâre happy, youâre okay, and I - youâve been there all year! I didnât know! I canât-â and here her voice sounded sad rather than angry, âI canât protect you. But I can make sure your meds are set. Thatâs - thatâs all I can do. Thatâs all I do all day. Shit, I need to do it for you.â
He shook his head, crossing the room to burn off anxious energy. âIâm not a job over there. Iâm not broken. Iâm not part of a job.â
Ice crowding out fatigue in her voice, she found words again. âIt must be nice to have the luxury of forgetting responsibilities. But I donât have that.â
He shook his head again. Neither of them knew what to say; they werenât good at fighting, especially not with each other. They werenât used to it. But there seemed to be nothing else left to say, so he went to his room. Heidi didnât follow him. Â
***
four
five
After five precise beats Evan opened his eyes again slowly, looking back up at Connor. There was still something removed to him, plastic, almost, yet after a moment it melted away and Connor leaned in to squeeze his arms around Evanâs shoulders.
Suddenly everything sparked.
The computer lab was almost completely empty. He typed out some meaningless message, creating something veneered to show his therapist. Each clack of the keys startled him more than the last. He wasnât thinking, only moving.
He clicked print on his document, immediately hearing the printer whoosh to life. It took a moment for him to stand up and move towards it, grabbing the first piece of paper to shoot out of the printer. He glanced at it for a moment before he heard footsteps behind him, heavy and expectant. The words flashed at him from the page again.
âDear Evan Hansen.â
He froze, unsure of what to do. His pulse quickened, blood rushing through his ears. The footsteps stopped behind him.
Connorâs arms were still around him as he pulled back slightly, looking into Evanâs eyes, suddenly as real as his own.
âI donât deserve to be forgotten, Evan,â Connor said softly, and that dĂŠjĂ vu hit him again.
He hadnât written those words.
âPlease,â Connor said, and Evan had had this conversation already, had sat like this with Connorâs arms around him, had heard each word puncture his soul like this before. âPlease donât let me fade away.â
Evan shoved him away, suddenly and harshly. Connor staggered back, posture melting back into something half plastic.
Evan didnât know what to do.
He looked up at him, expression already fading. âWhat about my parents? How can you do this to them?â
He only shook his head, feeling his throat narrow.
Connor persisted, even as he tensed more. âAfter everything theyâve done for you? You could help them.â
âI-they donât need me.â Evan hated how choked his voice sounded.
He scoffed. âYeah, they donât need you to keep lying to them.â
âThey donât need my help!â
âDo they seem like a pretty happy family to you?â For a moment, Connor seemed to regain expression, his cheeks flushed with anger, words infused with the famous Murphy venom. He broke eye contact with Evan for only a moment, and he was surprised by how uneven Connorâs voice sounded when he continued, eyes filled with steel. âWhat youâre hiding from them, it could be the only thing to keep them together.â
He couldnât look away from Connor, even as his eyes watered. He shook his head, feeling his pulse elevate.
âWhat about Zoe?â
âZoe said, she justâŚshe wants me.â
âRight.â
âShe likes me for who I am.â
âSound familiar?â He didnât respond, and Connorâs voice melted somewhat. He couldâve sworn he smelled the acrid scent of burning plastic in the air. âYou didnât happen to tell her, everything youâve said about how you felt-it was all one big fucking lie.â
âIt wasnât!â
Scathing, sarcastic. For some reason, his heart twisted as he heard it in something that felt eerily akin to nostalgia. âOh, thatâs right. You left that out.â
Connorâs face shifted again, starting to change before a buzz startled the air. Evan turned away from him to fish his phone out of his pocket. It was Alana, a video chat.
He turned back to Connor, but he was gone, and before he could really recognize it he pressed accept.
âHello, Evan,â Alana said, words clipped short, before Evan could even say hello.
âHe-â
âWeâre still a thousand dollars off from our goal.â
âI know, Alana. Iâm sorry. Iâm going to-Iâm going to do something. Iâve been a terrible co-president. But Iâll do whatever it is. Iâll-Iâll film more videos, yeah? Iâll get it done. I want this to work.â
âWhatâs the point, Evan? Youâve already made it clear to me that youâre not invested in seeing the Connor Project grow. Why should I trust you now? We need something that will captivate our audience. You donât have anything.â
âI-â He saw Connor across from him. He shook his head, his forearms rested on his knees where he crouched on the floor.
âDonât, Evan,â he said. He knew Alana couldnât hear Connor, but Evan wished she could hear him for just a moment.
âI donât know, Alana. Iâm-Iâm the one who came up with the idea, I talked to the Murphyâs, I - I wrote a note they thought was his!â
Connor dropped his head into his hands.
âWhat?â Alana said.
âHe - I wrote it for an - for myself. And Connor took it. He had it with him when, well. He had it. And thatâs how this whole mess started.â
âYou wrote something indistinguishable to a suicide note that Connor just happened to take and keep in his pocket?â
âYes. I did. I can - I can send it to you!â
Which he did.
âEvan,â Alana said. Her voice was gentler than it had been the entire time. He finally brought his nervous eyes back to his screen rather than just on the blank patch of the wall behind Connor. âDid you really write this?â
âYes.â
âConnor, he had it on him when he was found?â
âYes.â
âHe didnât write it?â
âNo!â
âHe just...happened to have a note that you wrote on him when he was found. A note like thisâŚâ She shook her head. âThatâs quite the coincidence, Evan.â
âYeah. It is.â
Alana shook her head again. She seemed wearier with every passing second. âI donât know. Iâm not entirely certain it is. I feel like there are too many inconsistencies. Iâm not so certain youâre telling the truth.â She smiled ruefully, continuing before he could even process that. âI could publish this, I guess. It might spark some interest. Show people how far youâve come.â
He couldnât ignore the wave of panic that overcame him, starting deep in his stomach and cresting up above his head. âNo, no, no.â
âIsnât that why you gave it to me?â She said.
He shook his head. âNo, thatâs not why-I just. I wanted to. To show you.â
Her eyes studied him for one long moment. She shook her head back at him. âOkay, Evan. I have another thousand dollars to raise in less than twenty-four hours. I suggest you start deciding what you know is true. Get back to admitting it to yourself, yeah? I might post it. I might not. But until you actually make up your mind as to how involved youâre going to be - how honest youâre going to be, with me and everyone else - Â I canât help you. You canât even help yourself.â
And with those words, Alana was gone. He dropped his phone into his lap. He hunched forward, leaning his elbows onto his knees. His head fell into his hands.
He felt rather than saw Connorâs body closer to his immediately as the call ended. Judged on feeling alone, Connor was only a few inches away. Evan, still struggling to really breathe properly, lifted his head. He met eyes with Connor again.
He was in the computer lab, holding a note addressed to himself that he wrote, and Connor Murphy was angry because of his stupid crush on his sister, and the steps behind him slowed and hung hesitantly in the air, and Evan never wrote this note, heâd never seen the words on the page before. He picked this up from the printer thinking it was a therapy letter, but no, itâs not his, itâs-
Connor-suddenly real, again, alive if only in his mind-leaned forward and pressed his lips to Evanâs.
Connor stopped just next to him, clearing his throat to command attention, and Evanâs head swiveled to look. âHow did you break your arm?â He asked, almost monotone, like a kid forced to apologize by his teacher.
Evanâs pulled back to the present, to the feel of Connorâs mouth against his, and suddenly the page is flipped over and sunlight breaks through every crack in his brain and the orchard spreads out in front of him, Connor laughing just next to him. Theyâre racing up a tree, breathless and full of wonder, Evan pausing just for a moment to see the sky. Itâs an expanse of blue that stares right back at him, and heâs full of hope, heâs full of wonder until a branch snaps right under him and the air is rushing around him and heâs in free fall and just as he hits the ground his feet root to the concrete below him and the printer shoots out another sheet of paper and
âIs-is your arm doing better?â Connor said, not quite meeting his eyes. There was a point where Evan would be able to dissect every layer to Connorâs voice, but heâs unsure now. Heâs not even sure why Connor would talk to him after what happened in the orchard, in the car and the hospital afterwards. A flash of a pair of lips at the corner of his mouth was so heavy he could almost feel it. Â
âItâs better,â he said. âWould you - would you sign my cast?â
Connor nodded and accepted the sharpie Evan held out. He wrote slowly, each squeak of the marker and giant stroke that shaped the letters filling the silence more effectively than words could. âNo pretending we have other friends, I guess.â He said, a dark note in his tone. The paper still hung loosely in Evanâs grasp.
âIâm sorry,â he blurted for no reason. âFor everything. And notâŚnot trying to reconnect.â Connor looked at him and nodded, looking like he was on the verge of saying something but never quite saying it. Finally, he settled on âIâm, um, Iâm sorry too, I owe you a giant apology-â
âNo you donât,â Evan assured him, not quite sure he knew what he was saying. He opened his mouth to say more but was left grasping for words as they were all swallowed by the sound of another piece of paper coming from the printer. Connor grabbed it quickly, eyes skimming over it quickly. His face instantly morphed into panic, and he looked up at Evan. He looked down towards his hand, the paper it loosely clenched, and Evan realized those werenât the words heâd written.
Dear Evan Hansen,
It turns out this wasnât an amazing day. This wonât be an amazing week, or an amazing year. Because, why would-
Connor made a grab for the paper, swapping the one in his hand for Evanâs. âI think thatâs yours,â he said, and Evan was left too blindsided to properly respond. Before he could process Connor was moving away from him again, shoulders hunched without so much as a goodbye.
âHey-â he started. âI know we lost all this time this summer, but, you know, that doesnât mean we have to lose more.â
Connor turned back towards him, some foreign expression plastered on his face. âYeah. Yeah, I guess we donât.â
âWant to hang out? I have therapy today but after-â
âNo, I uh-â Connor moved his hand enclosed around the letter to his pocket. âI canât hang out tonight.â
There was something odd in the gesture, but Evan couldnât quite place what it was. âOkay, then. I guess - Iâll see you around?â
Connor nodded, a little too exaggeratedly, before turning on his heal again. Evan looked back down at his own letter, veneered and plastic.
Dear Evan Hansen,
Today may not have been an amazing day, but it was still great because you were at school and you didnât try to be not you. You had a conversation with Jared, and one with Alana, right? Even if not many people talked to you, you were you. You didnât try to be anything else. Thatâs something, I guess.
Sincerely,
Me
Evan pulled away from Connor, immediately feeling the Connor in front of him weaken back into a less real version of him. He reached his hands up to grip Connorâs upper arms.
âPlease,â Connor whispered, voice gruff, and as Evan dragged his gaze up to meet his eyes he disappeared entirely, leaving him grasping thin air with his fists and staring into nothing, a phantom touch still lingering on his skin.
âNo,â Evan muttered, hands barely moved a centimeter, eyes straining as though he could find Connor in the space he just disappeared into. âNo, Connor, I-â
A sob tore through his chest. One hand reached to just above his heart, and he started the old song and dance of tapping and massaging it, trying to calm it from its unsteady beat. He stumbled up to his feet, reaching for his laptop blindly. It was still open from sending Alana the letter, but he ignored it and navigated to some part heâd entirely forgotten, a little airplane icon in the corner of his desktop.
***
Again, he stood in front of the Murphyâs kitchen table. But no one stood there with him. There was just him and a thick stack of papers in his hand, but he didnât think the Murphyâs noticed that. Not around the sounds of their phones buzzing and beeping.
Alana had posted his letter. Sheâd texted him barely thirty seconds later when heâd already been hightailing it to the Murphyâs, a simple if youâd like to know, I posted it. As though feeling the need to justify it, she added hopefully itâs the push we need. If this works maybe itâll be enough.
The thought of the letter out in the open for everyone to read sent a chill up his spine, but he barely had time to think on it before he was in the eye of the storm, the Murphyâs frantically shooting ideas back and forth to each other. The Connor Project community had turned surprisingly violent with the posting of the letter, and suddenly no one was on the side of the Murphyâs. It was framed as a note that Connor had read on his last day, written by co-president Evan Hansen. Nothing that should force people to turn against each other, but they were, and viciously. Claims that the Murphyâs were exploiting Evan, or forcing him to do something when his mental health was obviously poor. Claims that Evan was manipulating them and forcing his way into the story by faking suicidal thoughts. Threats of violence against the Murphyâs, posting their numbers and their address and supposedly personal claims about how awful they were.
And Zoe. Zoe, whose phone started ringing the moment he walked in the door, something sheâd shut down with a âhave fun with your miserable life, bye.â The community seemed torn in two directions with her: a small minority of people who thought that Evan was manipulating and stalking her before their relationship began, putting too much trust into her and unfairly impacting her, and then the large majority of people who blamed her. For what, Evan wasnât entirely sure. Not seeing Evan before, for not magically giving him more hope like it seems Evan wanted within the words of that page? Her comments were the nastiest. He met her eye from across the kitchen, the corner of his mouth upturned in apology. Her own turned down as if to say it wasnât his fault, but her eyes were glassier and harder than he wouldâve liked. Not hardened for him, but hardened against everything else. He got the unmistakable urge to sweep her up into his arms and try to solve every last one of her problems, or at the very least make her forget about them. Instead, he broke his eyes away from hers, trying to forget the genuine edge of fear in the lines between her forehead.
In his mind's eye, he saw Connor hurry from the computer lab and somehow through the doors of the kitchen where he stood now. He circled for a moment, stranded in space, before he pulled the note out of his pocket once more. He held it tight, eyes scanning it. Evan removed the same letter from his sweatshirt pocket. Connor hovered nervously over the table before disappearing from his line of sight.
For the briefest moment, Evan thought he saw Larry jump, eyes fixed to the spot where Connor had been, but a moment later he was sure he had imagined it.
Cynthia and Zoeâs budding argument brought him back to the present.
â-tell them, Evan, tell them, you wrote this, you know what it means!â
âI didnât,â he whispered, eyes dropping again to the note.
âDonât, mom. Itâs not his job.â
âEvan, please,â Cynthia said.
âI didnât. I didnât write it,â he said again, just a little louder, but it seemed like only Zoe may have even heard him. Their eyes met again, and her frown deepened. He wondered if she could read it off of his face. He wondered, offhandedly, if this was what Connor felt like. If he was dead and gone, and Zoe was the only one who could see him. Is that what that felt like?
âEvan?â Cynthia said once more.
âIt wasnât me!â Evan practically shouted. He tossed the letter to the table. The kitchen was silent, then.
âWhat do you mean?â Cynthia said, her voice small.
âI didnât write the note. He did.â
Larry finally spoke. âHe...you mean, heâŚ?â
âConnor wrote the note.â Evan felt tears rising in his throat. âI lied about it being a therapy assignment. I didnât write the note at all. I wrote, I wrote different letters for myself. But that wasnât one of them. I didnât, I couldnât say it. I couldnât say that he-â
âNo,â Cynthia said. She was choked up, her cheeks already turning red. âno, Evan, you wrote this letter, you-â
âBut I didnât,â and here a sob tore through Evanâs chest. âHere-â he tossed the stack of papers onto the table. Zoe reached for them first, her mouth set in a taut line. âWe-we emailed. A lot. Secret email accounts. He didnât,â Evan bit his lip, working through another sob, his hand tapping and massaging his heart again, the other at the hem of his shirt. He was shaking his head, or maybe his head was just shaking. He met Zoeâs eyes. She looked up from the papers. The genuine look of confusion and betrayal in her eyes made him choke a little more. She lifted one hand to her face, brushing over the freckles he knew so well. Her touch was light, and her hand was shaking. He wanted to fix that. He wanted to cross the kitchen and trace her freckles and hold her hand until it no longer shook. Â âHe didnât want people to know.â
âHe knew you went through his emails,â Zoe said, to either Larry or the table, Evan wasnât sure. Larry said nothing in return.
âIâm sorry. Iâm so sorry. I - those are all of the, all of the emails. And Iâm, I just couldnât, when you came to see me, I couldnât possibly understand, I had no idea what to, I couldnât believe - I couldnât believe that it would be to me .â
He swallowed around another wave of tears. âI couldnât imagine that he was-â He shook his head. To Zoe, he said âhe was there. He got me. When I broke my arm. He was the person.â
âBut you said, so you and he, you would-â Zoe finally seemed to be at a loss for words. It made Evanâs heart break. She shook her head, and through his own tears, he could see tears sparkling in her eyes. She let out something akin to a laugh, but a hundred times sadder and smaller. âYou loved him, you were-you were best friends, and you were mo-â she cut off. âSo he said that about me. Not you.â
Evan nodded. âSome - some of it, yeah. I heard from him.â
When Zoeâs sob came, it was quiet and pained; her head dropped forward into her arms, emails in her lap.
Cynthia was crying with full abandon now, having snatched up the note. Larryâs head was shaking firmly, and his lips were moving in either a curse or in prayer.
Again, Evan felt rather than saw Connorâs presence behind him. His sobs came from him in violent bursts, all at once hit with the full force of Connorâs death and the weight of what heâd done. As it slammed into him, just below his throat, he felt the last whisper of a touch against his shoulder.
âThank you,â Connor said, for once sounding just like he used to. All of Evanâs breath left his lungs. âThank you, Evan.â
And with that, Connor was gone for good. His best friend stood, choking out sorryâ s. And his family sat at the table, in various states of distress. A house broken, filled with sniffles and sobs so violent they shook furniture.
Evan dropped to the tile floor. His head felt dizzy from lack of air.
âWhy didnât you tell me?â Zoeâs voice was stretched thin and prone to crack at any moment. When he looked up again, her eyes made his own full with even more tears. They were red and sore looking. She continued, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. âWhy didnât you tell me, Evan?â It was barely more than a whisper, but Evan was sure he wouldâve heard her voice across a thousand miles or a million worlds. A tear fell from her right eye. âI killed him. I killed him. Theyâre right. Itâs my fault.â
He shook his head desperately because if nothing else, he needed her to know that it wasnât her fault. Connor didnât blame her.
âDidnât you hear me before, Zoe?â The words were so choked with tears he would be shocked she could hear them. âYou were the one thing. The one thing he could rely on being good. Beyond me, beyond - anything. I wasnât enough. God, I wasnât enough. You were. You were everything to him. But he couldnât, didnât know how to say it to you. I couldnât measure up, I couldnât - couldnât make him feel okay. I couldnât blame him for it, Zoe. Because youâre-â another sob racks his words. âYouâre perfect. Canât you see that? He wasnât blaming you. He couldnât blame you. It wasnât you. It was me. It was my fault. It-it was my fault. He was my best friend. It was my job, and I couldnât, I couldnât do it.â
Zoe shook her head. Some hair slipped from behind her ear. âI didnât see. I couldnât tell. I-I blamed him . I couldâveââ she cut off, choosing instead to hide back in her arms.
âStop,â Cynthia begged. The sound was drawn from her lungs just as it was that day in the principalâs office, pure primal sadness. âPlease.â
His entire body shaking with the force of his sobs, he couldnât help but comply with her request.
âWhy didnât you tell us?â Larry said. The thickness of his words scared Evan. âWe needed to know that. Thatâs just what we needed.â
Evan shook his head wildly. âI couldnât let myself know that he was - that I had failed, that he had wanted me to know that. I couldnât face it. Iâm sorry. Iâm sorry.â
Things fell silent again, but no one left the kitchen. Zoeâs phone dinged again.
âIâm sorry,â Evan whispered.
âOh, do you think that the old plane is still down there, Larry?â
âIâd doubt it,â Larry replied. âThey probably cleared the whole lake out when they reopened.â
âIs the lake still here, even?â
âI donât know,â Larry replied. âShall we check?â
Alana did it, somehow. Maybe it was the push of the letter, or maybe the money would have come to them anyway. Either way, the Connor Murphy Memorial Orchard was a reality at the end of May of that year. With graduation around the corner, Evan and the Murphyâs decided to take a trip together. Heidi was set to show up after her shift ended that afternoon, but until then it was Zoe and Larry and Cynthia back in a place from the past. And Evan, of course. Evan was included in everything to do with Connor, and maybe a little bit more.
Cynthia took Larryâs extended hand and stood to step off of the picnic blanket, following him as he led her towards where Evan supposed the lake used to be. Their hands stayed linked together even as they simply ambled along to their destination. The sight made Evan smile. They were a far cry from the couple in the principalâs office, next to each other but not looking. They seemed like they could finally look each other in the eyes and smile doing it.
At some point, Evan stood up from the floor. He couldnât seem to cry anymore. He slid into the seat across from Zoe, the one where the shadow of Connor had been before.
âWhere did it happen?â Zoe said. She lifted her head from her arms. Her face was surprisingly blank, as though she was resigned. Though she didnât clarify, he knew what she was really asking.
âWe went to the orchard. Autumn Smile,â he said. âConnor-â he almost choked on the name. âConnor made fun of it. The letters had worn off so it said âAut ile.ââ He shook his head. âI donât know why he thought it was so funny. But he did. And we went inside, even though it was closed down. Insisted we-we climb a tree, and everything. Since it was. Um. My hobby, or so he thought, I guess. And I fell, and he got me. Stayed with me through the hospital, and everything, the whole time. I donât know what I wouldâve done if he werenât-well.â
âThe orchard,â Cynthia whispered. The tear tracks on her face glistened. She stood suddenly and surged towards Evan, and for one ridiculous moment, he thought she might hit him. She had every right to, in his mind. But he couldnât have been more wrong. She wrapped him in a hug so motherly he felt tears resurge in his eyes.
Of course, later, heâd go home and receive a hug like that from his own mother. Heâd explain the full truth of everything, and sheâd apologize and heâd apologize and heâd finally stop pushing her away. But for then, receiving a hug like that from Connorâs mother was enough to make the pain of loss feel so new and raw that it was like that unadulterated feeling in the principalâs office, the one that choked him until he forced out a lie. It scared him, but he couldnât ignore the part of him that said he deserved to be afraid.
Wrapped up in that hug, along with all of the new grief and gratitude and relief in Cynthiaâs sob, it felt like a bit of forgiveness, maybe. Like it could become forgiveness.
Zoe reached out to him while her parents talked and began to amble away, and her fingers brushed the back of his hand. He turned his hand automatically, lacing his fingers with hers. She squeezed his hand gently, and he squeezed hers back.
âThey were talking today about how they want to come back for stuff like this,â she said, her voice low to ensure her parents didnât hear. They probably wouldnât have heard around their ensuing chatter, anyway. âI think this might be the best thing for them yet.â
Evan shrugged. âI hope.â He squeezed her fingers. âIâm glad to be here with you.â
She smiled, one of her thousand-watt smiles that always filled his chest with a kind of warmth. From further away, he could hear Cynthia giggle, happier than heâd ever heard her. The sun warmed his cheeks and his knuckles where his hand lay intertwined with Zoeâs. It had been a far from easy journey to get there, but he thought it was worth it. The last months had been new, different, painful in a previously unknown way. But with the truth out, he could finally grieve properly. Learning to do that, with his mother, with the Murphyâs, with Zoe was more of a gift than he could have possibly given them.
Zoe leaned her head onto his shoulder. âMe, too,â she whispered, and he knew she was telling the truth.
He closed his eyes against the light as he had on stage all those months before. But the light seemed to ebb through him anyway, leaving him feeling nothing but content. Of course, nothing was perfect. His trust with the Murphyâs may not have been completely rebuilt, nor would it ever probably be. He still felt an emptiness directly to his right, in the pit of his chest, on the edge of his shoulder where a black-polished hand used to lie (and at the corner of his mouth where a pair of lips had once, ever so briefly, ever so destructively, brushed under a hot summer sun, that had driven them apart), but it was far from the gaping hole it had been when he'd convinced himself it hadnât existed. His mother had fewer shifts and he attempted to communicate more, but they still only really connected once a week at most. He and Jared and Alana had finally begun working together again, but all their conversations were a little awkward and uncertain. And he and Zoe, though they touched at the hand and the head and shoulder, were stuck like that indefinitely, despite conversations and attempts at more or at less.
He didnât need perfect, however. Better - better was more than fine. Heâd convinced himself, once, that he only needed one thing or one person to feel like enough. He mightâve been right, but maybe what he needed was several things, several people and several experiences. Not whole things and not half things, either, but things and relationships and experiences that were slowly, steadily, always growing better and stronger. Marching on towards better, into the sunlight dipping over the horizon. A possibility of new growth and a possibility of dead ends were both fine to him, and the possibility that it might stay the way it was then, in a park with people he cared about deeply - people who cared about him despite all of his flaws and mistakes and pushed him to do better in the future - didnât scare him at all. It was better than heâd ever hoped for. (Except for the idea that Connor was truly gone forever. He wouldâve given anything to change that.)
Zoe squeezed his hand, and he smiled against the sun, thinking he might just disappear into that feeling.
For as long as she could remember, Dina had been able to see the future.
Okay, well, no. Not see the future. Sense the future, if you could even call it that. Or sense like, three seconds ahead. But maybe that gave it more credit than it was worth.
Whenever Dina woke up in a bad mood for no reason, which was pretty rare, bad things happened that would totally justify a bad mood. Sheâd told her mother this when she was younger, on the day she broke her collarbone. Her mother said that her attitude was the reason the bad things happened; believing it to be true made it true. If youâre happy all the time, her mother said, then happy things will happen to you. And ten-year-old Dina, like a moth to a flame, took to that idea.
Most days, it seemed to work. She wasnât exactly the cheeriest person around, but no one could deny her happiness. Her father took to calling her a âlittle ray of sunshineâ while her sister took to kicking her out of her room when she got a little too positive. She may not have had pep, but she made up for it with a genuity no one could doubt. And the days where she woke up with that sinking, gnawing feeling that something bad would happen - well, she pretended it didnât. She had to be happy all the time, or bad things would happen. She wouldnât bring misfortune upon herself.
Most days, it seemed to work.
One day, when sheâd tried to act happy, her (former) best friend told her she was too cheery all the time. She didnât listen, she said, only thought about herself. She wasnât real enough. And that best friend became her former best friend.
And one night, she awoke with a jolt like sheâd begun falling in her dreams, but her stomach never picked itself up again. She could hear voices in the kitchen, so in an attempt to calm her nerves, she eased out past her bedroom door just in time to hear her father whisper to his mother that heâd lost his job.
And when her mother picked her up from school, she knew a second before her mother told her that that was her last year at the school, that they were moving, and she knew that thatâs what the dark feeling in her gut had been trying to tell her since she woke up.
Upon their move to Brownsville, she found she liked sports. Basketball, soccer, tennis, any team that would take her. Her advisor had suggested them as a way to burn off energy, but she wasnât too bad at them, either. It helped that she knew exactly where every opponent was at every moment and could guess with an eerie accuracy every move they were about to make. She always felt a little...odd when playing. It didnât feel quite right. It felt like she was doing something wrong, even though all she was doing was sending her environment.
She had a dream before her first day of school in Brownsville that at the lunch for new students, thereâd be a girl sitting there with hair cropped into a pixie cut and no one to talk to. Theyâd be the only sophomores there at the relatively small lunch, and sheâd slide across the seat from her and sayâŚsomething. And sure enough, with a bright, bubbly feeling just behind her eyes, Dinaâs eyes locked onto the girl from her dream at the lunch, and her feet carried her there of their own accord.
âWhat type of sacrifice do you think Iâd need to make for a milkshake?â She said, dropping her tray down at the table and allowing her body to follow. The girl furrowed her brow.
âLike, ritual sacrifice?â
âSure,â Dina replied. âDo you think itâd be a nice, tame, Percy Jackson-esque scraping food into a fire? Or would it require slow-roasting a freshman over a Bunsen burner?â
The girl took a bite of her sandwich - peanut butter, as far as Dina could tell. âMaybe like, that lizard in the advanced bio teacherâs room?â
âI like the way you think,â she replied. She stuck out her hand a moment later. âIâm Dina.â
Her companion took her hand in a surprisingly fine handshake, voice dropping a few notes from where it had been before. âSydney. Or Syd.â
âAlways good to know the names of your accomplices in sacrifice.â
Sydney shook her head. âYou really want a milkshake, donât you?â
âIâd kill a classroom lizard for one.â
âSeems gratuitously violent.â
âI take my milkshakes seriously.â
Syd shook her head again, incredulity taking over her features. Her nose scrunched up just a little, and Dina could suddenly see all of the freckles on her face. Sheâd noticed them before, but theyâd all blurred together. Now, she could see each tiny dot in perfect detail. She wrenched her eyes away as Syd began to say something else. âI mean, my mom works at a diner that sells milkshakes if you want one that badly.â She backtracked, cheeks flushing a little. âBut youâd probably have to, like, wait for after school?â She took another bite of the apple.
âGod, it sounds perfect.â
And so she and Syd sat at a booth in her momâs place of work, splitting a milkshake as theyâd do so many times in the future. Dina didnât know how she knew they would - it was just something she could tell. Just like she could tell that a defender was going to cut in front of her a moment before they did, she knew that she and Syd would end up right there time and time again, and just the thought of that made her smile like Syd smiled when she thought Dina wasnât looking.
Sophomore year passed in a blur of essays and all-nighters and milkshakes, and then she and Syd were free to roam the streets of Brownsville as they pleased. Sometimes Sydâs little brother Liam joined them, and Dina secretly loved those times. Sheâd always been good with kids, since she seemed to know what they wanted to do or talk about, and Liam was no exception. He was a cute kid, always happy to chatter on about armor on superheroes or the benefits of mac n cheese or any other topic that interested him that day.
âGrown-ups are so boring, you know?â He said to her one day. âThey just like the same thing day after day, like they have to pick one thing only. They can like lots of things! And one person, too! I think you and Syd are already getting to be like that. You spend all of your time together, just one person. Itâs weird.â
Dina choked out a laugh. She was glad Syd was checking out freeze pops for them while they waited outside; Dina got the feeling she got embarrassed when Liam said stuff like that around her.
âMaybe youâre right, Liam,â she said, dropping her hand to his head. His curls always felt smooth and soft under her palm, making her weirdly nostalgic for when she used to do her hair with her mom all the time. âBut wouldnât you like to be stuck with your sister if you had to be stuck with anyone?â
âDefinitely,â he said, and Dina felt her heart warm a little at his honest admission. Syd appeared a moment later and he was quickly distracted by the blue freeze pop in his hand.
Sheâd be lying if she said that Sydâs reaction to having Liam around, her tone of voice as she said âGoobâ and her gentle hand on Liamâs back and the smile she smiled while looking down at him, didnât have something to do with her enjoyment of their time with him.
Their time together sans Liam, though, was more than nice, too. Theyâd truly just started hanging out because they were the new kids, but Dina had a feeling that they would have been friends anyway. They were too close to not have some kind of innate connection.
Junior year was a harsher year in general. Even Dinaâs normal happiness was tested day after day, just from the course load and social stratosphere.
Of course, there was a day when she woke up with a terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach, but she tried to mask it. Syd could tell something was wrong. After school, they walked in the direction of the supermarket, but Dina had a sudden tingle of pain run up her spine. She grabbed Sydâs arm and dragged her towards the closest bench, the heavy feeling in her stomach growing so that she wondered if sheâd throw up for a moment. She could feel her arm vibrate slightly like it might when her phone was underneath it, but her phone was in her backpack. Syd followed her and sat when Dina tugged her down.
âAre you okay?â she said.
âYeah,â Dina said. âYeah, Iâm fine. Just kind of...lightheaded...â
She trailed off as Sydâs phone began to ring. She got a sudden, unbidden mental image of a dark basement, but it was gone and forgotten as soon as sheâd seen it. Sydney looked away from Dina, still frowning slightly, and swiped the call open.
âHello?â Syd said, and suddenly Dina knew what the person on the other end would say before they said it. Her hand found Sydâs arm, trying to instill her with some kind of strength, as though she could protect her from the contents of the call.
And as Syd learned that her father had hung himself in her basement, Dina took her hand and watched as her expression shifted from neutral to panicked to shocked. Dina would learn, later, that there was no note when Mrs. Novak found him, that her best friend would have no closure whatsoever. She didnât know how she knew Mr. Novak had even died before the caller had said it; she just knew that she had to keep her touch on Syd, to make sure she was still alive and physically okay. And when Syd hung up on the call finally and her expression shifted, Dina felt the despair reflected on her face. When Syd turned her rapidly tear-filling eyes to Dina, her own eyes become teary. She didnât pull her in for a hug since she didnât know if that would be the right thing. She just tried to be there and hold her hand and she cried a little bit herself. She didnât want Syd to feel alone like Dina knew her friend felt at so many times; she wanted her to know that she was feeling similar things and that she was allowed to show her sadness. She didnât think Syd always knew that.
That overshadowed most of everything in Junior year, but eventually, summer came and went again. It felt weird without Mr. Novak there to push puzzles on them and tell wandering jokes with no punchline, but she knew it wasnât as weird for her as it was for Syd. Her best friend became even more withdrawn around everyone, but she took comfort in the fact that she knew when to pull her out of her shell and when to leave her in. She got Syd to dance with her on the empty streets one day as school started again, putting one foot after another and another laugh after another, and that felt pretty nice. More than nice, even. A feeling she didnât have a word for.
Sheâd never had a boy be interested in her, is all. And Brad Lewis...he was interested in her and her sudden lack of braces and growing of boobs.
Sheâd recount it all to Syd later. In the diner, over a milkshake, of course. âAnd heâs all like,â in a bad imitation of a male voice, ââwhoâs the new girl in town?â And I was like, âshut up. Itâs me, Dina.ââ
âRight, this is Brad...Lewis?â
Dina shouldnât have been surprised that Syd was skeptical. She was skeptical of most people. And she didnât need to have her improved hearing to hear the skepticism in Sydâs tone. âYeah,â she breathed, thinking of the night before. âHeâs sort of sweet, you know?â She continued, ignoring Sydâs quirked eyebrow.
Bradley - Brad - well, he really was very sweet. Not nice, exactly, but sweet all the same. An absolute knock-out, too. She almost considered calling Syd to moon over him, but Syd had never once shown an interest in talking about boys and she doubted sheâd start then.
One of her friends from her old school told her on Instagram that football boys liked it when you came to their practices. She did, one day. It wasnât really her cup of tea - sheâd given up on playing sports after sophomore year. They took too much time and the intuition was beginning to scare her a little bit - but she definitely enjoyed watching Brad run around in tight pants. He caught her eye a few times and smiled at her laughter.
She met him at his car after practice, greeting him with a kiss.
âCome to homecoming with me?â He breathed before she could even say anything about the practice.
âWhat?â She laughed, letting her hands rest on his chest. âThat was a non sequitur.â
âI know, I know,â he mimicked her laugh. âItâs just, well, this may sound kind of dumb.â
âIâm sure it wonât.â
âIâve been wanting to ask you. And seeing you there today - well, Iâve never had someone come to my practices. And I wanted to ask you before I lost the high of seeing you there.â
Her smile grew. âWell, Iâve never been asked to homecoming before.â
âI guess itâs a night of firsts.â
âYeah,â she said, moving to hold his head more firmly between her hands. âIt is.â
She opened the backseat of his car door and fell back into it, dragging him with her. Some small voice at the back of her head, that feeling she sometimes got, said night of firsts again. She kissed him, only pulling back to whisper âof course Iâll go with you.â She could feel the curve of his smile against her mouth, and she felt it there for quite a while after Brad shut the door to his car, locking them into their own little world.
It was almost surreal to think of it the next day, sitting across from Syd at her momâs diner, sharing a milkshake as they always did.
âAnd thenâŚhe asked me to homecoming,â Dina said.
She opened her mouth as though to say something, but nothing came out. She found her voice half a second later. âWait⌠and you accepted?â
âNo, I told him to take his washboard abs and chiseled jawline and get out of my face.â For someone who was sarcastic almost every time something came out of her mouth, it seemed to take Syd a second to process the fact that Dina meant the opposite of what sheâd just said. Dina laughed, trying to force her way through the feeling that Sydâs disappointed face gave her. âYeah. Of course, I said yes.â
She could feel, literally feel, Sydâs eyes on her face as she looked back down. She realized why Syd was studying her so intently a moment later. âOh my God. You had sex with him, didnât you?â
Dina just smiled in response, another laugh building. She couldnât seem to get the words past her lips, but Syd didnât have the same problem.
âHoly shit. Holy shit, you gave Bradley Lewis your v-card??â Syd practically spluttered in an undertone. Which, admittedly, was exactly what sheâd done, but hearing it laid so plainly out like that was a bit unsettling. She...wanted it, though, didnât she? She liked Brad, and she liked what he did to her. But she could still feel Sydâs eyes on her face. Damn Syd for always being able to read her like an open book. She kept laughing through Sydâs questions, but eventually, something in her eyes made Dina crack.
âI really like him, okay?â She finally said. She wanted Syd to believe her. She wanted herself to believe it.
âNo, yeah, sure. I get it.â
âJust give him a chance! Now, câmon. Thereâs gotta be someone you sorta like. Just a little.â
She felt a response on the tip of Sydâs tongue, as though she were bursting with the fact, as though she almost planned on saying it. She could feel it, but it rolled away. Sydâs eyes, widened like a deer in the headlights, might have betrayed the answer, but Dina was distracted by the âI dunno. I havenât really thought about it.â
âWell, think about it,â she said firmly. âAnd maybe we can all go to Homecoming. Like a double date.â
When Brad slid into their booth, bringing with him an air of superiority and several kisses, she knew that Syd wasnât happy. It didnât take a superhero to sense it. And with whatever transpired between Syd and Bradley while Dina got ketchup, the air at the table was so stiff and dry that she couldnât be surprised when Bradâs nose started bleeding. That was just what they needed; an injury.
Of course, she and Syd would sit at the table again. Between shallow breaths, Syd would breathe âI sort of...hadsexwithStanleyBarber?â and God, didn't that hurt. She wondered if thatâs how Syd had felt, and then she realized she should have been happy for her best friend, but what she felt was mostly shock. She told herself it was because sheâd fucked Stanley Barber of all people, rather than any feelings she mightâve had herself.
When the topic of Stanâs sexual prowess (or lack thereof - Syd was never a great liar) exhausted itself, Dina frowned down at her phone.
âWhat?â
âOh, itâs just - itâs just Brad. We were going to go to the party tonight, but heâs not sure if heâs feeling up to it. With his ankle and all.â
âOh, well, we, um, we could go? Together?â Dina looked up for her phone, locking eyes with Syd. âIf you still wanted to go, you know. I know you were...looking forward to it.â
Dina finally shrugged. âYeah. Sure. Why not?â
Syd finally allowed herself to smile. âGreat. Cool.â
It seemed like the next thing she knew, she and Syd were at the party. Brad had been in a terrible mood, bitching about every little thing all day. She told herself he was worth it, a bad mood and all, but it was honestly nice to be at a party with Syd. Just to have some...friend time. Gals being pals. They hadnât hung out just the two of them in too long, even if Syd had brushed it off earlier in the day.
And, when doing her makeup, she knew she didnât imagine the hitch in Sydâs breath as she applied the cherry chapstick to her lips.
Weirdness with Stan aside, she was having a fantastic time. Syd seemed to actually be happy, which was a feat those days, and the drink in her hand was starting to numb her mind and make her fingertips tingly in a pleasant way. Their chat on the couch with drinks in hand was awkward enough that Syd didnât seem to mind when Dina pulled her away to the dance floor.
âThis is my favorite,â sheâd said by way of an explanation and apology for Stan. Although discomfort practically radiated off of Syd when Dina stopped them in the middle of the crowd, she didnât object.
âCâmon,â she said, basically shouting over the noise. Syd laughed, and Dina wouldâve been surprised that she could hear her laughter over the music, but sheâd realized before that she could always hear what Syd did, so she didnât waste too much time dwelling on it. Syd just shook her head and laughed. Dina could feel Sydâs pulse in her fingertips as she grabbed lightly at her wrists.
She couldnât seem to stop laughing, and the funny faces Dina was making as she got into the music certainly didnât help. But eventually, persuaded by the music and her best friend, Syd acquiesced and shuffled a bit, which Dina figured was probably the most sheâd get.
She didnât know if it was the alcohol muddling her brain, but as Sydney started to move more, she found her eyes tracing her every move. They both moved close together, ignoring the ways that one was supposed to dance at a party. With a jolt, Dina realized they were much closer than everyone else. If sheâd tried, she could easily pull Syd flush against her body. But of course, she didnât. Sydâs breath blew across her chin in short, warm puffs. Dina could see the peaks of goosebumps on Sydâs arms even though the room was sweltering.
The music stopped, but they stood together for a moment, breathing in the same breath.
And then, of fucking course, Brad arrived. Of course he was the source of the music discontinuing. She was torn between annoyance and fondness at the sight of him; one part of her wanted to go back to the moment before, but the other was desperately glad he was there.
(She mightâve been afraid to go back to that feeling of dancing with Sydney rather than actually being glad to go back to Brad, but she pushed the thought away.)
He was angry. Unbelievably angry, and for what she didnât know. He dragged her away - well, he didnât exactly drag her away. He sunk his claws into the air around her and tugged, bringing any of the high of before and the flush of alcohol away from her. So she followed as though she were a puppy on a leash, leaving Syd behind with a heavy heart.
He was so goddamn angry she was half surprised he didnât hit her. He only hit the wall, but that seemed to hurt, and he was âalready injured enough.â Brad, his voice low and steady like it had been when heâd breathed out an invitation to homecoming, asked for his jacket back. Dinaâs eyes found the moose on the ceiling just as he asked, but her eyes snapped back on him.
His voice had been just as low, but it held none of the affection, none of the gentle tone.
âFine,â she said, managing to keep her voice cool even as her eyes welled with tears. The jacket slipped off her shoulders easily, and he snatched it from her hands as though disgusted by the thought of touching her. Only when he was gone, the door slammed behind him, did she allow herself fall back onto the bed and let the tears fall past her eyelashes.
She could tell it was Sydney as soon as the door peeked open. Her breaths were shallower than anyone else sheâd met, but surprisingly steady considering the circumstances. One quick glance to her right, even with tear-filled eyes, confirmed that it was Syd. She had a gentle way of moving that made quiet little sounds across the carpet. Every nerve in her body seemed to recognize the moment that Sydâs body came in contact with the mattress. Heat radiated from her thighs and shoulder, comforting and unprecedented. She must have put her sweatshirt back on.
âHey,â Syd whispered, her voice catching on nothing in particular.
Dina didnât remove her eyes from the ceiling. She sniffed.
âYouâre crying because...thereâs a dead animal hanging over your head?â
Sheâd honestly begun to tune out the taxidermy moose, but she wasnât quite ready for one of Sydâs jokes.
âHey, talk to me,â she whispered. Dina felt the barest shift of Sydâs forearm closer to hers. âWhat happened?â
Music pounded from the main party, echoing in Dinaâs head like a dull headache. She sniffed, lifting her shoulders in a half shrug. She hated how her voice still wobbled. âItâs just Brad,â she finally said, not moving her eyes from their point on the ceiling. âWe got in this - this huge fight, I honestly donât even know what it was about.â
Sydâs face was tilted on its side, angled closer to hers. When she spoke, Dina could feel her breath against her tearstained cheek. âThat happens with me and my mom a lot.â
She sounded almost - almost eager. Like she was excited that she could finally try and help Dina rather than the other way around. Like she was glad that she could relate to whatever Dina was feeling. The thought made something bloom in her stomach. She swallowed harshly against the feeling. She could tell that Sydâs eyes were at the corner of her jawline and the bob of her throat before they turned back to the ceiling.
âAnd then he-â her voice broke. âHe asked me for his jacket back.â She angled her head towards Syd, the movement making the pillow crinkle under her. Syd did the same and met her eye barely a second later.
Dina turned onto her side, far past the point of caring about her hair or makeup, and cradled the pillow between her head and arm without breaking that eye contact. Syd mirrored her, lowering herself so that they were face-to-face, barely any space between them. Warm breath blew onto her own lips. âWell, look on the bright side. At least you wonât have to wear that hideous jacket ever again.â
The corners of her lips quirked up a bit at Sydâs joke, some kind of squeaky laugh escaping her throat, and Sydâs followed suit.
âGuess youâre stuck with me.â
She felt very lips curl into a smile. âI wanna be stuck with you,â Dina admitted, her voice low and catching on the unshed tears making a home in her throat. Sydâs mouth mirrored her own.
Dina knew it was coming a moment before it did. She didnât know how she knew, just like she didnât know how she knew anything else. But she didnât pull away or sit up. She was content to wait for it to happen, to monitor the shift in Sydâs expression and to get distracted by the warm chestnut color of her eyes. Sheâd never noticed that color before. She had thought they were brown like her own, but they were warmer, a little more golden. Her smile deepened, muscles in her face pulling tight.
Sydâs breath hitched a bit, but she was still smiling, even as her head jerked up almost involuntarily as though sheâd moved innately. Then Syd leaned over with the support of one arm braced across the bed and pressed her lips to Dinaâs. The sudden, warm pressure of them set a contrast in Dinaâs brain, like a flint against a stone. The sudden fire in her brain almost got her to reciprocate. She had not sensed before that she would have wanted to reciprocate. Some new, sudden part of her wanted to do more than smile against Sydâs lips; it wanted her to move, to part her lips and keep kissing her, kiss her back, to press Syd against the cushions like Brad had done to her not so long ago. But that sudden part of her brain scared her. She pulled back, instead, and sat up. Her drinks had muddled her head; she knew she was still dating Brad, even though theyâd fought. It was...wrong, wasnât it? To want to kiss her best friend? Especially when dating golden boy Bradley Lewis.
âSyd, weâre just drunk,â she said, her voice too loud for the eerie silence of the room. Syd sat up as well. Even with the drinks and the low light, Dina could see every freckle on Sydâs cheeks.
âOh, yeah,â Syd said, her cheeks rapidly flushing. Her voice had pitched upwards, an expression Dina couldnât decipher on her face. âSure, I didnât mean, um.â
Panic flaring in her gut, Dina attempted to keep it out of her voice âUm, itâs just not-â
Syd sat for another moment before she was all motion. Dina could swear she felt the ground vibrate for a moment as Syd stood.âYeah, no, totally, itâs fine! Itâs fine, really, Iâm just, Iâm, uh,â it was almost painful watching Syd try to come up with an excuse. She gestured vaguely outdoors. âIâm just, uh, getting a ride home with Stan, so, um.â
âOkay?â Dina said, trying to clear her own head with a shake, but Syd was out the door with a shaky smile. It began to close behind her. âWait, Syd-â but she was already gone, and the unsteady ground went with her.
When she walked out of Chem class on Monday, tracing the same unsteady ground as before that it seemed like only she could feel, she felt the heavy weight of Bradâs jacket once again around her shoulders. Sheâd almost forgotten about it all morning, even though a few of her sort-of friends had commented on it by her locker in the morning. The only thought she was really capable of thinking was of how the floor had seemed unsteady as Syd rushed out. Sheâd felt it; she was sure of it. As sure of it as she was sure that Syd was carefully pulling her glances away from Dina. She traced the feeling of the unsteadiness, like the worldâs worst earthquake, into the girlâs bathroom.
Knocking on the only occupied stall door, Dina prayed that it really was Syd and not some random freshman. That would be awkward.
âSyd? Are you okay?â
âYeah, Iâm fine,â she replied. Her voice was pulled tight.
âWell, look, I wanted to. Um, to talk to you?â
â...Okay?â
âUh. Brad and I talked. He gave me his jacket back.â
âThatâs...nice.â
It was clearly sarcastic, but Dina didnât really care. She had something else on her mind.
âLook, about the partyâŚâ
âDina, itâs fine,â Syd replied. Dina could see her feet angled awkwardly under the stall door. She frowned.
âSo...weâre cool?â
âYeah. Weâre good.â
âOkay,â she said. She almost turned to go, but at the last moment she reached into her pocket and pulled out a tampon. She slid it under the stall door, bright against the plain and gross tile of the bathroom. âFeel better.â
She couldâve sworn she heard Syd laugh, a slight exhalation of nervous energy sheâd held inside of her up until she finally let it out. Dina smiled a little as she left.
In detention, when Stan and Syd approached her - or pulled her away from Brad, quite rudely, too - she knew they werenât telling the truth. They were each forcing the words about their âsexcapadeâ out of their lips like it was something foul to think about (which it, admittedly, was).
In fact, as sheâd been pushed against the wall by Brad, she couldâve sworn she felt something low in her gut just before they came to get her. Something like the bottoming out of your stomach when you drop a glass of water and know itâs going to collide with a harsh tile floor, but distant and larger. That lingering feeling was part of why she pulled away at all; nothing wouldâve been able pull her away if sheâd really been into it.
Stanâs plan was, admittedly, ridiculous. But so was the whole, faux-honest situation. She was preparing to have to pull some sort of save, and as her ears picked up a faraway clacking of dress shoes on tile, she poised herself to sneak down the hallway. Summoning several years of former ballet classes that sheâd quit when the hobby had become too time-intensive, she tiptoed down the hallway, praying to every deity she could for the principal to not hear her. It came in handy; she made a crashing noise just before he could reach the door.
It was odd to feel victorious when the deed was done. But she did. She felt...victorious. Like sheâd done something, stupid as it was. And so she said âoh, fine,â to Stan and Sydâs offer of a joint. With smoke curling around her fingers like a fond snake, she found it difficult to worry about much of anything. She was high on victory and about one-twelfth of a joint, and she was happy with that.
When Syd and Stan had dispersed, for the bathroom and fuck knows where, respectively, Dina rested her head back against the lockers and took a deep breath. She could hear, distantly, low voices. Panicked, really. But resigned. Sydâs voice mingled with Jennyâs and Bradâs. She grimaced, resigning herself to retrieval duty.
Syd was really much more loyal than anyone gave her credit for. She barely hesitated before telling Dina everything about Bradâs betrayal. Sheâd expected fury to overtake her, or overwhelming sorrow, or something. And she surely felt angry, and maybe a little sad. But mostly she felt like her relationship with Brad was fated to end with him not caring about her and doing something insensitive.
Somehow, seeing the library in ruins made her even angrier than Brad cheating on her had. Even though sheâd known something bad had happened completely unrelated to Stanley Barber ever 69ing, the extent of the damage made something harsh and angry rise in her throat so that she thought she might choke. It mightâve been the sudden knowledge that she and Syd werenât really best friends anymore win the way that they should be, just like her former best friend had once told her. Sheâd been too self-involved, or maybe Syd had been too self-involved. It just hurt to know that Syd couldnât bother to tell her the truth. Went out of her way to tell lies with the help of Stanley Barber.
âWhat happened, Syd?â she demanded the next day, pulling to a stop in front of the bench where Syd sat. Sheâd been scribbling away in something but looked up as soon as Dina started to speak.
âWhat?â
âI saw the library. Iâm not stupid. What really happened?â
It almost seemed to pain Syd - she choked for a moment. âI canât tell you?â
Dina just looked at her for a long moment. âYou asked me to help you steal something and you canât even tell me?â
â...Yes.â
She knew Syd could read her like an open book, so she didnât try to explain her feelings. She just turned and walked away. But before she fully could, she turned on her heel again.
âWeâre best friends, Syd. Or at least, weâre supposed to be. Best friends talk. Theyâre supposed to tell each other everything. But we donât! We havenât spoken about anything. We donât tell each other anything. I just - you should be able to tell me.â
Syd swallowed hard. She looked down at the book in her lap. âI know. Iâm sorry. I just - I canât. I canât tell you.â
Dinaâs eyes roved over Sydneyâs face. She nodded after a moment, a small, exasperated sigh leaving her. âRight.â And she finally turned on her heel in favor of heading to class.
Syd shouted after her, but she pretended she hadnât heard.
She never could keep a grudge against Syd, though. And Syd knew it.
So she shouldnât have been surprised when she turned up outside of Sydâs house in time for homecoming, as planned. She was weak for Syd. But she did have to blink in surprise as Liam opened the door.
âAh, Dina,â he said. âCome in, come in. Syd is still getting ready. Girls, you know?â
âI...do know, yes,â Dina said, fighting back a smile. The kid had always been able to make her smile, sheâd give him that.
He was in rare form, talking on and on. Heâd gotten into a fight, apparently, which made Dinaâs lips tug downwards, but he wasted no time in assuring her that he was happy with the outcome as his (very tall) crush was now interested in him. She just nodded through his commentary, sending half-hearted glances up the stairs. When she finally saw Syd coming down, she thought her heart might stop for a moment.
She wasnât sure if it was the dress or the necklace or the sudden flare of confidence that filled her like a balloon, but Syd looked beautiful. Dina had always known that her best friend was pretty, and what was more, she knew that she was pretty inside. Which sounded a little creepy and either serial-killer-esque or like a Hallmark card. But whatever it was, she was painfully reminded of that feeling that twirled inside of her stomach and refused to stop, that warmth growing in her chest, and her darkening cheeks.
She smiled at Syd, and Syd smiled back.
And later, when she and Syd swayed together on the dance floor, she couldâve sworn that another kiss was coming. She wanted another one. Dina desperately wanted another kiss, which was a little terrifying and a little thrilling at the same time.
âYou know, that kiss at the partyâŚâ
Sydâs brow furrowed preemptively, as though she anticipated something bad.
âI didnât...dislike it.â
And slowly, ever so slowly, Syd appeared to let herself hope. That same confidence she had standing on her stairs came back, filling her up. âYeah?â She said, words slipping out between a rapidly growing grin.
Dina smiled back. âYeah.â
She thought there was another kiss coming, but before there could be she heard (felt?) distant footsteps. They had the same pattern sheâd heard stomp away at the party - Bradâs gait had become somewhat unique with his injury. Turning to watch homecoming king and queen be announced, she could only swallow the sudden crop of anxiousness that exploded in her stomach. He couldnât do anything then, right? Right.
Oh, how wrong she was.
And just a moment before it happened, she felt a pressure bomb tick. It was that horrible moment before glass makes contact with a tile floor when you know that a crash is going to happen but can do nothing to stop it. Like that feeling at the diner, when Bradâs nose started bleeding, but five times closer and a thousand times more powerful. She saw the moment in painful detail. Bradâs hand coming too close to his body, his eyes a little more bloodshot than a moment before, his lips parting where the microphone began to hide them. A curve of glass the second it reached the floor, destruction when it was nothing but beauty, eerily reminiscent of Stanley Barberâs body hitting the polished gym floor. Thunder before lighting.
Still, in her ears, she could hear the vitriol heâd spat. Kissing my girlfriend. As though he knew anything about Syd, about her, about them. As though he deserved a tenth of what Dina ever gave him. She could hear Sydâs tiny, soft sniffle. Dinaâs own thousand thoughts praying for some teacher to intervene. Sydâs confidence leaching out of her, sucked away in a second, no smile in sight. She could almost hear her embarrassment, her anger, her sadness. Her hatred of Brad for taking over everything else at that moment, and Dina had to admit that she felt the same way.
She sensed it, just as she had been able to for years.
She heard, right in front of her, Bradâs head explode just before it really did.
(A minute later, her only thought would be of Syd. Where did she go? Was she okay? What did she think happened? Maybe she and Stan would try to find out together. She had a feeling that they would.)
But right then, all she could do was press her hand to her mouth and try to ignore the warm feeling of blood on her skin. She didnât believe what she saw; she thought her brain had made it up.
A minute passed, and Brad still had no head, and blood was seeping her dress and pooling on the polished floor, a liquified version of broken glass reflecting the fluorescent lights of the gym.
For the first time, Dina really fucking wished she could see the future. Sense it. Sense even a few seconds forward, past the overwhelming overload of activity in the gym - feet against floors, screaming, all kinds of emotions hanging in the air but mostly terror and horror.
She lifted her head, just slightly, and locked eyes with Stanley Barber. He cocked his head to the side, and she stared back.
Itâs funny, isnât it, how people tend to come into your life at the time they need to. Leave your life, too. Theyâd both had friends in elementary school, if not many. But once puberty hit and they were all thrown into a new, different building from the one theyâd populated for the last six years, those friends disappeared in a puff of smoke, quickly enough they each questioned whether theyâd existed in the first place or if they were just a trick of the eye and a well-placed mirror.
Computer labs, in middle school, were better. Or bigger, at least, and the teachers didnât hover over each person as though the second graders would manage to break the desktop monitors from the early 2000s. And, of course, no one who was anyone every purposefully spent time there.
And so of course Evan and Connor met there, in sixth grade. Not met, exactly, as theyâd already known each other from six years of being in the same school and vaguely in each otherâs classes, but they spoke for what was probably the first time.
âAre you going to type anything?â
Evan startled, his eyes moving away from where theyâd been locked on the computer screen as his mind traveled. To his surprise, Connor had wheeled over from where he had previously been seated across the computer lab and had chosen to stop about a foot from Evanâs own wheely chair. His permanent frown made his brown eyes appear harsher and colder than Evan would have liked to see.
âSor-uh, sorry? What?â
Connor nodded to the computer screen, where a cursor blinked in and out of existence on a blank word doc. âYour document. Youâve just been fucking staring at it for like, fifteen minutes.â
Evan, still an elementary schooler at heart, internally jumped at the curse word but tried to keep it out of his face. âYeah? I, uh. Iâm not following.â
Connorâs stare was obscenely judgemental. âSo are you going to write anything?â
âI was going to!â Evan said, a sudden wave of defensiveness surprising him a little. âI just? Iâm not really sure what to write.â
His new companion sighed. âAll right. What do you want to read?â
â...What?â
âWhat do you want to read?â When Evan made no sign that he understood, Connor sighed again, kicking one foot across the floor. He accidentally sent himself flying back a little in the process, but he slid back forward using his other foot pretty quickly. âI watch this YouTube channel, and they have like, art tips or some shit, right? And they always say that if you donât know what to draw then you should draw what you want to look at. Itâs the same with writing, I bet. So,â and with this, Connor propelled himself forward so his right elbow rested on the table right next to Evanâs left, âwhat do you want to read?â
Evan thought for a moment. He wanted to read a lot, quite truthfully, but he didnât know how much he could trust Connor with. Accepting his status as an outcast, he decided to tell him the truth. It couldnât do too much damage.
âI want to read encouragement.â For once, his voice didnât waver at all.
âEncouragement?â
Well, too late to go back.
âYeah. âCause, you know, this whole having no friends and spending all of my free time in the computer lab thing sucks, but I need to tell myself it wonât last forever because if I donât Iâll go insane.â
He didnât mean any of it as a joke, and it was more of a nervous ramble than anything else, but Connor laughed and Evan found that he rather liked the sound.
âAlright, then. Encouragement it is,â Connor decided. âStart it off. A note for yourself.â
He stole the keyboard and keyed in a âDear Evan Hansen.â Evan was surprised that Connor knew his last name, but Connor shoved the keyboard back before he could question it.
âUh, okay,â Evan said, and he spoke as he typed. âToday wasnât an amazing day, and it hasnât been an amazing year.â
âWow, encouraging,â Connor muttered under his breath, forcing his hands onto the keyboard over Evanâs. âBut you wonât be stuck in this shithole forever, so at least thatâs going for you.â
âConnor!â Evan practically squeaked. âThe school reads these things! You canât swear!â
Connor just rolled his eyes and passed the keyboard back to Evan.
The two continued on, passing the keyboard back and forth between them for each sentence. It wasnât really encouraging by any standard, as theyâre mostly just complaining about how bad their days have been, but in the end, Evan laughed and Connor smirked while they headed to the printer, one letter with a nested haiku hidden inside later. And as Connor presented the paper to Evan with a mock-bow, he spoke again.
âYou know, youâre wrong about one thing.â
Evanâs heart almost stopped. âWhat?â
âYou do have a friend,â Connor said. âMe.â A look stole across his face, his cheeks dropping. âIf..if thatâs okay.â
Evan nodded once, and Connor gave him a half smile-not the smirk of before, but a smile that seemed genuine, a peek of sunshine in a cloudy expression.
Connor and Evan came into each otherâs lives at exactly the right time when they each needed it most. Maybe it was inevitable that they would have found each other, or maybe they were just very, very lucky. Evan certainly thought that he was lucky to have Connor with him throughout the trench of middle and high school.
And so time marched on, and nothing was certain or easy but it was still easier than it had been. Being with Connor was easy in a way that it wasnât with any of his previous friends. He didnât feel like he had to apologize for existing around Connor, much as he wanted to sometimes. Because it didnât feel unnatural and uncomfortable to be around him as it often did with anyone else; being around him felt as easy as breathing, and even when his lungs failed him and closed up in anxiety, Connor was there.
They still wrote notes to each other. They were, as Connor said, âfucking nerds,â and so they kept up the tradition, sometimes to each other and sometimes to themselves. They seemed to know which letters were okay to read and which were for the otherâs eyes only; Evanâs frequent encouragements to himself were sometimes read by Connor and sometimes left alone, something he endlessly appreciated. And together, they rolled their eyes at Cynthiaâs or Larryâs or Heidiâs skeptical looks when they gently prodded the two about their romantic interests or all the time theyâd been spending in each otherâs rooms, attempts that were surely meant to be subtle but were anything but.
Evan found himself watching Connor in those times. Heâd learned to read Connor quickly, looking for each shift in expression with a practiced eye. But his expression then was almost unreadable. His best guess was that Connor didnât really care. He didnât, either. He could handle the questions and skeptical looks, since all his time with Connor was truly time he cherished for the comfort he felt in their moments together, even when they didnât speak. He was just happy to have a friend, and he thought - knew - that Connor felt the same way.
(he ignored the growing feeling in the pit of his stomach, a great mass of tangled vines and leaves that seemed to latch itself to his skin. he told himself it was just nerves, that creeping feeling around his heart. he believed it, too. because he and Connor were meant to be best friends and best friends only.)
They spent nearly all of their time together at school and at home, and inevitably they accompanied each other on their respective family trips. Heidi had much less time off work than either of the Murphy parents did, so Evan found himself many a summer Friday packed in the car with the whole Murphy quadruple on the way to the beach an hour or so away from their town. Too afraid of getting carsick to use his phone or read on the ride, he mostly passed the time chatting with Connor and Zoe. Evan and Connor often had difficulty sustaining conversations with each other in front of other people, but Zoe didnât seem to have this problem; she always managed to keep Evan chatting about different music genres or astronomy facts or canceled TV shows from the early 2000s. Connor usually didnât seem to mind it, but it must have been weighing on his mind somewhat, enough that he couldnât push it away with his normal excitement over getting to drag Evan into the ocean for half a day.
âDo you like my sister?â Connor said softly one Friday, facing directly out to sea. He dug his feet into the soft sand as a tiny wave met his ankles. Evan almost missed it, but he realized what Connor was truly asking a moment later.
âWhat? No, I, no, thatâs ridiculous, I, uh, I mean-â he shook his head rapidly. Connor didnât appear sated. âZoe...Zoe is great. But Iâm not, I donât think that IâŚsheâs more like a sister to me than anything else.â
Connor didnât seem to know what to say. He further dug his toes into the sand.
âWhy?â He finally said. âZoe is great. Sheâs...probably perfect for you in every fucking way.â
Evan furrowed his brow. âWhy are you asking me? Did sheâŚâ
âNo,â Connor rushed to clarify. âNo, I donât think she does. She didnât ask me anything, anyway. I justâŚâ Evan let Connor scrounge for words. âIâm wondering why you donât feel that way when thereâs someone right in front of you whoâs practically the fairy tale happy ending you probably dream about.â
It wasnât the most eloquent phrasing ever, but Evan understood what Connor was getting at. He gazed at the back of Connorâs head a few feet in front of him, and instinctively, he found himself smiling at the reality of the boy in front of him. He finally pushed forward through the wet sand and reached Connorâs side, standing shoulder to shoulder.
âI donât know,â he said finally, running one hand over his short, coarse hair. He chanced a shift of his gaze towards Connor. The light caught on his high cheekbones, giving him an almost ethereal look. âI canât, I guess I just canât control things like that. Maybe if I could turn it off and on, I would feel like that...like Zoe was perfect for me. Like she and I were destined to be together.â
He saw Connor swallow roughly.
âBut I canât. And Zoe is fantastic, but I donât like her like that. I donât think she and I are destined to be anything more than friends. People come into our lives for a reason, you know? And I donât think thatâs hers for me.â
And they were quiet for a moment.
âLittle too feminine for your type, I guess,â Connor finally muttered, eyes scanning out over the horizon where the sea met the sky. Evan felt a laugh bubbling up in his throat, and he backhanded Connorâs shoulder without looking at him directly.
âHey!â
âWhat?â Connor said, finally meeting Evanâs eyes. The sudden, sharp focus in them made Evanâs breath catch in his throat. âItâs the truth.â
âYeah,â Evan said, trying to keep his voice even. âMaybe it is.â
That was the closest theyâd ever come to confessing anything; even in the bright, unforgiving sun, those four words felt much larger than they really were, and he almost regretted them. They somehow seemed more dangerous in the light of day than they did when whispered under covers in the comforting darkness of nighttime. But he didnât regret them (couldnât, really), because the smile that Connor smiled in response was brighter than the sun reflecting off of the sandy waves. Waves that crashed into their ankles moments later, cold and harsh and salty, and it was then that Connor laughed, the sound high and clear and fitting softly into Evanâs ears.
And into high school they marched, equally unsure of what they would face. Mostly the same as middle school, but they had each other from the beginning. They didnât have every class together, but they had enough that they could get through the day. Connor learned that sketching helped to calm him after a day of school and Evan relearned that nature helped him. Connor joined him most days in Evanâs backyard, despite his pollen allergies.
Evan, in true Evan style, had grabbed assorted flowers as the two walked home from school and had begun to twist them into a vague crown shape. He didnât really know how to, but it was coming out all right. He sat with Connor in a tree in his backyard, occasionally glancing up to Connor to see his progress on another sketch. He couldnât see what the sketch was, only a few vague shapes and lines, but he didnât know much about drawing anyway. He was mostly just glad to have Connor with him. Smiling softly, he plucked up a small blue flower and tucked it behind his ear.
âIs that a flower in your hair?â Connor said. He must have looked up from his sketchbook just in time to see it.
âYes,â Evan said simply. âWould you like one?â
Connor snorted.
âWhat?â Evan demanded. âIt matches your aesthetic.â
âOh, yeah. Flowers are so punk rock, Evan.â
âPunk rock,â Evan mocked just under his breath. He was rewarded with a pencil hitting him in the shoulder a moment later, followed by a grunt of annoyance from Connor as it immediately fell to the ground.
âI shouldnât have done that.â
âThatâs what you get for your violence, Con. Karma.â
âWhereâs your karmic retribution for forcing me outside at the height of allergy season?â
Evan shrugged. âIâm too nice for it. My karma balances out.â
âThat figures.â There was a pause, and Evan thought heâd be able to finish his flower crown in peace, but Connorâs voice called âhey, catch!â before he could.
Immediately Evanâs pulse skyrocketed, heart in his throat. A book dropped into his lap, nearly making him drop his flower crown. He almost fell from the tree in an attempt to grab the book before it could slide from his lap, but in the end, both he and the book made it just fine, only a few years off of Evanâs life total. Evan ran his thumb over the edge of the sketchbook, where a yellow sticky note protruded slightly.
âJesus Christ,â he finally said, when he regained air in his lungs. âYou know I canât catch. Why would you do that?â
Connor shrugged. âTo see you jump.â
Evan glared as best he could against the sun.
âWell,â Connor said. âOpen it.â
Evan thumbed it open to the sticky note indicated page. He was immediately accosted with his own face staring back at him, followed by an angle he could assume was what Connor could see of him while they both sat seated in the tree. He was out of breath again, but this time he just didnât know what to say. He studied his own face; it had the same big, open eyes, skin shaded and dark and smooth against his cheeks and forehead, lips parted just slightly and turned up in the barest of smiles. And in the second he just looked relaxed more than anything, completely at peace in his environment. That idea, him calm and settled, nearly brought tears to his eyes. Instead, he looked out towards his house and smiled. He inhaled once, and once again, trying to work through the heavy feeling over his heart and chest.
âOh my God, Connor. These are...really good.â
âWell, I had a great subject to study.â
Evan can feel his cheeks darken at that, but luckily Connor doesnât have a great vantage point to see it. He shifted on the branch in order to get a better look at Connor. He, too, appeared relaxed. Evan held the sketchbook in one hand and traded the completed flower crown into that hand as well, passing both up to Connor. âCâmon. Show us that Fae blood.â
Connorâs mouth twisted into something half smile, half grimace. âNo, no thanks. No need to pay me for my work. Just leave it.â
âCâmon, Connor,â Evan whined. âPlease?â
They held eyes for a moment, and Connor nodded. Grinning triumphantly, Evan watched as Connor lowered the flowers onto his head. The sun behind Connorâs head seemed to dip just behind it, giving all of Connorâs long hair the impression of catching fire with all of the light it reflected. Connor looked almost otherworldly, and Evan caught himself marveling at the fact that Connor even existed, and that he had the good fortune of knowing him. Of being allowed to force him to wear a flower crown, he thought with a smile. He felt that same pressure return to his chest, and he found himself thinking that heâd quite like to be on that branch with Connor, soaking up the light, soaking up Connorâs body heat, pressing closer to him.
He didnât like the idea of having that feeling, much as the feeling itself made him feel a type of lightheaded happiness that made the tips of his fingers feel tingly. No, he didnât like having the feeling, because he knew that Connor didnât have it. And if Connor knew that was how Evan felt...
The first day of senior year was when Evan felt like he could burst with the feeling. Even just looking at Connor hurt, as though despite his black jeans and gray sweatshirt he was filled with all the light of the sun. He found himself in the computer lab, pouring it all out into a letter to himself.
âWell this is fucking weird, isnât it?â
Evanâs heart jumped up into his throat. He spun in his wheely chair, his eyes automatically connecting with Connorâs. Of course Connor had known where to find him. He stood quickly, crossing Connorâs path and making a beeline for the printer.
âWhat is?â He said finally.
âBeing in a computer lab. I mean, itâs not 2005 anymore. I forgot this place fucking existed.â
Evan shrugged. âI donât know. I kind of like it. I mean-â and he ignored the wave of nostalgia that crashed over him, the memory of Connorâs elbow next to his own at eleven years old so clear and strong that he could feel it, âremember when we used to hang out in the middle school lab?â
âDo I ever,â Connor muttered. He crossed the room in a few long strides, turning so his back leaned against the table and his shoulder was nearly against Evanâs own. Evan didnât look at Connor, instead choosing to wait for the impossibly slow printer to print his letter to himself. âHey,â Connor said, his voice impossibly soft. His hand reached over and settled at the corner of Evanâs jaw, which tensed out of habit. Connor didnât pull away. He gently guided Evanâs face to look at his own. âAre you okay?â
A nervous flurry erupted low in his gut at that question. âWhat, I, uh, I mean-why do, do you ask?â
As Evan reached for the paper in the tray, Connor shook his head a little bit. âYouâre avoiding me. You have been all day.â He swallowed roughly. âYou wonât look me in the eye.â
Evan didnât deny it.
âDid I - God.â Connor cut himself off, closing his eyes for a moment. He reopened them, immediately focusing back into Evan. âPlease just look at me, Evan.â
And Evan did. He looked into the eyes that had been beside him for almost seven years, the deep brown eyes heâd once viewed as harsh and cold but now saw untold warm, wild pools of color inside of.
âAre you okay?â Connor said, his lips moving in a new way, as though each word was difficult for him to say.
Evan opened his mouth, closed it again. He tried to speak again. âYes.â
Connorâs eyes flickered down for the briefest moment. âAnd if I read that letter, Iâd be able to see-â
âYou wonât read it,â Evan said, his voice sharper than intended in his desperation. âYou wonât take it.â
A muscle worked in Connorâs jaw. âNo. No, I wonât.â
Evan nodded once, slowly.
Connorâs eyes still searched his, but he couldnât break eye contact, not anymore. Truthfully he was okay, but he wasnât when Connor was that close to him, when his thoughts scattered in a thousand different forbidden routes. He couldnât think with Connorâs touch, couldnât think anything but a thousand things he wasnât supposed to think about his best friend. He didnât want to hurt Connor anymore. He couldnât decide what to do, and the impulsive part of his brain, the side that wasnât actually impulsive but was rather in tune with some plan Evan must have secretly had for years, was rapidly taking over.
Connorâs eyes flickered down to Evanâs lips, hesitant and pained but full of so much longing that Evan felt his own heart ache.
And then Evan kissed him.
It felt inevitable, in some roundabout way. Like some cosmic path led them to that point, with Connorâs lips pressed to his and his hand splayed along his jawline and their hips digging sharply into each otherâs. Like no matter how often they claimed straight-laced, testosterone-prone innocence, theyâd end up right there. Maybe theyâd professed friendship and platonic feelings to make themselves feel less guilty, and maybe theyâd inevitably end up as more like they were destined to be. Maybe they were bound to be more than they could ever be, entwined in a way that others didnât think of as natural.
And Connor kissed him back, and it all felt inevitable, like finally feeling a wave crash around his ankles when he turned his back to the ocean and could only hear the approaching water rather than see it. It felt inevitable, but Evan didnât particularly care whether it should happen or not. For once, the list of things he cared about began and ended with one thing, and he had that right at his fingertips. The pressure of Connorâs body on his, all sharp angles contrasted to the soft way his lips pressed to Evanâs, drove away any other thought or desire or care he could have. He pulled Connor closer to him and felt his cheeks heat at the noise, almost feral, that Connor made when Evan parted his lips to allow Connorâs exploring.
And he kissed him and he kissed him back, and that was more than enough, more than he could have ever imagined.
They broke apart later, and as Evanâs eyes drifted open and he saw the light catch on Connorâs eyelashes and begin to reach his eyes, he unfurled the paper from his grasp and grabbed Connorâs hand with his free hand. He pushed the letter into Connorâs fist and closed his fingers around it. Connor didnât seem to be able to tear his eyes away from Evanâs, but after a minute he lifted the letter up. Evan studied his face as Connorâs eyes zipped across the page at superhuman speed, as they always did. He recognized the expression on his face, finally, for the first time in a while. The corners of Connorâs eyes had crinkled in amusement, but he could see the happiness flicker a little towards the middle of the page. Evan mimicked Connorâs earlier nervous reaction, one hand twisting his shirt and his chin dropping closer to his chest. He felt Connorâs soft hand at his jaw again, tilting his head back up so he could look in Evanâs eyes.
âI would never think that,â Connor said, the slight flicker of anger making the different browns of his eyes stand out from each other in stark contrast. âEvan. I would never think that. I would never think those things. Youâreââ his voice cut off, seemingly of its own accord. He continued, and his voice was a little stronger. âYouâre the best goddamn thing thatâs ever happened to me. Jesus, Evan. Youâre the only good thing. I could never think that about you.â
Evan didnât miss the way Connorâs voice wavered towards the end. As Connor leaned in and gently pressed his lips to the corner of Evanâs mouth, he felt his arms move of their own accord and wrap themselves around Connorâs shoulders. Connor hugged him back and Evan buried his head into the base of Connorâs shoulder.
âIâm sorry,â he whispered.
Connor laughed. âFor what?â
âI donât know,â Evan said, still whispering. âI donât know. I thought that you, when you knew how I- Iâm just sorry.â
âDonât be.â Evan felt a warm, gentle pressure atop his head for just a second. He realized it was a kiss a moment later. âDonât ever be.â
