Chapter Text
Evan laid on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, his mind simultaneously swimming with thoughts and completely blank. He hadn’t slept at all and his eyes were heavy. He slowly turned to face his alarm clock and sighed, noting the clock was at six thirty.
Slowly, he sat up and grabbed his laptop. Evan ran a hand through his hair. He glanced at his doorway before gnawing on his lower lip. He opened a document and started typing.
“Dear Evan Hansen…” he muttered as he typed, his hands moving slower than his voice due to the clunky cast on his left arm. He picked briefly at the edge of it, where it was already getting kind of disgusting. He wiped his hand on his pants and continued writing.
“Morning Evan,” His mom said, breaking his concentration. Instinctively, Evan shut his laptop and looked up at her. She was leaning casually on his door frame, already dressed in her scrubs and ready to work.
“Morning,” he muttered, unplugging his laptop and setting the charger neatly on top of it.
“You didn’t eat last night- the money is still on the kitchen table,” she said. She sounded kind of disappointed, but Evan guessed maybe she was just more concerned than anything.
“Sorry I uh, forgot,” Evan said with a small shrug, looking down to fidget with his cast.
“You’ve got to get over being scared to order food. You know you can do it online now? No talking necessary!” she said. Evan looked up at her and his face fell. He hated seeing his mom look so concerned. He was eating enough to be healthy, just most of it was snacks that laid around the house.
“You’ve uh, still gotta talk to the guy when he comes to the door and then you uh, you need to wait while he counts out change and that’s, that’s painfully awkward and then sometimes you uh, er- you like, touch hands and your hand is super sweaty and his isn’t so he gets grossed out and uh, it’s just really… really not worth it for a pizza?” Evan rambled. Heidi sighed and cross her arms over her chest and pushed herself off of the doorframe, taking a few steps into his room.
“Did you start one of those letters yet? Dear Evan Hansen, today is going to be a good day and here’s why?” she asked enthusiastically. Evan shrugged casually and sunk into his pillow. He was grateful for the change in conversation, but goodness he did not want to talk about these letters.
“Yeah I uh, I started one,” he said with a small, forced smile.
“Good! Those letters are important honey, they’re going to help you boost your confidence!” she said. Evan sighed. His letter was far from confidence boosting, but she didn’t need to know that.
“I uh, I don’t know I guess we’ll see…” Evan said. They hadn’t helped the past week and a half. He started them a couple days after he broke his arm, and has since written maybe two? Both super short and with minimal effort and only one saw the light of day at his therapy sessions.
“Can we try to have an optimistic outlook? Come on Evan, it’s senior year! I don’t want you to spend another year sitting around at home every friday night!” she said. “Hey, I’ve got an idea- go around and ask other kids to sign your cast. That’s a great conversation starter,” she added.
“Yeah cause me talking about falling out of a uh, of a tree is a good conversation topic?” Evan muttered helplessly.
“You never know until you try- I’ll get you a sharpie and then I’ve got to be off. Oh! I booked another appointment for you after school with Dr Sherman by the way. I won’t be able to drop you off there, so you’ll have to bus but I’ll pick you up after,” she said.
Evan’s heart sunk. He didn't want to have to see Dr Sherman. Not after the first day back to school. He just wanted to get the day over with and then go back home.
“But I uh, I have an appointment this thursday,” Evan pointed out.
“I know I just thought since school was starting you might need another session to help with the nerves and stuff,” his Mom said. Evan forced a small smile and nodded. She was probably right, at the end of the day, but still, he didn’t want to go.
“Okay,” he said.
“I’m so proud of you Evan,” she said softly.
Evan didn’t know why. He hadn’t made much progress. He was still the same anxious kid with no friends that he had been since middle school, when kids stopped having to invite the entire class to their birthday parties and recess became a thing of the past.
“Uh thanks,” he said.
“Alright, get ready ready I don’t want you to be late. I’ll leave the sharpie on the kitchen table for you,” she said warmly. Evan nodded and picked at his cast again.
“I love you,” she said when she didn’t get a response from Evan. Evan sighed and forced another small smile.
“Love you too,” Evan said. Satisfied with the answer, she smiled and walked down the hall, presumably to the kitchen.
He gazed around his room, temptation rising in his chest to just stay home for the entire day and avoid every ounce of dread that high school brought onto him. He knew he couldn’t- the school would call and then Heidi would be concerned and it would all become a mess. A mess that was not worth it to have to clean up.
Begrudgingly, he got up and got dressed. He double checked his bag before heading downstairs and grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl. Heidi was already gone, but like she promised the black sharpie was sitting on the kitchen table, along with another twenty dollar bill (or maybe it was the same one from last night) and a bottle filled with ice water with a note saying don’t forget to drink lots of water!
He smiled softly and grabbed the things, leaving the sharpie behind as he zipped the water bottle into the front of his bag. He was going to leave the sharpie. There was no point in keeping it with him, since no one was going to sign it. He didn’t have any friends, and just going up to strangers to ask if they can sign their cast would just be a weird reminder of that fact. Leaving it behind would save the embarrassment of being rejected.
He laced up his shoes slowly, still not entirely used to doing them up with his cast.
He bit his lip as he looked back towards the kitchen doorway. He wanted to make his mom happy. That’s all he really wanted. She’d be disappointed if she noticed he left the sharpie on the table and hadn’t put an effort in.
With a small, defeated huff, he walked back over and grabbed it, stowing it away in his back pocket. Even if it didn’t come out of his pocket all day, at least he could say he had it with him.
The bus came on time, which was a relief. Since Evan came from a weird neighbourhood where most of the residence were elderly people with a lack of children, the bus was only two thirds full, with only a third of that seeming to be students.
The high school he went to wasn’t his district school, but he liked the programs at the one he attended and his mom wanted him at the same school as Jared, a family friend, so the extra twenty minute commute wasn’t that big of a deal.
He plugged his earbuds to his phone and zoned out, mentally preparing himself for any conversations that could arise. He’d have to talk to some of his teachers that he hadn’t had before. Luckily it was only his social teacher. The other five knew his situation, which was reassuring. The less he spoke, the better the chances for a successful day.
Still, nothing he could do could prepare him for the day. He knew that. He’d have to take every moment in, and deal with the situations on the spot. Not one of his best talents.
Evan hadn’t even gotten to his locker before Alana Beck approached him, a peppy smile on her face and dressed very professionally for the first day of school.
“Hi Evan! How was your summer?”
Evan opened his mouth to speak, but he was cut off by Alana rambling again.
“Mine was pretty great. I attended so many things and made some amazing friends- well, more like acquaintances. I got a hundred volunteer hours in and still managed to make time for my family trips we take,” she said, speaking just slow enough that Evan could catch every word but too fast that nothing much of it processed.
“Oh! I actually uh, had an internship at Ellison park?” Evan said, excited that maybe she would be interested in hearing about it.
“Oh wow! That’s really exciting.” That excitement extinguished as soon as it appeared. Evan was sure she meant well, but she didn’t sound interested at all.
“Would you maybe like to uh, sign my cast?” Evan asked.
“Oh my god what happened to your arm?” she asked. Suddenly, she seemed overly concerned but again, it seemed faked. Maybe that was just Evan’s anxiety talking, or maybe it was because Alana was kind of like him, and struggled to talk to people properly. Maybe if that was the case the two of them could be friends? Bond over their lack of social skills and- oh. She asked a question.
“I fell out of a tree…” Evan felt his cheeks heat up as he said it out loud. Alana seemed unphased by that fact.
“Oh. My grandmother fell in her bathtub and broke her hip. That was the beginning of the end the doctor said, because a few days later, she died,” Alana said. Her tone dropped, so did her face for a split second. Evan frowned, before offering her a small attempt at a reassuring smile.
Alana pipped up right away and bounced on the balls of her feet before smiling happily.
“Well I’ll see you around!” she said chipperly before walking off with a certain bounce in her step that did not reflect the tone of her voice just seconds ago.
Evan sighed and glanced down at his cast. Stupid, useless cast.
He made his way to his locker and unlocked, before hastily stuffing everything inside in a way that left organization in the dust. He would regret it later, but he didn’t have much in there anyways.
“Hey Hansen- how does it feel to be the first person breaking his arm by jacking off,” the all too familiar voice of Jared came from behind him. He sighed and shut his locker, before turning around to face him.
“That’s not what happened,” Evan said defensively.
“Oh come on. Paint me a picture! You’re sitting alone, scrolling through Zoe Murphy’s instagram on your weird, off brand cell phone,” Jared said, miming holding a phone. Evan blushed beet red.
“I don’t even uh, know her instagram h-handle…” Evan muttered.
“Or was it Connor’s instagram? You seem to have an interest towards the Murphy siblings,” Jared commented.
“That’s not what happened!” Evan said, his voice raising just a bit, but not enough to attract attention. He was fairly good at avoiding attention.
“So what happened?” Jared scoffed, as if he was convinced that Evan actually broke it by jacking off.
“I uh, fell out of a tree?” Evan said. Jared blinked, looking at Evan like he just told Jared he was dead.
“You fell out of a tree? What are you, an acorn?” Jared asked with a short laugh. At least Jared found it funny.
“Y-yeah! You know how I was an intern at Ellison park? Well one day I uh, was climbing this tree and- it’s a really funny story actually ‘cause I climbed it and uh, then I fell?” Evan said humorously
“That’s not funny…” Jared trailed off.
“Well I uh, haven’t told you the funny- the funny part yet! When I fell, I kind of lay there on the ground thinking you know- someone’s going to come get me- any minute now someone would come and get me and I uh, I waited there for a good ten minutes,” Evan laughed.
“And no one came?” Jared asked.
“Yeah! No one came? That’s the uh, that’s the funny part,” Evan laughed nervously.
“God you’re lame,” Jared scoffed, before he caught the view of Connor Murphy, who looked like he was already having a shitty enough day.
“Do you maybe wanna sign my cast?” Evan asked, reaching to take the sharpie out of his back pocket.
“Why would I do that?” he asked. Evan blanked and tucked the marker back in his pocket.
“I just thought maybe since we’re uh, we’re friends?”
“We’re not friends. We’re family friends. There’s a difference. Oh! Make sure to mention me hanging out with you to your mom, I need my car insurance paid,” Jared said. Evan frowned.
Right. Family friends. Evan didn’t have friends but Jared had so many. All of his stupid online video game friends. He wasn’t going to lie, he was kind of bitter about that. He could understand how random people across the world could be better friends than Evan. They had more in common, surely, and well, they weren’t Evan.. Still, it was upsetting.
“Hey! Connor, nice hair length… very… school shooter chic,” Jared laughed. Evan glanced between the two. Connor looked over and just stared at the two. He furrowed his eyebrows together and took one menanicanly step forward. “It was a joke,” Jared added.
“Oh yeah. It was very funny,” Connor scoffed. “I’m laughing so hard right now,” he added sarcastically. Jared looked unimpressed. Connor was just… emotionless -like a robot.
“Am I not laughing hard enough for you?!” he snapped, taking another brisk step forward. With that, every horrifying emotion seemed to flash across Connor’s face. Jared scoffed, unphased by the whole situation. Evan however, took a few steps back. Connor either didn’t notice or didn’t care that he was scaring Evan, as he was so focused in on Jared.
Why could he care though?
“You’re such a freak,” he muttered before turning on his heels and walking back down the hallway, back in the direction he came.
Great Evan thought. He let out a nervous laugh, barely audible.
“What are you laughing at?” Connor barked. Evan felt the colour drain away from his face as he made eye contact with Connor.
“N-no! No, I just uh, I just…” Evan stuttered out.
“I’m not the freak!” Connor shouted. “You’re the fucking freak!”
He stormed passed Evan, shoving him roughly. Evan gasped as he hit the back of his locker, before sliding down to the ground. There was a ringing in his ears as he just sat there hopeless. Was this the life he was chosen to lead? Reliving the same story every day with no significant changes?
Wake up with an encouraging speech from his mother, bus to school, have a meaningless conversation, be ignored, shoved to the ground- both figuratively and literally , before he just broke down at home. Alone.
He closed his eyes and hit his head against the locker before slowly standing up, collecting his things. No one even paid attention to him. No one asked if he was okay, which he wasn’t, but he would be in a few minutes. The world just kept spinning without him affecting it at all.
“Oh my god are you okay?”
Someone was rushing up to him. Evan didn’t want to process anything else. Three horrible conversations were four conversations too many.
“I am so sorry about my brother- he shouldn’t have pushed you.”
Oh.
It was Zoe Murphy talking to him.
“You’re Evan right?” Zoe asked with a small smile. Evan blinked and snapped out of it. He was staring at her..
“Evan…” he muttered. Zoe hesitated.
“That is… your name right?” she asked with a nervous chuckle.
“Yes! Yes sorry, yes I am Evan… Evan Hansen, but you didn't need to know that! Sorry I just, you said my name so I said it back but that’s… that’s really really weird. Sorry I just uh, that was weird,” Evan rambled, cringing visibly at every word that left his mouth.
Zoe laughed and looked at Evan like he just confessed his admittedly stupid crush on her.
“I’m uh, I’m Zoe,” she said, holding out her hand which Evan hesitantly shook, wiping his hand off on his pants first. She raised an eyebrow and looked between Evan’s hand and Evan. Evan yanked his hand away quickly.
“Yeah I know!” That was creepy Evan . “I uh, I know you from jazz band? I uh, I really like jazz- not all jazz but like jazz band jazz? So I uh, come to the concerts and stuff. I recognize you from there so like,” Evan said, trying to play it off with a casual shrug. Zoe raised one eyebrow.
“Well I should get going…” she trailed off, pointing behind her.
She went to turn around, when Evan decided to open his mouth once again.
“Do you wannamaybesignmycast ?” Evan asked.
“Sorry?” Zoe said, turning back around.
“What?” Evan replied.
“You said something,” Zoe said.
“Oh! Uh, no, no I didn’t uh, you did,” Evan said. Zoe chuckled and nodded slowly, her face screwed in a confused expression.
“I’ll see you later Evan,” she said.
She would not see him later. Evan knew it was just so she could be polite. He sighed and turned back around, staring blankly at his locker. What a stupid attempt at everything. He didn’t even want to continue on with the rest of the day. He was sick and tired of the endless loop he was stuck in. All he wanted was to be able to get out.
With a heavy heart and low hopes, he made his way to his first period class.
Come lunchtime, he was tired and exhausted and all he wanted to do was go home. Of course, he couldn’t do that. Instead, he made his way to the computer lab and decided to finish his letter, since he had to go to that appointment after school. Last time he didn’t show up with a letter, and Dr Sherman was disappointed. He didn’t want to have to deal with that.
When he sat down, he kind of just poured out all of his frustrations into his letter, not letting his usual filter go through the letter as he talked. He wanted to scream, he wanted to cry and he just wanted to sleep because at least when he was sleeping, he didn’t have stupid problems to deal with.
Evan hit the print button and collapsed into his chair, rereading the letter on the computer.
Dear Evan Hansen,
Turns out this wasn’t an amazing day after all. This isn’t going to be an amazing week or an amazing year, because why would it be?
I know, because there’s Zoe, and all my hope is pinned on Zoe, who I don’t even know, and doesn’t know me. Maybe if I could just talk to her. Maybe nothing would be different at all. I wish everything was different.
I wish I was part of something. I wish that anything I said mattered to anyone. I mean face it, would anyone notice if I just disappeared tomorrow?
Sincerely,
Your most best, and dearest friend, Me
It wasn’t his brightest hour. Dr Sherman would probably be concerned if he handed this letter in, but it was true. These letters were supposed to reflect him and his life. Still, he would probably end up rewriting his letter by hand during his fourth block spare.
Evan turned around in his chair and stood up, almost stumbling back into his seat as Connor Murphy approached him. He seemed less scary and more tired now. Evan swallowed and offered a small smile.
“How’d you uh, break it?” he asked, gesturing lazily to Evan’s arm.
“Sorry?”
“Your arm?”
“Oh! I uh, fell out of a tree,” he said sheepishly, looking down at his arm.
Connor laughed.
“Well… that is just the saddest fucking thing I’ve ever heard,” he laughed. Evan forced a small laugh and nodded.
“Yeah- the story itself is actually pretty funny though,” Evan said, looking up to meet Connor in the eyes. Evan had to admit, Connor was attractive, though he looked sickly, he was attractive. If Zoe and Connor looked the way they did, he had no clue what their parents looked like.
“No one’s signed it,” Connor pointed out. Evan felt a small pang in his chest. Of course Connor didn’t care about the story of how he broke his arm. No one did.
“No I uh, I know,” Evan said.
“I could sign it?” Connor said. Evan drew back.
“Oh no you really don’t have to do that-” Evan said.
Connor dismissed it, waving it off.
“Do you have a sharpie?” Connor asked. Evan took the sharpie out of his pocket and handed it to Connor. He wasn’t going to fight Connor, he knew what he was capable of. Besides, at least now he could say someone signed it.
Connor grabbed his arm, a little too rough for Evan’s pain tolerance, before writing his name in big, bold letters across the cast. Evan stared at it, before looking up at Connor.
“Oh uh, thanks,” Evan said, trailing off at the end.
“Now we can both pretend we have friends,” Connor said with a small smile, handing Evan back the sharpie. Evan muttered a small yeah , before Connor glanced down at the paper in his hand.
“Is this yours?” Connor asked. “It says your name on the top- Dear Evan Hansen, that’s your name right?” he said, holding the paper towards Evan.
“Oh! Yeah it was a uh, an assignment,” Evan said. He tried to grab it before he could read it, but Connor’s eyes were already half way down the letter.
“Because there’s Zoe?” Connor said, looking up at Evan with a new flame in his eyes, flickering shallowly but slowly catching flame to his entire iris. “You wrote this ‘cause you saw me in here, right? So you could tell everyone how I lashed out over nothing- that I made a fool of myself, right?” Connor asked bitterly.
“No! God no it was just-”
“Well that’s not going to fucking happen Hansen! Fuck you,” he said. In a brief second, Connor lunged forward and grabbed Evan by his shirt, before pushing him down to the ground once more.
Connor stormed off, muttering something to himself about how shitty the world was.
Evan ran a hand through his hair. Why? Why why why why why?
Evan had to rewrite his letter, since Connor stole his other one and he didn’t bother saving the document he wrote it on. He wrote it out by hand, so it was messy and probably had a few grammatical mistakes but he didn’t care.
He didn’t want to go to his session, but he was sitting in the waiting room now, fidgeting with his cast which he probably shouldn’t be doing as he waited for Dr Sherman to come down and grab him.
His phone buzzed and Evan glanced down at it, sighing as he saw his Mom’s contact appear with a text message.
From Mom: Sorry Evan, I had to take an extra shift and I won’t be able to pick you up. I’m going straight from work to class. Please eat tonight. Love you xo
Evan sighed and put his phone away, not bothering to reply. He should have seen it coming. Lucky him to have a bus pass. He huffed and caught Dr Sherman out of the corner of his eye.
“Hi Evan,” he said as he came out of the elevator. Evan bit his tongue and forced a smile as he stood up, meeting him halfway across the waiting room. “How was your first day back to school?” he asked to make small talk.
“Kind of rough,” Evan said as they stepped into the elevator.
“Oh? How so?” Dr Sherman asked. Evan didn’t want to tell him everything. Or anything really.
“I uh, it’s always hard to get back into a schedule I guess? And I uh, I kind of got into an argument with a guy? We both blew everything out of proportion and it just kind of threw off the rest of my day,” he said.
Evan didn’t bring up much of what happened today during their session. He kept the argument with Connor short and vague. Towards the end of the session, Evan handed Dr Sherman his letter and the two started to dissect it.
“What did you mean when you said, It seems that no matter what I do, the outcome is always the same. I’m stuck in this loop that repeats every day at midnight and I can’t get out ?” Dr Sherman asked.
Evan bit his lip. He let his thoughts fly again with this letter and hadn’t really edited it at all.
“Kind of- just what it means, I guess? I don’t know really… like uh, it’s just. I always have the same conversations with Jared- a-and uh, and everyone, really, and it seems that nothing new happens? I just- there’s this idea of adventure, but I get no new experiences… I just… live life like clockwork,” Evan said with a small, careless shrug.
Dr Sherman made a small hmm sound.
“Have you tried making new experiences? Maybe changing the directions of the conversations or even starting new ones with new people?” he asked.
“Yes and no,” Evan said. “I mean, I try talking to people, but it seems that everyone wants to talk about themselves, and the exciting things they’ve done and no one wants to hear me? It even seems like my mom doesn’t want to talk to me… she’s never really home,” Evan continued.
There was silence as Dr Sherman wrote something down. Evan glanced at the clock. They had ten more minutes in the session. Ten more minutes and he was home free.
“Clearly something has been working, since later in your letter you say and when I do change the course of the day, it bounces right back into the same routine. So you’re making an effort to change things,” Dr Sherman said.
“Well, yes, I guess,” Evan said. “But it’s still the same? Nothing changes.”
“Well Evan, since this session is through I want to leave you with this. Sometimes we have to go through the same day several times before a new day comes. We might get frustrated, or upset, but we can’t let us stop that. Eventually new opportunities will come forth and when they do, I say take them. Even if it’s far out of your comfort zone. Do it, because you never know what will happen. It could change your life in the best way possible,” Dr Sherman said.
Evan didn’t really understand what he was telling him, but he nodded and went along with it. He didn’t think there would be any opportunities in his life. The closest one was making actual friends with Connor. That was kind of a crazy thought. An impossible thought.
Dr Sherman dismissed him with that thought, and Evan left with a promise to see him on Thursday at their usual time.
He felt better admittedly, but more confused than anything. Still, he was happy to finally be able to make his way home, even if it meant having to endure a twenty minute bus ride with an old lady preaching to this young girl about women who decide to have babies at young ages, and then singing bible hymns to her in a swung, jazzy style.
Once he finally got home he collapsed on his bed in defeat. He hadn’t eaten all day, but he wasn’t really hungry. That therapy session took a lot out of him, as they normally did, and he wasn’t all that hungry.
Instead of food, he did his homework quickly and packed it neatly back into his bag before getting changed and crawling under his covers. He was exhausted and kind of dreaded the morning, but at least he could relax and have a couple hours of sleep tonight before he had to get up and face the new day.
He tried to decode what Dr Sherman had said. It wasn’t rocket science, but it felt like a foreign language to him. He wished that some sort of opportunity came that allowed him to change his path. It was wishful thinking, even with his half asleep mind running wild. Tomorrow would be the same as today, only this time he would avoid everyone and not talk to anyone.
It wouldn’t matter, either way it would be the same day. The same life. The same story.
The same, helpless, Evan Hansen.