Archive of Our Own ^beta

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.

Chapter Text

Though he admittedly got more sleep than the night before, Evan woke up to his alarm feeling just as tired, and just as sickly nervous as yesterday. He didn’t want to face anyone- especially not Connor or Zoe because who knows what Connor told her last night.

He waited, half expecting his mom to make sure he got out of bed before remembering she had an early shift today. There would be no usual, rushed good morning and reminder to do this and that.

Evan took his time getting dressed. Despite the uncomfortable feeling school brought, now that the first day was over he felt more calm about the whole situation. He would be okay if he showed up with only ten minutes to get to class instead of twenty.

“Morning Evan, glad to see you’re already up and at ‘em,” Heidi said, the same level of enthusiasm in her voice that she had yesterday. Evan jumped, before struggling to get his shirt in a rushed fashion. He ended up putting his shirt on backwards.

“Mom! You’re uh- you work early… today. Your shift started at seven,” Evan pointed out, frantically adjusting his shirt to get it the right way around without lifting the shirt above his stomach.

His mom looked at him like he was crazy.

“Nope,” she said, dragging the word out slowly. She leant against the doorframe and crossed her arms over her chest. It was then that Evan noticed she was wearing the same scrubs as yesterday. “My shift doesn’t start until ten today honey,” Heidi laughed.

Evan blinked a couple times. He was certain that she had an early morning shift. He could distinctly remember her complaining about it one night when she came home, and Evan just happened to be up, binging some stupid food show. She went on about how it was going to be rough on both of them during the first week of school, especially the second day. It was the second day.

“Listen honey, you didn’t eat last night,” Heidi pointed out. Evan sighed.

“I had a long day at school? I uh, didn’t feel up to eating anything,” Evan said, making his way back to his bed and sitting down.

“Evan- it’s your first day of senior year, today , what were you doing at the school yesterday?”

Now Evan was seriously confused. He shook his head.

“Nope. No I uh, yesterday was my first day,” Evan said. He hadn’t dreamt yesterday. Maybe his mom had lost her marbles? All that over working could do it to someone eventually.

“Evan. Today is your first day- look on the calender yourself! Y’know, It’s a good thing I booked an extra appointment for you with Dr Sherman. You must have thought this all up in your head to help cope with the stress today,” she said. A nervous laugh escaped her lips as she ran a hand through her hair. That could make sense- he used to mentally go through every day and sometimes was convinced it happened before it did but this wasn’t one of those cases. The first day of school happened.

Evan grabbed his phone and looked at the calendar. Sure enough, it was September Third. Yesterday was September Third. This had to be a cruel, sick joke. He looked up at Heidi, eyes wide and mouth agape, before looking back down on his phone. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening.

Evan forced a small smile and put his phone away.

“I uh, I guess I just had a uh, r-really vivid dream,” Evan said, trying to justify his behaviour to both him and his mother. She smiled and nodded.

“Did you start one of those letters for Dr Sherman? Dear Evan Hansen, today’s going to be a good day and here’s why? He’ll want to see one after school today,” Heidi said. Evan scratched the back of his neck.

“Yeah I uh, I started one,” he lied, because that’s what he said yesterday - in the dream?

“Those letters are important honey, they’re going to help you boost your confidence!” Heidi said, pushing herself off of the doorframe and stepping into his room.

Evan nodded. It wouldn’t help. It didn’t help yesterday and it certainly won’t help today.

“Oh come on Evan, have an optimistic outlook! It’s your senior year. You need to make friends, get out and do stuff, make memories. I don’t want another year of you sulking around at home. I worry about you sometimes,” she said, sitting on the edge of Evan’s bed. He crossed his legs and folded into himself, offering his mother a sympathetic smile. “I mean- oh, nevermind,” Heidi dismissed whatever thought was coming to her.

“Hey! Here’s an idea, why don’t you go around and ask the other kids to sign your cast?” Heidi said happily. Evan bit his lip. He knew how that ended up.

Evan looked down to his cast, half expecting Connor’s name to still be there- but it was gone. His cast was a clean slate, with nothing there. He looked up at Heidi and smiled.

“I’d uh, I’d like that,” he said with a small nod.

Heidi clapped and smiled, a small private celebratory moment for her before she stood up.

“I’ll leave the sharpie on the kitchen table. I’m so  proud of you Evan,” she said. Evan forced a small smile.

“I love you,’ Heidi said. Evan had been expecting it though, so at the same time he had said;

“Love you.”

She chuckled at the coincidence, before making her way down the hall and she was gone.

Evan immediately started freaking out, now that he was alone in his room. The dream felt so real. Everything happened. He got ready, he sat through all his classes and the conversation with Connor- none of it happened. None of it happened! Connor never found his letter and oh god- this was all too much.

It was just a dream though, and that conversation was just an eerie coincidence. It was such a Heidi conversation too, it would make sense for Evan’s subconscious to make her say things like that. Nothing else would be the same. It would all be okay.

Evan finished getting up and dressed, still a bit shaken up from his dream. When he got to the kitchen, he was taken back again when Heidi had left the exact same things on the counter, with the same note about drinking water.

This time Evan grabbed the sharpie right away and made his way outside. He got to the bus stop earlier than he did in his dream, so he plugged in his music before he got on the bus to avoid the awkward silence waiting along with an elderly couple that Evan swore got on the bus in his dream too.

The bus ride was uneventful, as it always was.

He sighed and walked into the school, tucking his hands into his pocket. He just had to get through the first day of senior year- for real this time, and then it would all be easy going. Everything would be fine.

Evan turned the corner to the hallway for his locker, but he was stopped by Alana Beck, wearing the same outfit as yesterday- er, the dream, and the same happy smile.

“Hi Evan! How was your summer?”

And the conversation was the exact same. Almost word for word- even on Evan’s part! His breathing quickened and he fidgeted with his backpack strap as he rushed to his locker.

This was all getting too much. He didn’t know what was going on. Everything was just so close to his dream. It was almost like he was reliving the day. Maybe he was dreaming now?

He pinched himself hard. Nothing. He was awake.

Evan glanced down the hallway and Jared was coming. If Jared started the conversation the same way he did yesterday-

“Hey Hansen- how does it feel to be the first person breaking his arm by jacking off,” Jared said, the same condescending humorous tone ringing from his voice.

Evan’s breath caught in his throat. He couldn’t breath. He stared at Jared, studying every aspect on his face- trying to find a clue. Maybe this was all some sick joke they decided to play on Evan? There was no way his dream was the exact same as today. No. Nope.

Jared’s face fell.

“Woah dude, relax. You look like you’re on the verge of a panic attack,” Jared said, all too casually.

Yes, thank you for noticing. I literally cannot breathe. I am panicking.  

Evan continued to stare at Jared like he was a ghost.

“Evan seriously, it was a joke,” Jared said. “Don’t take it so seriously,” he scoffed, before turning to walk away.

“I jumped out of a tree,” Evan blurted out, earning back Jared’s attention. He had to stay. Jared had to stay so he could make that rude comment about Connor. He needed to know if it was still going to happen.

“You jumped?” Jared asked.

“No! Wait- god no I just- I uh, fell. I was climbing and lost my footing and fell. I actually was an intern at Ellison park? You uh, you totally knew about that already. I wasn’t jacking off to Connor’s instagram,” Evan said, shifting uncomfortably in his spot. He was shaking so badly and he couldn’t control it. He didn’t even register what he had said.

“Woah woah woah, Connor’s instagram ? I said Zoe- shit man you have a thing for Connor Murphy!” Jared laughed.

Oh great, Jared thought he liked Connor. He didn’t like Connor. Maybe he did? He didn’t know- god he was so lost.

“You’re so lame,” he laughed when Evan didn’t reply.

“Sign my cast?” Evan asked. That was what happened next in the dream- he was pretty sure anyways. He knew the answer, but still, his hand reached for the sharpie.

“God no. Why on earth would I do that?” Jared scoffed.

“We’re uh, we’re friends, aren’t we?” Evan asked.

“We’re not friends, we’re family friends,” Jared said. Evan knew it was coming, but it still hurt. It hurt so much.

Evan’s gaze caught Connor walking down the hallway. He looked… off. Everyone else looked the exact same as his dream but Connor looked different. He looked pale- more pale than usual, and he wasn’t wearing blue jeans yesterday. When did Connor ever wear blue jeans?

Evan looked at Jared, expecting something to happen. Jared rolled his eyes, probably thinking something about Evan’s new, non existent crush on Connor.

“Hey! Connor, nice hair length… very… school shooter chic,” Jared laughed, making the same finer guns that he had made yesterday.

Evan was done. He couldn’t handle this anymore. Everything was too similar. Yesterday wasn’t a dream, but today wasn’t either. There was no way he was reliving the day again. That was impossible. It was a sick joke. How they got Connor in on it, he had no clue, but he couldn’t handle it anymore.

Evan didn’t even bother getting his things for first period. He slammed his locker shut and stormed out of there, accidently hitting Connor’s shoulder in the process.

He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t. Not again.

Evan was going crazy. That was the only logical explanation. He’d gone insane. He took Dr Sherman’s words to heart and he was going insane.

“Hey, are you okay?” Zoe asked, stopping Evan in the middle of the hall.

No. Nope. No- Evan didn’t even stick around for Connor to push him!

“I’m sorry about my brother, I don’t know what he did but…” Zoe trailed off.

Evan was going to cry. He couldn’t do this. Not this conversation again- not any of these disastrous conversations again. He didn’t even get pushed!

“You’re Evan right?”

Evan had to talk.

“Yes I’m Evan. Listen I uh,” Evan said. He was going to cry. Why was he going to cry? “C-Connor didn’t do anything, it’s okay. Thanks for the concern though,” Evan gave a small nod. Zoe looked taken back, almost surprised that Connor didn’t have anything to do with the fact that Evan was being a little baby.

“Sorry- god I’m sorry Zoe I just, I gotta go,” Evan said, before storming off to be anywhere but here.

Anywhere turned out to be his first period Biology class, where he would have ended up eventually anyways.

Classes were the same. Everything was the same, which left Evan in that weird state before a panic attack, which never really happened but the threat was there. The only good thing was that he wasn’t caught off guard when he was called on in History.

He hesitated to go to the computer lab at lunch to write his letter. He knew what was going to happen and he didn’t want to have to deal with it again.

Still, he decided that he should try and keep the timeline as accurate to his dream- yesterday? The other timeline? - as possible. If that meant having to go through this conversation again, Evan guessed he’d have to do it.

He sat down at the same computer and wrote it word for word, kind of on autopilot as his mind was elsewhere. Did he want to try and save the conversation when Connor came up to him? Or did he let Connor lash out on him.

Call Evan crazy, but he could have sworn that Connor was even more hesitant to approach him today than he was yesterday. Maybe that was an effect of leaving the conversation in the hallway early. Or maybe it was because Evan was staring him down, his eyes never leaving Connor.

“How’d you break your arm?” Connor asked. The paper was in his hand. His letter was in his hand. Of course it was in his hand though! Why wouldn’t it be?

“Oh! I uh, fell out of a tree,” Evan said with a small laugh. Connor raised an eyebrow and laughed a bit. It sounded force and scared which was weird. Yesterday it was a real laugh and kind of off guard.  Evan was reading too much into this.

“That’s... really sad… did it hurt?”

That was new.

“Kind of,” Evan said with a small shrug. “It’s just kind of numb now…”

“No one’s signed it.”

“Nope.” Evan popped the “p”.

“I could sign it,” Connor suggested.

Evan smiled softly and nodded, handing him the sharpie. He just wanted this interaction to happen so it could be over and done with.

Connor slowly took the sharpie from Evan and uncapped it, as if he was expecting Evan to object to signing it. He glanced up at Evan for brief second, before he looked back down and pulling Evan’s arm forward, less harsh than yesterday.

Connor wrote his name just a bit smaller than he did before. It was still in capital letters, but small. Evan didn't like that it was smaller. It felt empty- which was stupid. It wasn’t that big of a difference.

They made eye contact and Evan realized he hadn’t spoken yet.

“Oh! Uh, thanks,” Evan said, looking between his cast and Connor. Connor glanced down at the letter. Evan shifted.

There was a beat of hesitation.

“This is your letter right? Dear Evan Hansen?” Connor said.

“Yeah, it was for an assignment,” Evan said. His heartrate started picking up, He knew what was going to happen. He was bracing himself. Somehow, knowing what was about to happen felt even more nerve wracking than experiencing it for the first time. Yesterday he panicked, but he got through it.

Connor didn't look down at it this time though. Instead, he just handed it back, before stashing his hands in his pocket.

“I uh, I read it all back at the printer,” he said.

“You're uh, you aren't mad?” Evan asked, taking the letter and skimming over it. He knew what it said, but it didn't seem right. This conversation wasn't right.

“Fuck no. Creeped out , sure, ‘cause Zoes my sister and you don't know her but like… this entire thing is fucking sad,” Connor said bluntly.

Evan shifted from foot to foot. He sighed heavily and forced a small smile.

“It’s uh, it’s whatever…” Evan muttered. He folded it and tucked it neatly into his pocket. He avoided eye contact as he waited for Connor to push him- hit him, or just leave. Something! This is not how the conversation was supposed to go.

“It’s not though,” Connor said.

“Oh! It kind of is,” Evan said. He laughed nervously.

“What? Are you implying none of that was real? That it’s okay to feel like that? To be helpless? ‘Cause it’s not. Feeling that way fucking sucks,” Connor snapped. Evan swallowed and shook his head.

“No! I know- I know it sucks… I mean, I just- it’s not worth uh, it’s not arguing- worth! Worth arguing about,” Evan said. “I’m never heard… so it doesn’t uh, it doesn’t matter! Thanks uh, thanks for giving me back my letter.”  

Evan hesitated, before grabbing his bag off of the floor and rushing out of the computer lab. Smooth Evan, very smooth.

He sighed and made his way to his next class. He didn’t want to be at school anymore, mostly because he didn’t want to see what would happen now that he changed every conversation he had come across today. Someone was going to yell at him. Someone had to- either Jared for leaving the conversation or Connor for not taking mental health serious.

Needless to say, he was stressed the rest of the day.

He didn’t come across Jared at the end of the day, much to Evan’s delight. He just needed to get out the door and towards the bus stop and he was home free.

“Hansen!”

Evan shut his locker and discretely put in his other earbud in an attempt to make it seem like he couldn’t hear him.

He hummed as he walked in the opposite direction of Connor’s voice, ignoring him calling out. He felt bad for ignoring Connor but he just didn’t want to have to have another conversation. He was tired. The first day of school was the worst and this was the second first day of senior year he had to endure.

“Fucking hell. Evan!”

Evan had just made it outside when Connor grabbed his shoulder and stopped him.

He tried to act pretty oblivious to Connor, taking out both his ear buds, one at a time and stuffing them into his pockets. He didn’t want to talk, so he waited for Connor to first.

“Are you okay?” Connor asked. Evan raised an eyebrow- why would Connor care?

“I’m fine,” Evan said with a small nod. He wasn’t fine. He was confused. He was tired. He was alone. He knew what Connor meant though, and yes, he was fine. He wasn’t going to do anything stupid. At least not now. If he kept living in this literal loop, he might just do something then.

“Are you?”

“Yes?” He was sure. It sounded like he was unsure, but he was sure.

Connor was not convinced. He could tell.

“Just uh…” Connor furrowed his eyebrows and hesitated, words getting caught in his throat.

Evan shifted and glanced around.

“I have to uh, catch my bus?” Evan said. “I’ll… see you tomorrow.” Or in the repeat of today . He gave a small smile before turning on his heels and walking off towards his stop.

Seconds later, Connor came up next to him once more.

“I could drive you home?” Connor offered.

“Thanks but uh, I actually have to run some errands,” Evan said.

That was the end of the conversation. Evan left and got on his bus. Connor left and probably got into his car.

He got the same text from his mother while waiting in his therapist office. He was eating alone tonight. Oddly enough, he wasn’t hungry at all. Well, he was hungry, but not as hungry as someone who hadn’t eaten in two days should have been.

His session wasn’t anything special. Evan kind of just made small talk the entire time. He brought up the weird senses of deja vu he had throughout the day, which was actually just whatever was going on right now. He didn’t give him his letter, which he was told to make sure he had a new one for thursday.

Home again, and Evan was done with the day. He had no clue what had happened today, and he had no clue if it was just a weird dream, or if there was some supernatural thing going on right now.

Regardless, as he started getting ready for the night, he was hoping it was just a dream. It was too close to today to be a dream. However, it was so different too. He didn’t even get pushed by Connor, and Zoe still apologized on his behalf.

It was weird. Everything was so weird. Despite the fact that it was impossible, Evan couldn’t convince himself that one of these days were a dream. Yesterday happened- it was not a dream. Today happened to though, and it wasn’t a dream. Days didn’t just repeat themselves though.

Sure, Evan felt like he was just floating through life, reliving the same day over and over again. But- he knew that that wasn’t possible in a literal sense. The world kept spinning, and the days kept changing.

So how come the day didn’t change?

Chapter Text

Evan woke up with a sickly feeling and an odd sense of worry. He felt like throwing up, but he couldn’t bring himself to move from his half fetal position. It was still dark out- surely not time for him to wake up yet.

He groaned and rolled onto his back, turning on his phone screen. Three forty six am .

Evan sighed and rolled onto his side again. The screen turned off and Evan put his phone back down, before immediately picking it back up again and checking the date.

September Third.  

Evan sat up and rubbed his eyes, before checking it again. He sighed and shook his hands, trying to wrap his head around everything.

There wasn't much to think about really. It was September Third. Again. The third time in a row. It wasn’t some weird dream, it was his reality. He was going insane.

Evan rubbed his eyes again and ran a hand through his hair. There was no use in trying to sleep again. Once he was up, he was up.

Evan decided to take a quick shower, taking care to use the one in the basement bathroom so it wouldn’t wake Heidi up. It didn’t help shake the sick feeling he had, but he felt better mentally, just a bit.

He crawled back into bed and turned on his laptop. He stupidly decided it was a smart idea to look up same day happening over and over again on Google. He was hopeful for some sort of answer, however all he got was a wikipedia article on movies featuring time loops, and then some weird reddit page and an article about a guy who has a disease that prevents him from forming new memories.

For a brief moment, Evan thought that maybe that was what was happening to him, but he quickly debunked it himself. He could remember the last day and the day before, so that theory was out.

Evan started going through the reddit page, but all the posts were just unsettling and clearly fake. Honestly, you couldn’t trust anything on Reddit. I keep waking up to the same day over and over again, but today went horribly wrong. Evan didn’t buy it for a minute.

He shut down his idea of research- the entire situation was a lost cause. He was stuck in some weird groundhog day film, and he had no idea how to get out of it. Research couldn’t help, he had no one to ask for advice. As far as Evan knew, he was the only one who was aware of the day repeating.

Evan sighed deeply and gazed around. It was hard to fill time while waiting for the day to start. He pulled up a document and started typing, and pretty soon he found himself writing jot notes on what had happened both previous days.

He made both timelines side by side on the document. Then he color coded them all, sorting them by things that were the same, things that were the same but happened at a different time, and then completely new things.

At the end, it was far too intricate for a stupid timeline, but Evan started a third one and filled in the new changes for today. Hopefully he could do it for the upcoming times it repeated. He figured if he was going to have to relive the day again, he might as well keep track of each one.

There had to be a way for him to be able to escape this loop- Evan didn’t want to call it an endless loop yet. It was just a loop- he didn’t know when it would stop. If he changed little things and kept track of it, he could maybe see if changing something in the timeline would fix everything.

It probably wasn’t something subtle. Maybe he had to get Jared to actually like him, or to get through a decent conversation with Zoe, or maybe not let Connor see his letter.

He didn’t know. He really didn’t, but he had to figure something out.

Maybe it would end after today. Three was the magic number, after all.

His morning conversation with Heidi was more or less the same. This time he knew what was going on, so there was no stupid topic about how Evan had already had his first day of school. It went a lot smoother than both the other times it happened, and Heidi actually had time to put toast in the toaster and butter it for Evan. She left it beside the sharpie and the water on top of a small paper towel. .

He was thankful for it, but he only had one and a half pieces of the toast before it got too soggy and cold.

Evan got to the bus stop earlier than the elderly couple this time and sat down on the bench. He would give it up for them once they arrived.

They didn't come until the bus got there, and they hobbled on first before Evan followed.

Evan once again entered the school on his first day, gazing around as he made his way towards his locker.

“Hi Evan!”

The conversation was more so the same. She spoke about her summer, asked Evan about his and them promptly ignored him.

Alana was looking at Evans eyes, but her gaze stayed above his brow bone. Every time she spoke, just for a split second, it seemed like she was mapping out every word she was about to say before she did. Her shoulders were tense and she was clutching onto her backpack strap for dear life.

Evan wondered if she was like that the other two days, before realizing that she had to have been like that. Unlike Evan, Alana was blissfully unaware of the loop. She held herself the same as every other day.

Alana was alone- it was unfair for Evan just to make assumptions, but it was painfully obvious now that Evan experienced the same conversation three days in a row. He suddenly felt a wash of guilt overwhelm him. He was so quick to get annoyed and frustrated, but it wasn't fair.

“Well, I'll see you around Evan!” she said happily before bouncing off.

Evan got to his locker and quickly jotted down the conversation in his timeline. He sighed and tucked his phone in his pocket, before opening up his locker.

“Hey Hansen, how does it feel being the first person to break his arm by jacking off?” Evan muttered in sync with Jared, not loud enough for him to hear.

“That's not what happened,” Evan said bitterly with a small eye roll. He could take it the first time. He could take it a second time but fuck if he had to have this conversation again he was going to snap at his asshole of a best friend one more time.

But they were family friends, not best friends, Evan reminded himself. Quite literally, nothing had changed since last time they had this conversation.

“Jesus Evan, what's got your panties in a twist?” Jared asked. “It was a joke,” he flatlined.

“Oh yeah, it was hilarious. Am I not laughing hard enough for you?” Evan deadpanned, shutting his locker and turning to face Jared.

“So how did you break your arm?” Jared asked.

Evan shrunk back into himself. Jared wasn't reliving all of this like him and he just spazzed out on him. As rude as he was, Jared didn't deserve that.

He gave a soft smile as a silent apology.

“I uh, fell out of a tree,” Evan laughed awkwardly.

Jared hesitated.

“What are you, like an acorn?” Jared asked.

Evan shrugged. “Yeah I uh, I guess so.”

Jared went silent. The tension in the air was thick and it sucked knowing it was because he had snapped at Jared.

“Do you uh, want to maybe sign my cast?” Evan asked. Jared glanced down at Evan’s cast before letting out a short, cold laugh.

“Why would I do that?” Jared said.

“Just ‘cause, I uh, I don’t know…” Evan sighed, looking down at the floor. “I guess we’re kinda friends?”

“Family-”

“-Yes I know, family friends -”

“Friends. There’s a difference. I’m not signing your cast- especially since you’re kind of being a cunt right now,” Jared scoffed. Evan looked up in time to see Jared’s face light up as his favourite victim showed up.

Connor looked even worse than the other two days. His eyes looked irritated, not like being high, but almost like he was crying. He glanced between Evan and Jared, before adjusting his sleeves. He made his way towards the two, almost like he was told to come talk to them. It wasn’t casual enough to just be Connor walking past the two.

“Oh wow Connor, nice new hairstyle! I see you’re going for… school shooter chic this year,” Jared laughed. Evan shrunk back against his locker and watched as Connor clenched and unclenched his fists.

Connor didn’t say anything. He just stared blankly, but Evan could have swore he was looking right at Evan.

“It was a joke,” Jared said.

Connor slowly tore his eyes from Evan and turned to Jared. He raised an eyebrow.

“Oh yeah. It was hilarious- am I not laughing hard enough for you ?” Connor said.

Jared looked taken back, before looking at Evan. Evan had the realization too- he had quoted Connor earlier. Unintentionally, sure, but it was weird. He hadn’t even noticed he had done it.

“Should I- do you want me to laugh harder?” he asked.

“You’re such a freak- Jesus Connor it was a joke ,” Jared scoffed.

“What? Do you take everything as a joke? Not everything cruel is a fucking joke!” Connor shouted.

“I think you just need to go sit under the bleachers and smoke some of your drugs ‘cause clearly you’re all… worked up,” Jared said. He smirked at his own comeback, to which Evan just shifted uncomfortably. “Learn to live a little Murphy, don’t take everything so seriously.”

Jared looked at Evan once more, as if to say that’s for you too before he stormed off, leaving Evan and Connor alone.

Evan swallowed and bit his lip, waiting for Connor to blow up at him. Instead, Connor’s shoulders relaxed and he looked back the way Jared left. He took two strides towards Evan, so that they were far too close for Evan to be comfortable.

“You’ve got real shitty friends,” Connor said.

“I uh… I’m aware,” Evan laughed nervously. “He uh, only talks to me for his- for his, his uh… his…”

Connor was too close. Everything was too close. Connor wasn’t supposed to care about Evan. He was supposed to call him a freak and push him before storming off.

“His?”

“Car insurance! His… car… insurance…” Evan muttered.

“I rest my case, he’s an asshole,” Connor said.

There was a pause.

“You deserve better.”

And with that, Connor walked off, tensing back up and becoming the sharp, scary guy that he normally was.

Evan shook his head, trying to shake the weird, fluttering feeling in his stomach. Connor’s change in heart baffled him, considering that nothing new technically happened. Connor was a robot in the loop- he didn’t remember yesterday or the day before.

“Hey, are you ok? Connor didn’t threaten you, did he?” Zoe came up to him. “I’m sorry about him… he’s… something else…”

“Oh! I uh, I’m fine actually. He’s uh- he just was talking to me,” Evan said.

“You’re Evan right?” Zoe asked.

“Yes I am.”

She smiled and held out her hand. Evan shook it, trying not to think about the fact that his hand was probably sweaty.

“I’m Zoe.”

“Nice to meet you,” Evan replied. “I uh, I have to get to class.”

The one upside to everything: Zoe didn’t remember the two god awful conversations they had in the other timelines.

Zoe smiled and nodded, saying something about seeing Evan later, before walking off in a different direction. Evan went his own way, sat down in his class, and jotted down every change that had happened in his timeline.

If the first day of school felt long, then the third first day was even longer. It was hard enough having to sit through a lecture about the Biology teacher’s expectations for the year the first time.

He doodled on his notebook, not paying attention at since there wasn’t really a point. Evan was an eager learner- he loved learning new things and found school rather enjoyable, besides the constant side effect of having to deal with a large crowd of people. Still, he did not like sitting through the same lecture about review from the previous year.

Evan made his way to the computer lab and sat down. He wrote his letter, deciding just to change it a bit. He didn’t know if Connor would read the entire letter or just the Zoe part, and he kind of liked nice, kind of caring Connor.

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 them, and all my hope is pinned on them, who I don’t even know, and doesn’t know me. Maybe if I could just talk to them. 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? Tomorrow, what an interesting concept.

Sincerely,

Your most best, and dearest friend, Me

Evan was satisfied with the letter, so he printed it out and logged off, before making his way towards the printer. Connor was already standing there, there was no avoiding him. He didn’t really want to avoid him though. He kind of was looking forward to talking to him. It seemed… refreshing, somehow. It was like Connor was the only one changing with each day, which didn’t make sense, but anything new was nice to have.

“Hello,” Evan said with a small smile. Connor smiled too- Evan really liked his smile- before leaning against the printer.

“Hi,” Connor said. “Are you doing any better?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest and casually leaning against the wall next to the printer.

Evan lied and nodded.

“You know I meant that right? You deserve better friends,” Connor said. Evan laughed and shook his head lightly. “Yeah I know, laugh away. I’m no saint, and I’m probably just as bad as Kleinmen but seriously.”

Evan shrugged. “Friends aren’t really something I’m good at uh, at doing?”

“I hear you there,” Connor said with a light air of humor. “Uh- no one’s signed your cast.”

Evan looked down at the cast. Yes, Connor signed it. Twice. Now soon to be a third time.

“I could sign it? If you have a sharpie,” Connor said. Evan handed him the sharpie like it was second nature.

Again, he signed it, keeping it to the smaller scale that he did yesterday. Evan thanked him and took the sharpie, tucking it into his pocket.

“Now we can both pretend we have friends,” Connor said.

“Pretend?”

“Well uh, yeah. Like I said I’d be another Kleinmen in your life- and I’m sure one is enough already,” Connor laughed. Evan joined in, before glancing at the clock.

“You’re blocking the printer,” Evan pointed out. Connor quickly moved and Evan grabbed his letter, folding it up and putting it in his pocket. Connor’s eyes followed Evan’s hands, but he pretended not to notice.

Evan smiled again before muttering a quick see you and leaving the computer lab. Connor didn't leave the computer lab. Not right away anyways. At least, Evan hadn't seen him leave.

Connor didn't get to read his letter, which Evan didn’t think was a big deal. It was almost better this way. Connor was already being uncharacteristically nice to him. If he had read the letter, then Evan had no clue what would happen.

Granted, no matter what happened, it would reset and Connor wouldn’t remember any of it.

Evan could kiss Connor passionately, or confess his undying love for him, and the next day Connor would be none the wiser.

Evan did not have an undying love for Connor. Connor was interesting, that was for sure. He was attractive too- and apparently he had a soft side for Evan now, which he wasn’t complaining about. No. He didn’t have a crush on Connor, however , if he did kiss Connor one of these days… just for fun… and Connor reciprocated it?

Well, Evan wouldn’t complain.

Realistically, he shouldn’t be thinking about Connor this way. He had only been nice to him for two days, and Connor couldn’t remember the first one. Connor wouldn’t remember this one either pretty soon, so it was rocky ground.

Evan liked the fact that Connor was nice to him, and made sure he was okay, but Connor didn’t know. Well, he knew, in the moment, but not when he woke up the next day to relive it once again.

“Are you okay, Evan?” Dr Sherman asked. Evan nodded. It was towards the end of the session now, so they were looking at his letter.

“Are you sure? It’s not very good to be thinking things like these. For example, when you wrote about thinking your disappearance wouldn’t affect people- would anyone notice if I disappeared tomorrow- are you planning to act upon these thoughts?”

I’ve thought about it a few times.

“No? No. I just… it’s always uh, really hard to get into the groove again of being at school? It’s been really stress- stressful? So I just, I tend to… overthink things a lot? Like uh, if I don’t start a conversation with Jared… we could probably go an entire ear- uh, year not talking… or my mom she uh, she’s so busy that I never see her and it’s just… hard…” Evan rambled.

“Is that who you’re referring to when you say them ? Maybe if I just talk to them? ” Dr Sherman ask.

“Yes and er- and no? I’ve been talking to this guy named uh… Connor? A little bit- very sparingly. But uh, he’s kind of like me? I think but… I just… I feel like I know him better than he knows me, and no matter what I do to talk to him, the next day… progress just… resets? He just… I can say one thing that comp- complats- completes! Completes affects him one day and it’s like it didn’t happen the uh, the next?” Evan said.

“Have you asked him about why he was doing that?”

“No… he uh, I don’t know him well enough to do so?” Evan said.

“Evan; I know you hate to hear it, but sometimes you need to bite the bullet and say whats on your mind. If you think you and he could start being friends, but something is holding him back, it’s understandable for you to ask him what you can do to help, or to ask him why he’s pretending your past conversations didn’t happen. Do you think you can do that?”

“Maybe…”

It was easier said than done. He couldn’t ask Connor why he acted so differently each day. Connor didn’t even know he was doing it. Just to humor Dr Sherman though, he decided to agree to make an effort to try and talk to Connor about it. He would look crazy if he actually acted upon it, and Connor would probably get pissed off.

He took meticulous care in editing his timeline when he got home and then compared the three days. Nothing really made sense. In each day, key events happened, even if the event that triggered it didn’t happen. There were a few exceptions, and all of those exceptions had to do with Connor.

He really liked Connor, he realized. Maybe not crush level, but he liked this side of him that Evan has gotten to see. Evan sighed. He was in it deep- and it had only been two singular days!

He was so confused and lost and he just wished that someone was going through this with him. Anyone.

Chapter Text

“Rise and shine Evan! Today's the big day!” the chipper voice of Heidi woke Evan up. Well, he was half awake already and Heidi had just been his signal to finally get up. He waved her off to show he was up before sitting up.

Their conversation came and went. Evan was tempted to pretend he was really sick, but Heidi was a nurse. And she knew better. Still, the idea was there.

Once she had left him to get ready, Evan doubled checked the date, just in case the conversation wasn't confirmation enough. He sighed and shook his head before opening up the documents app. He might as well open up his timeline.

Evan scrolled through the documents, skimming each one before he started frantically looking at them all. It was gone . The document wasn't there.

It was like a harsh kick to the stomach when he realized that all his progress was erased. The day reset, so did his work. It shouldn't have upset as much as it did, but he thought that his timeline was such a perfect idea. It helped keep him organized and he put so much effort into the stupid thing.

But it was gone. Along with his motivation to remake it.

He fell back onto his bed and sighed. He couldn't believe that he didn't think about the fact that the stupid damn day was going to reset.

He sulked around for a minute, wallowing in self pity, before he got up and got ready. It was a stupid thing to dwell on. It was just a chart, after all. Not like Evan cared about it.

He definitely cared about it.

He trudged along, exhausted and disheartened. He didn't even bother going to the kitchen to grab the sharpie he knew was there. It didn't matter anyways.

Tomorrow the day would reset, And Connor would yet again have to sign his cast. Connor could go one replay not signing Evan’s cast.

Evan picked at his cast as he sat on the bus, silently wishing the day away. He didn't want to sit through everything again. Maybe it would be okay if he had some sort of lead as to why he was bound to this horrible fate. Or at least, someone who was dealing with it too. He was alone though. Completely and utterly alone.

It wasn't anything new. Evan had realistically been alone since maybe the seventh grade? No one talked to him and everyone avoided him. In the eighth grade, there was a game going around called the Evan touch . When Evan brushed across someone or accidently nudged them, they'd quickly tag their friends and say “ you've got the Evan touch! ”

No one ever really did anything about it. Not other students, not any teachers and certainly not Evan. It eventually died out, but man did it leave Evan with serious contact issues.

Evan took his time to get to his locker and missed Alana's conversation. She was talking to a girl with curly brown hair and a holographic backpack.

He smiled softly at her. Alana didn't notice but that was okay. She was so wrapped up in her conversation. Evan felt stupidly bitter that it wasn’t him having that conversation, which was stupid. Everything was so stupid.

Missing Alana’s conversation allowed Evan to get to his locker long before Jared passed by. Evan was debating whether or not he just wanted to leave all together, and let Jared wander alone throughout the hallways.

However, Jared showed up during Evan’s over thinking. He couldn’t have avoided Jared if he wanted to.

He started the conversation and Evan stuck to himself, deciding not to sass him like he did yesterday.

Evan zoned out when he caught Connor in the corner of his eye. He was getting a drink from the water fountain and he looked worse. That seemed to be a common pattern for Connor. To look worse and worse each day, and Evan wondered what he did that changed Connors appearance. They hadn't even spoken yet today.

“Hey Connor. Nice hairstyle very… school shooter chic,” Jared said. Evan rolled his eyes and turned around to face his locker.

Connor scoffed.

“It was a joke.”

“I'm well aware,” Connor said. Evan flinched at his tone.

“So…?”

“You're not as funny as you think you are Kleinmen,” Connor said flatly. Jared deflated like a balloon. He turned to Evan, who just shrugged. Connor did have a point. Jared scoffed and looked between the two.

“Whatever Murphy,” he muttered, walking off in the direction he always did.

Evan sighed loudly and hesitantly turned to face Connor. He looked pissed off, but he wasn’t lashing out. He stared at Evan, and Evan hesitantly kept his gaze. Do something he thought to himself.

Either Connor or he need to move, but neither of them did.

“What’re you looking at Hansen?” Connor scoffed. Evan blinked and took a step back.

“I just uh, you were staring at me,” Evan pointed out.

Connor blushed, before muttering something Evan missed entirely and he walked off.

Evan made it through the morning, bored out of his mind, but he made it. In Biology, halfway through the lesson, Evan had dramatically stood up and almost walked out.

It took everyone by surprise as he just kind of packed up and went to the door. This was Evan Hansen, the anxious mess who couldn’t even ask for a pencil. Yet here he was, ready to just walk out of the class.

It dawned on Evan then that he could do whatever he wanted, since these people wouldn’t remember it the next day.

So, when Mrs Barry asked him, “Evan? What are you doing? The class hasn’t ended yet.”

And a guy in the front row replied with, “he’s a mess Mrs Barry. Can barely keep his shoes tied, little lone be able to keep track of time.” A few chuckles had spread across the room.

Evan panicked for just a second, before that realization dawn on him. Confidence kind of bubbled out of his body as he rolled his eyes.

“You’re so hilarious. You should be a stand up comedian, you know I’m uh, I’m sure that’s the only job you’d be- you’d be able to maintain anyways,” Evan had shot back.

The class erupted into the stupid oohs that they normally did, even though it wasn’t that good of a comeback. Still, despite the teacher scolding him and telling him to sit back down, he felt accomplished. Sure, thoughts started swimming in his mind of what could happen, but at the end of the day it was ok.

No one would remember it come tomorrow.

That happy realization crashed halfway through his second block. No one would remember- so Evan would still be the sad, anxious kid who always bee lined for the back row of chairs. He never would stand up to Brad Reynolds, and he never would have made himself just stand out one bit. That stupid comeback won’t exist anymore.

At the end of the day though, he guessed it was okay. He never wanted to stand up for himself like that again. It was scary and the words kind of got caught in his throat and his hands were shaky and sweaty and- well, as happy as it made him, it was not a fun time.

Other than that event though, nothing new really happened. Why would it though?

Evan found himself asking that question several times throughout the day. He was almost like a broken record or a badly scratched CD. His mind was like a magnet, and the question was the fridge it was stuck on.

He stepped inside the computer lab at his usual time and sat down at his usual table. He glanced at the door and bit his lip as he slowly started to write the letter.

Evan could do whatever he wanted, and no one would remember it come morning. He could write his letter exposing Jared, or maybe the fact that he was stuck in a loop, and no one would know.

He could write the most devastating letter known to mankind and hand it into Dr Sherman shamelessly because sure, maybe Heidi would get a call and get worried, but no one would remember.

It was almost tempting to just explode all over the letter. To write an essay on every shitty piece of his life. He had the time- he could do it. Hell, if he wanted to he didn’t have to go to fourth period because no one would remember.

Evan was slowly going insane, he was sure of it, but he welcomed it. At least now he could act with a sense of carelessness and not overthink it all. Sure, he’d be stuck with the memories of those events, but no one else would.

It was kind of perfect, actually.

At the end though, Evan settled on just writing the letter the same way he always did. He didn’t feel up to writing a long sappy letter. It would be interesting to see Connor catch glimpses on how messed up Evan really was in a long letter, but he didn’t have the energy, and Connor would be walking in in just a few minutes.

He went to print the letter before an idea occurred to him. He didn’t have any consequences. Hesitantly, he changed Zoe’s name in the letter to Connor’s. He bit his lip, glanced at the door and printed it. It’s an experiment Evan thought to himself not because my hope was now literally pinned on him. No. It was just an experiment to see how he’d react.

Evan picked at his cast again. He wondered if this thing was still healing as he went through the repeats of the day, or if it wasn’t making any progress. It probably hadn’t improved at all.

He huffed. He’d have to have this stupid cast on for so much longer, depending how long he was stuck in this mess. That was going to be rough.

“How’d you break your arm?” Connor asked from behind him, clearing his throat. Evan turned around and stood up from his chair, before glancing down at his cast.

I jumped out of a tree when I felt so helpless and alone. I’m tempted to go back there, actually, and try again.

“I uh, fell out of a tree,” he said with a small nod.

“That’s fucking sad… listen I uh, wanted to apologize for snapping at you earlier,” Connor said.

He looked even worse up close. His eyes were bloodshot again, and it looked like he hadn’t slept all night. His hair was unbrushed and a knotted mess, and his sweater had some sort of stain on it by the collar that looked oddly like the residue that maybe mashed bananas would have made. He was shaking a bit too- mostly in the hands.

“It’s’kay,” Evan said with a small shrug.

“It’s not though really? I just uh- no one’s signed your cast.”

Evan looked down at it and shrugged.

“I could sign it?” Connor said.

Evan paled as he felt in his back pocket. He didn’t grab the marker this morning, so he had nothing to sign it with.

“I uh, I don’t have a marker… I’m sorry,” Evan said. Connor frowned.

“Your arm is broken and you’re not even carrying around something for someone to sign it with? Did you think no one would sign it?” Connor asked.

“No I uh- yeah. Yeah kind of I just… The only person I talk to kind of hates me,” Evan laughed.

“There might be a sharpie on Mr Spooner’s desk,” Connor said, walking over to it. He seemed determined to sign Evan’s cast, which was kind of weird. Evan figured that maybe he would just shrug and move on but no Connor was going to sign his cast.

It made Evan like Connor even more, admittedly. He didn’t know why these feelings were suddenly forming, but he felt… connected somehow to Connor, and it was weird. It was really weird. Connor wasn’t connected to him. Connor was just the same as he always was. There was nothing new with him, nothing different.

But everything was different.

The thought briefly crossed his mind that maybe Connor was going through this loop with him. It would explain a lot but… no. That was crazy talk. Connor would have noticed how different Evan was to each day and brought it up. He would have known by now.

“Found one. It’s uh, teal though,” Connor said, walking back over to Evan.

“That’s alright. Teal is actually my favourite colour,” Evan said.

It was not his favourite colour.

There was no harm in a little while lie though.

Evan held out his arm and Connor signed it. The sharpie was half running out of ink, and the teal actually didn’t look that nice against the white cast, but Evan wasn’t complaining. Tomorrow he would make sure to have the fresh, new, black sharpie with him.

“Is this your letter? Dear Evan Hansen?” Connor asked, glancing down at the letter before going to hand it to Evan. Evan nodded, taking it from his hands.

“I read it- sorry I just, it caught my eye and I read it all… There’s some pretty fucked up shit about my sister in there but-”

“I never mentioned Zoe,” Evan said, looking down at the letter, his face burning up the second the words left his mouth.

“ What? ” Connor asked.

“I uh, I didn’t mention Zoe… It uh, god this is embarrassing but I uh, talked about… you,” Evan said. Realistically, he shouldn’t have said that. He should’ve just let it slide but he wanted to know Connor’s reaction.

Connor didn’t say anything. He stood there, staring at Evan like had just seen a ghost.

In one swift moment, Connor grabbed the letter from Evan and read it. His face went from confused to angry really fast, and Evan immediately regretted his decision.

“What? Is this some joke to you Hansen?” Connor snapped. There was still the edge of calmness to his voice- almost like he was forcing himself to be pissed off. Evan didn’t like it.

There was something worse about this tone that he hated.

“No it’s not I just-”

“Just what? Saw me in here and thought, oh yeah, I’m going to write some shitty stuff about him that’ll make him spazz out . That’s what you did, right?” Connor said.

“Connor no I just- please …” Evan choked out.

“I’m not crazy. I get it, I’m the good for nothing stoner kid, but I’m not crazy! I’m not going to just freak out so you can have a show,” Connor scoffed.

“I don’t- Connor…”

Connor didn’t want the conversation to end. If he did, he would have pushed Evan and gotten out of there. That’s what he did the first time, but he wasn’t doing it now.

“Fuck you. Just- fuck you Evan!”

Connor crumpled up the letter and chucked it into the garbage as he stormed out.

Alright. So, next time Evan would not be putting Connor’s name in the letter. Lesson well learnt.

He decided to leave the letter in the trash and rewrote another one for therapy. He had finished it- having missed half a class to do it- and then printed it, only to rip it up into pieces and throw it in the garbage.

He didn’t want to go to therapy today. He didn’t want to sit through another depressing discussion, so he wasn’t going to go.

In fact, Evan was kind of fed up with everything, including himself, so he packed up his things and went home. He didn’t bother grabbing his homework, because he had no reason to. Everything was going to reset and nothing mattered.

As Evan sat on his couch later that afternoon with an ice cream carton and afternoon cartoons, he kind of just… collapsed.

It had only been four days, but Evan was crumbling. He didn’t know how many more times he could listen to Jared teasing him about breaking his arm, or Mrs Berry’s beginning of the year lecture, or that stupid conversation with Connor in the computer lab.

He just wanted to be free.

At this point, with his mind slowly spiraling, Evan debated if death was the option. Surely if he was dead, there was no way he could wake up in the morning and relive the day, right? Or maybe if he killed himself just after midnight, so that the day would have already reset, and he wouldn’t have enough time to regenerate or whatever.

Regenerate. Geez, what was he, the doctor?  

Evan chuckled at that thought, before he remembered what he was thinking about.

Sure, he had kind of thought about it. There was the tree incident, sure, but that was pretty spontaneous. He didn’t know if he really wanted  to try and do it though. He wanted to get out of this loop, yes, however, he didn’t want to die.

Death might be an escape, but it would be an escape from a lot more than just Groundhogs Day, and Evan kind of wanted to keep going.

That could at least be a good sign. He wanted to keep going and moving forward, despite everything. He could keep moving forward- he just needed to literally get the next day to move forward.

Around when his therapy session would’ve ended, Evan was still sitting on the couch. He had since moved into his pyjamas and was eating stale crackers, but the now empty ice cream container was still beside him, and cartoons were still playing.

His phone buzzed. Evan wanted to ignore it, but when he saw his mother’s contact he knew he had to pick up, with or without the resetting day.

“Evan?”

“Yes Mom?” Evan asked.

“Honey, you were absent all afternoon and you didn’t show up to your therapy appointment. Is everything ok?” she asked.

Evan hesitated.

“Yeah I uh, I’m fine I just… had a panic attack during lunch? So I uh, bussed home and I guess I forgot about the appointment.” Evan made up the excuse, poking at the box of crackers.

“Alright I’ll call the school then and make the corrections. I love you Evan,” she said.

Evan smiled.

“I love you too mom.”

“Hey I won’t be home until after my lessons, but I might be free tomorrow. I’m not making any promises, but maybe we have tacos and catch up?”

Evan frowned. Tomorrow wasn’t going to come. He’d love to have a real meal with his mother and catch up, but that wasn’t going to happen, and Evan wasn’t just being dramatic for once.

“Yeah that sounds fun.”

“Alright I gotta go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye mom.”

He really wished he could see her tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Evan was irrationally angry. Or maybe it was completely normal, considering his circumstances. All he knew was that if he had to deal with Jared’s stupid conversation one more time-

Evan wasn't a confrontational person, but he might just snap.

He was uncharacteristically rude to his mom, which he instantly regretted. He pinned it on the stress of the first day of school, apologizing so frantically you'd think he just killed her pet goldfish, before hugging her as tightly as he could.

He loved his mother so much. She didn't deserve to be snapped at for just being a good mother.

Evan wanted to kick himself to the moon. She wouldn't remember come tomorrow, which was reassuring but still. Evan was an asshole and he would remember doing that forever.

So, with him already being in a horrible mood, mixed with what happened, And with the knowledge of what was going to happen, Evan was not excited to face Jared.

Alana, he could do. He actually managed to extend the conversation and when he asked Alana about the animal shelter she volunteered at, her eyes lit up and her hand relaxed and left her backpack strap and for the first time during that conversation replay, she seemed relaxed and well, once this whole reliving every day was over, Evan wanted to make an effort to be her friend.

Or, well, acquaintance.

As a result to sticking around with Alana, Jared was already leaning against his locker waiting for Evan. Just so he could make fun of him.

“Why are you so late?” Jared asked, tucking his phone in his pocket and pushing off the locker like some stupid cool kid.

“I'm not?” Evan replied, nudging him out of the way of his locker.

“Whatever. You know, I had this whole joke planned out and since you didn't get here until after I got here, I can't do it now and that really sucks,” Jared said. Evan rolled his eyes.

“What a shame,” Evan sighed.

“It was funny. I'm not going to tell you now, since it's too late and you wouldn't think it was funny. But it was funny,” Jared pushed.

“I'm sure it was,” he flatlined.

“Hey Connor, loving the new hair cut very… school shooter chic,” Jared laughed.

Connor rolled his eyes.

“Jared that's not- not that funny,” Evan said. Both Connor and Jared eyes bolted towards him. “It's a really low blow. Considering you had that uh, that hair length n-not two years ago.”

Jared’s face went bright red. Connor did one of those quiet laughs through his nose and smiled.

“It was just a joke,” Jared said  “Geez you two need to lighten up a bit.”

And he walked off.

Connor looked at Evan, his face pale. Connor opened his mouth to speak, before closing it and grimacing. He walked towards Evan and then awkwardly leant on the locker next to him.

“Thanks for that,” Connor said. Evan smiled and shrugged.

“It's uh, about time someone put Jared in his place?” Evan said with a small shrug. Connor laughed and ran a hand through his hair.

“Yeah.”

There was a slow swell of tension before Evan took out the sharpie from his pocket.

“Do you maybe want to sign my cast?” Evan asked. Connor hesitated before nodding.

“Yeah sure I could do that,” he said.

He took the sharpie and signed it. He gave it back to Evan and stuffed his hands in his pockets. He kind of looked uncomfortable.

“I guess we can both pretend to have friends now,” Evan laughed. Connors eyes widened. Evan raised an eyebrow.

“Well uh, maybe we don't have to pretend? I mean I'm a handful but like,” Connor said with a small laugh. Evan smiled.

“I'd uh. I'd really like that,” Evan said. Of course the voice in the back of his head told him that Connor wouldn't remember it come tomorrow. That this was all just a waste of time.

But he liked Connor. Quite a bit, if he wanted to admit it. One day being his friend was more than enough to make him happy.

“I spend my computer rooms in the lunch if you maybe wanna join?” Evan said.

Connor hesitated.

“You spend your…. Computer rooms… in the lunch?” Connor said slowly. Evan blinked.

“I uh, I meant-”

“Yeah I know what you meant. It's alright,” he laughed.

Evan smiled shortly and the two exchanged goodbyes.

He felt a bit better. He was smiling like an idiot and everything that happened before kind of slipped his mind. Connor wanted to try and be friends.

Of course. Just for today.

That kind of sucked, he had to admit. But the thought of just having a nice conversation with Connor managed to get him through all of his classes.

Evan hummed as he wandered towards the computer lab. He didn't know if Connor was going to actually show up or not. He usually did, so he probably would. Even if the meeting was premeditated.

Evan debated if it was worth it to write a letter or not. Connor had already signed his cast (Jared had bumped into Evan between periods and seemed shocked asking, “ you got that volcano to sign your cast? ” Evan shrugged and muttered “ at least he offered to sign it .” but Jared hadn't heard.)

The letter was kind of a waste of time, Evan had to admit.

As he sat, waiting for Connor- if he was coming - he decided he might as well. Even if he didn't print it out.

Dear Evan Hansen

Today's going to be a good day and here's why. Connor talked to you. Which isn't new, yeah whatever but you stood up for him and it's pretty cool. Sure, you knew exactly what was going to happen so you had time to think about it but that's cool.

I can't lie. This has been a pretty shitty day. Probably the worst of all these repeating days. I guess I'm trying not to focus on these things anymore?

There's this reassuring feeling that come tomorrow the day will reset so all these bad things, which honestly aren't so bad, will never have happened.

It sucks knowing Connor won't remember me standing up for him today. I don't think I'll do it tomorrow. I kind of hope there won't be a tomorrow.

It's bad to think. I know. I can't just turn it off. It's there in the back of my mind, and this cast is a constant reminder.

I want to see the end of this loop though. So maybe that's enough to wait. Yeah. It's

“Whatcha writing?” Connor said, pulling out the seat beside Evan and sitting down. Evan jumped and turned to Connor.

“Oh nothing. It's nothing it's just-”

“ It sucks knowing Connor won't remember me standing up for him today? Why would I forget that?” Connor asked, skimming down the letter still.

It took Evan a second to realize he could turn of the document. By time he shut it down though, Connor had probably read it all twice over.

Connor paused before looking back at the now dark computer monitor.

“Evan are you okay?” Connor asked.

Evan hesitated. He could just tell him. There were no real consequences. He'd reset tomorrow and this conversation will have ceased to exist.

“No,” Evan said. “I'm uh. Really not? But if I told you well- you'd think I'm crazy. It's kind of crazy.” He laughed nervously.

“Try me.”

Beat.

“Well you uh, you see. I've relived the same day for five days in a row now. A-and I know you don't believe me but it's true! Everything is the same every day and uh. It's starting to drive me insane. Like, you've signed my cast five times now which is crazy but each day the letters get smaller? And uh, that makes me really sad, actually. Cause I like the big letters.

“And here's the thing. I really really kind of like you? And I'm only telling you this since you won't remember. It's painful though because we've had- have had so many nice conversations and it's made me so happy but you don't remember any of it!

“Anyways I guess that doesn't really matter. I mean. It does! But that's not the point.

“I just feel so alone? Like uh, I used to say that I uh always like. Lived the same day over and over again since I never did anything impulsive or cool or anything and now it's a reality! Which literally is driving me insane. It's almost making me just want to jump off a cliff because maybe then I don't have to deal with this anymore!”

Evan hesitated, not long enough for Connor to speak, but long enough to catch his breath.

“If I kissed you right now… would you freak out?” he asked, all his words kind of caught up with him at once and his face heated up.

Connor blinked.

“Sorry! That was uh, really weird to say I'm so sorry. It's a lot I know but like I said, you'll just forget-”

“No I won't,” Connor said flatly.

Evan froze.

“You…. Won't?” Evan asked.

No. No. This wasn't happening. Evan did not just pour his heart out to Connor thinking he was going to forget only to find out Connor.

But it made perfect sense- and god Evan was an idiot.

Connor was the only ever one that changed with each day. Him being so much nicer to him, his outfits changing slightly, yesterday when he just knew Evan normally wrote Zoe and was shocked that it was him Evan was writing about.

Every day Connor acted completely different and he looked increasingly worse.

Connor laughed.

“God this is really awkward…” Connor muttered.

“Did you… know I was-”

“Going through it to? No. Well, I was suspicious but you did everything so similar to each day. It was… really hard to say. It wasn't until yesterday that I knew for sure but…” Connor ran a hand through his hair. “I did not think we would be having this conversation.”

“Oh my god… I just told you everything,” Evan said. Connor nodded subtly.

“Yup.”

“And you'll remember it and- ohmygoshIaskedtokissyoujustnow.”

Connor laughed. Evan thought he laughed. He didn't know. He was kind of freaking out.

Of course this had to happen to Evan and Connor. Of course he had to be stupid and tell Connor everything. Of course he didn't see the signs that Connor was dealing with it too. Of course of course of co urse of course.

“Evan? Hey. Evan look at me,” Connor said.

Evan looked at him and mentally tried to steady his breathing. It was done now. He couldn't change it.

“I'm not pissed. Well- no. No I'm not mad I just need you to calm down because we are not having this conversation with you like this,” Connor said.

Evan shook his head.

“Or uh. Or we could just er- not have this conversation at all? I uh… I'm going to go? I… probably won't see you tomorrow because there literally is no tomorrow. I just- I already. Oh my god I can't believe I just did that. I just… oh my god. ”

Evan stood up and grabbed his bag. Connor grabbed his non casted arm and stood up, holding him there.

“Evan I know this is crazy but we need to work together. You can't just… Sure you just opened up and it was a lot but… you can't just leave me alone,” Connor said. “I can't keep doing this alone.”

“I can't… I just... I need to go,” Evan said, tugging his hand away.

“Evan!”

“just… f-fuck off Connor,” Evan said quietly before speed walking out of there.

Connor called after him and Evan didn't get very far before Connor caught up to him.

Connor grabbed his arm and turned him around. The two looked at each other for a brief moment before Connor wrapped his arms around Evan’s waist.

In one swift movement, he tugged Evan forward and kissed him, one hand instantly going up to the base of his head and laced around his hair.

Evan was just frozen there, mostly in shock because this is not happening.

Just as Evan managed to respond, Connor pulled away and looked at Evan helplessly.

“Evan we need to work together,” Connor said. “We can't just- I want to get out of this as much as you do. Please don't storm off.” His arms were still around his waist.

“You only did that ‘cause I uh, I asked right? And ‘cause you don't want me to storm off…” Evan said softly.

He pushed Connor away and took a step back.

“I'm sorry Connor… I'm so so sorry,” he said, before turning on his heels and storming off.

He heard Connor groan before calling out his name. This time he never came though, leaving Evan to just leave the school because fuck it he didn't need to be here any longer. 

Chapter Text

Maybe Evan was overreacting. He didn't know, but as he sat in his bed the next morning he just couldn’t bring himself to get out. Just the thought of having to face Connor at school- well… it made him feel physically ill. It was stupid- no, he was stupid.

Evan spent the entire afternoon just replaying everything that had happened the past few days. It was right there. He was so stupid to not make the connection that maybe possibly Connor was with him in the whole situation.

That was the thing. Connor was right with him the entire time. He remembered each conversation. That was why he didn’t freak out the second day, and why he wanted to make sure Evan was okay.

Evan still couldn’t get over the fact that Connor actually cared.

Connor was an interesting person. He’d known Connor for years. Well, since middle school and they had had maybe three conversations before now. Seventh grade Evan wanted to talk to him because in middle school everyone has that one, usually edgy person they wanted to talk to just because they looked cool but he never did.

Now, in the situation he was in, he spoke to him. Of course thinking that Connor didn’t remember anything. He did know though, and god that was heartbreaking.

Granted, when it sunk in, he was somewhat happy that he knew he wasn’t alone. The situation wasn’t the best, and he knew he had to face Connor eventually and figure all this out. However, he didn’t want to face Connor again. He didn’t want to look him in the eyes with the knowledge that Connor knew what he said yesterday, and he knew he kissed Evan.

Evan wondered if he regretted it. It seemed very much like a tactic to try and keep Evan to stay, instead of him actually wanting to kiss him. He honestly didn’t want to know though, so he was okay pretending it didn’t happen if Connor was.

On the bright side, the two didn’t need to worry about having to go through signing his cast again. Evan woke up with Connor’s name still sprawled across his arm. It sparked hope at first, and he jumped for his phone to check the date but lo and behold;

It was still September Third.

He didn’t know why it stayed, but with everything going on, it was probably the least of his worries.

“Morning Evan,” Heidi said. Evan took that as his que to get up.

So, with a long sigh, he sat up and shifted on his bed, keeping his blanket as close to him as ever.

“Do I have to go today?” Evan asked. Heidi frowned and sat down on the edge of Evan’s bed. She held Evans hand and gave it a small squeeze. Evan decided to hide his arm with the cast under the blanket. He didn’t want to explain Connor’s name.

“Evan… I know this is hard on you, but you can’t miss the first day of school. I just- it's your senior year Evan! This is the best year to reinvent yourself and make memories . I just want you to be happy,” she said. Evan smiled softly.

“I am happy Mom,” he said. She frowned.

They both knew he wasn’t happy.

“Evan…” she said softly. “You need to go to school. Hey! Here’s an idea… ask some other kids to sign your cast!”

“I uh… actually- yeah, sure Mom I can do that,” Evan said.

Heidi smiled and gave his hand another squeeze.

“This is going to be a good year Evan, I can already tell,” she said.

“Yeah… definitely.”

“I’ll leave the sharpie on the kitchen table. Oh! And Evan, I booked an extra appointment with Dr Sherman for you after school,” she said. Evan nodded. He didn’t plan on going to the appointment.

Heidi smiled and said, “I’m proud of you already,” before she walked down the hallway.

Evan waited until he heard Heidi leave out the front door before getting up and getting ready. Admittedly, that made him run a bit late. He kind of purposely did it though, taking his time in the shower despite not needing to take a shower, and then walking slowly to the bus stop. He missed the first one, but the second one came ten minutes later.

He walked into the school just in time to be able to run into Alana.

“Hey Evan, how was your summer?”

Evan kept the conversation the same, making sure to ask her about her volunteering, this time at an old folks home. It was really nice to watch her get so happy about talking about the things she liked to do. To others maybe it would be overwhelming, but he understood her situation now and he liked it.

“Well, I’ll see you later Evan,” Alana said.

Before Alana got to walk away, Evan cleared his throat and spoke up.

“Uh, Alana… what do you normally do for lunch?” Evan asked. Alana made a small oh before seeming to think.

“I’ll probably be in the library getting a head start on some of my classes,” she said with a small shrug.

“Would you uh, mind if I maybe joined you?” Evan asked, putting his hands in the pockets of his sweater.

Alana’s face lit up and she smiled, before nodding vigorously.

“Yeah! Of course… just, keep in mind I’ll be working,” she said. Evan couldn’t tell if she was joking or not, but he didn’t really care. Evan smiled and nodded.

“Yeah of course I uh, won’t be too much of a distraction,” he said. “I’ll see you then, then?”

“See you then,” Alana said, before smiling and bouncing off like she normally did, only this time there was much more pep in her step.

Evan hung back a minute before making his way to his locker. Connor had already ran into Jared and the two were arguing. Evan approached just as Jared stormed off. Connor ran a hand through his hair before looking around. He seemed disappointed, but he didn’t hang around for long before walking off in a different direction.

Evan let out a sigh of relief and walked to his locker. He did what he needed to do and kept it as short as he could. Evan didn’t want to stick around in places Connor could easily see him, so he decided to just sit in his first period class, despite the fact that there was still another fifteen minutes before the first bell.

Not even the teacher was in the classroom yet.

In between classes Evan stuck to the middle of the crowd, which was pure nightmare fuel but worth it to reduce risk of seeing Connor. He was being childish. He knew that, but it just-

God he was so frustrated with himself.

Once lunch rolled around, Evan made his way to the library. He hesitated as he gazed around, unable to find Alana set up anywhere.

He frowned and bit his lip. Maybe he misheard Alana? Or maybe she was just avoiding him. Alana wasn’t the type to just avoid someone, at least Evan didn’t think she was.

Evan turned around on his heels and went to walk, only to bump right into Alana as she walked into the library.

“Oh! I’m so sorry Alana I just…” Evan said. Luckily she didn’t have anything in her arms for him to have knocked out of. Alana smiled and shrugged.

“It’s fine Evan. Let’s sit down- hey, how was your morning?” she said, guiding Evan to the back of the library, where there was a small table tucked beside the poetry shelf. She sat down and Evan sat across from her, setting his bag on the chair next to him.

“It was ok I guess,” Evan said with a small shrug. “Have you uh, ever had Mrs Barry?” Evan asked.

Alana thought for a second.

“No I don’t think so. I did bio twenty the summer before tenth grade and then did bio thirty as a module, so I never had a teacher for it,” Alana said. “I usually went to Mr Huckle whenever I needed help with something though. He’s really thorough and really cared about my grades. I assume you have her? What’s she like?”

Evan nodded and gazed around. He kind of regretted doing this, it was stressing him out but he was going to be okay. Alana was nice. She was a nice distraction from the problems Evan had right now too.

“Yeah! She’s alright but I guess it’s too soon to tell,” Evan laughed. “I had Mr Huckle last year? He uh, yeah he was.... really awesome,” he said.

Alana pulled out a textbook, history, Evan thought, and opened it to what seemed to be a random page. There was a sticky note on it though, so obviously she meant to get to that page.

“What classes are you taking?” Evan asked. He didn’t like small talk. He really didn’t.

“Well, I’m taking physics, calculus, advanced literature, computer programming- just for fun- and psychology within my schedule, but I’m also doing leadership which happens every tuesday and thursday after school, and yearbook committee which meets on wednesdays at lunch, then the debate club… oh! And all the volunteering opportunities I have lined up. That’s just this term though, next term is going to be even busier.

“Are you interested in any clubs? We could use another member on the debate team,” Alana said. “It’s like sports for the kids who aren’t physically inclined,” she joked. Evan laughed awkwardly and shook his head.

“No I uh, I don’t like talking all that much… in front of people? Yeah no, that’s not a good idea,” he laughed.

Alana shrugged.

“It would be a great way to get more comfortable speaking. Besides, you don’t need to be in the group that actually goes to debates, you could just hang out at the meetups and help out with research and such,” Alana said. “Besides, you’re talking to me right now, aren’t you?”

“I guess I am- but you’re different, I guess?” Evan said with a small shrug.

“Well, think about it. We could use another member,” Alana said.

She looked down at her textbook and started skimming it. Evan, not wanting to be doing nothing, took out his phone with the intent to open up some sort of game. Instead though, he found Jared had actually texted him, which was a rare occurrence.

From Jared: are you even here today?

To Jared: yes I am.

From Jared: where are you then

To Jared:   at the library-

Evan hesiated, looking up at Alana for a brief second. She looked up and smiled, which Evan returned. He looked down at his phone and finished his text message.

w th a friend.

From Jared: you have a friend

To Jared: yes I do. I’ll talk to you later.

Evan got another text, but he had swiped it from his notification so fast he didn’t even get to read it. He did not want to deal with Jared’s stupid comments.

Alana looked up at him and cocked her head to the side.

“How’d you break your arm?” she asked. It hadn’t come up in their conversation this morning.

“I fell out of a tree,” he said with a small chuckle.

“Oh you poor thing… you know, my grandma broke her hip falling into the bathtub early July. The doctors said that was the beginning of the end, because a few days later she died,” Alana said and her face fell. “It kind of sucked…”

“I’m sorry,” Evan said. She huffed and shrugged, before plastering another smile on her face.

“It’s okay,” Alana said. “It’s the circle of life, right?”

“Yeah, like the uh, The Lion King, ” Evan said. She smiled and nodded.

“Yeah like The Lion King ,” she laughed.

“Do you maybe want to sign it?” Evan asked.

“Do you have a sharpie?” she asked. Evan nodded and took the one out of his pocket. She took it and turned Evan’s arm over, before signing her name at the base of the cast on the underside in small, neat writing. It was so small and subtle compared to Connor’s name sprawled across the whole top of it.

“Thanks,” Evan said.

“You’re welcome. You know… this is really nice,” Alana said. “I usually just sit alone at lunch. I mean, I talk to a lot of people during classes but none of them really want to sit with me outside of classes.”

“I know that feeling… well uh, about the sitting alone. It can get pretty lonely,” Evan said. Alana nodded.

“It’s nice to have a uh…” Alana trailed off.

Evan hesitated. “Friend?”

“Yeah a uh… a friend to sit with,” Alana said.

The two sat in a comfortable silence after that, Alana reading her textbook while Evan scrolled through twitter on his phone. Evan tried to ignore the feeling in the pit of his stomach that reminded him that Alana wouldn’t remember this tomorrow and he could only call Alana a friend for so long.

Evan hummed softly, standing up to look at the shelf of poetry.

“Do you read any poetry?” Evan asked.

“Not particularly, I don’t have much time to do anything recreational,” Alana said.

“I like poetry… it’s kind of… it’s hard to explain,” Evan laughed awkwardly.

“Try?”

“Well I just-”

“Hey Evan,” Connor said, the voice coming from behind him. Evan shut his eyes and turned around, praying that he hadn’t found him. There he was though, standing with his hands tucked in his pockets. His hair was tied up in a bun and his eyes looked bloodshot. He was pale and well, to put it nicely, this was probably the worse Evan had seen him.

“Oh hi Connor! How’re you?” Alana asked. Connor looked at her, opened his mouth to speak before closing it and taking a deep breath. He smiled slightly and shrugged.

“I’ve been better,” he said, before looking to Evan. “Can we talk?”

It wasn’t a question, Evan knew that, but he was tempted to tell him no. He couldn’t run forever though. He had the stupid advantage of getting to remember each day. Evan looked between him and Alana before nodding slowly.

“I’ll uh, see you later Alana,” Evan said. She smiled softly and nodded. Her expression kind of dropped, before she looked down at the table, only to look back up at him a moment later.

“We’ll have to talk about poetry another time then,” she said.

“Yeah! Totally… I’ll see you around,” Evan said with a small wave before walking out of the library with Connor, trailing just a bit behind him.

Connor was speed walking down the hallway and eventually out of the school, not checking to see if Evan was following him or not.

“Alana Beck? Really? What’s so interesting about her?” Connor asked as he pushed the emergency exit door open.

“She’s nice,” Evan said simply before catching up to Connor’s walking speed.

He eventually lead the two across the field and to a little spray park that was just across the park next to the school. The two sat on a bench and Evan unintentionally gave the two as much room in between them as possible.

“Where’d you go this morning?” Connor asked.

“I was talking to Alana,” Evan said.

“I was worried to hell about you,” Connor snapped. They were both looking ahead, neither making eye contact.

“Why?” Evan said, finally turning to face Connor. He whipped around lightning speed and looked Evan directly in the eye.

“I don’t want to deal with this alone anymore… and I know you don’t either,” Connor said. Evan didn’t say anything, he just kind of shifted in his spot and looked down.

He was so right. Connor was so right. He didn’t want to go through this alone again. Evan opened his mouth to speak, but Connor started talking once again.  

“Sure, yesterday was embarrassing. You fucked up, but guess what Evan- I hate to say it but you literally fucked up in some way each and every single day and you did embarrassing shit but so did I. You remember all the shit I did and I remember what you did. We’ve gotta just move past this and start working together because I am going insane ,” Connor said bluntly.

“I am literally about to collapse in on myself,” Connor said. “I hate to admit it but I need you.”

“I’m uh… sorry,” Evan said. “It’s just… I’m so- so confused and-”

“ And I’m not? ” Connor said. “Evan this isn’t all about you- how do you think I felt when I fucking- ”

He cut himself off and grimace, looking at the ground.

“I haven’t slept since this started,” Connor admitted. “I am exhausted and done with this all and fuck I can’t stand Jared Kleinmen and his stupid ass comments- no offense I know he’s kind of your friend - and oh I want to strangle Mr Kelly and his dumb comment,” he scoffed.

“What does Kelly say to you?” Evan asked.

“Every morning he starts second period by going ‘ should I even bother calling Connor Murphy’s name? ’ before I yell at him, and he pretends to be shock and then gives me a one on one pop quiz in front of everyone as if I was fucking Harry Potter and he was Snape,” Connor ranted.

Evan laughed, more as a reflex than an actual laugh and made eye contact with Connor.

“I mean, Harry Potter is pretty cool,” Evan said. Connor shrugged.

“That’s not the point. We need to get down to the bottom of this,” Connor said. “Any ideas?”

“No,” Evan said. Connor sighed and took the bun out of his hair and shook it out.

“You’re pitiful,” Connor scoffed.

“Why’d you kiss me?” Evan asked. “I’m sorry I just… that’s been bugging me,” Evan said, shrinking into himself.

Connor paused, furrowing his eyebrows as if he was thinking. He was thinking far too much.

“You asked me to,” Connor said.

It was Evan’s turn to pause.

“Is that the only reason why?”  he asked.

Again, Connor hesitated.

“I don’t know,” Connor said and Evan’s heart just sunk. He knew Connor just did it to get Evan to stay, he had built that idea up in his head so he was ready for the rejection. It still stung though.

“Alright,” Evan said shortly. “So uh,  I guess we short start comparing each days maybe? I uh- your name actually stayed on my cast… maybe that’s a sign that we’re getting closer?” Evan said, holding up his cast.

Connor blinked, before looking down at Evan’s arm. His eyes widened, and he looked back up at Evan with a small frown.

“Maybe it was because we finally put two and two together? That it was the two of us,” Connor said. Evan nodded.

“That’s uh, yeah that’s what I thought,” Evan said, bringing his arm back down.  

“Should we go somewhere else to talk?” Connor asked. “It’s a little weird to be talking here while a mother and her four toddlers are playing at the spray park.”

“Maybe we should start tomorrow? I just… it’s been a pretty decent day and I don’t want to start over thinking things…” Evan said, looking down at his hands. It was actually because he didn’t want to be around Connor right now, considering the fact that Connor just rejected him.

“Alright. I’m not going to school tomorrow though,” Connor said.

“We could talk at my place? My uh, mom isn’t home all day...  we could literally talk until midnight since that’s when she gets home,” Evan laughed sadly. “She uh… sorry that’s a weird thing to tell you.”

“Yeah sure we can do that. Let me drive you home so I know where you live and… I’ll be over at nine,” Connor said.

Evan sighed and nodded. The two walked back to Connor’s car, which was surprisingly clean and modern. Evan half expected him to have some beat up old truck that was well loved but no. He had what seemed to be the latest model of some fancy new car, painted black with grey leather interior.

“Hey Evan,” Connor said as the two pulled up into the driveway.

“Yes?” Evan asked.

“When you changed Zoe’s name to mine, in your stupid letter… did you mean it?” he asked. “Or did you do it just to piss me off?”

Evan hesiated.

“I uh, I did it to see how you’d react… since you were so nice the other days? But yeah… my hope was literally the uh, the most- the best highlight of my day, I guess? And uh, it kind of- it being our conversations- got me through the repeat of the day?” Evan said, looking anywhere but Connor’s face.

“That’s reassuring,” Connor said sarcastically, but he smiled after and nudged Evan. “I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“Yeah, tomorrow.”

Chapter Text

Evan slept ok for the first time since this started. For the record, he didn’t fall asleep until midnight and then woke up at four am, but he woke up feeling rested. Of course, there was the usual hope that maybe this feeling was because the day had moved on, but it hadn’t. If the fact that his phone still said September Third wasn’t an obvious give away, the absence of Alana’s name on his cast was.

He spent the early hours of the morning preparing himself. He wasn’t going to school- Connor was coming here and they were going to talk. Talking shouldn’t have scared Evan so much, but it did. It really did.

Sure, he was more comfortable talking to Connor now than he was seven days ago, but Connor had proven himself to be a wild card. With that in mind, this conversation was going to go one of two ways. There was either going to be an argument, or a civil conversation. Either way, Evan hoped he learned a few things about everything .

He was nervously pacing in the kitchen when Heidi woke up, causing their conversation to take place in the kitchen. It was still the same though, besides Heidi simply handing him the sharpie.

Evan went to grab the sharpie, and Heidi’s eye caught Connor’s name on his cast.

“Who’s Connor?” she asked, a smile instantly spreading across her face. Evan blushed and took the sharpie, tucking it away in his pocket.

“A uh, friend? Kind of… we go to school together and… bumped into- yeah, we met each other yesterday and he signed it…” Evan said. “Uh! Like, we hung out at the park… and stuff.”

Her smile widened even more.

“Evan I had no idea you had a friend,” she said.

Evan shrugged.

“I wouldn’t call it friends? We uh, we just talk sometimes... “ Evan said.

“Evan, that’s a friend,” she laughed. Evan nervously laughed and leant against the counter.

“Well, I guess maybe… we’ve never like, discussed being friends?” Evan said.

“You don’t need to disclose friendship. It just happens,” Heidi pointed out, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl that only had another two pieces of fruit in it. “I have to run. I hope you have a wonderful day today honey!”

She grabbed her bag and gave Evan a quick hug before leaving.

Evan sighed and ran his hand through his hair. He never really set a time with Connor for when he would show up. That was kind of unnerving, but he couldn’t change anything about it.

He poured himself a bowl of cereal and sat down on the couch, going to Youtube on his laptop to watch some sort of online morning talk show, as he didn’t have cable or Netflix. He was pretty limited, but he didn’t mind. If he really wanted to watch a show, he knew of a few streaming websites.

Evan resorted to yesterday’s news video once todays ended just to keep himself busy. Halfway through, there was a knock on the door.

Evan shut down his laptop before making his way to the door.

He opened it to Connor standing there with his hands tucked in his pocket and his hair was tied up in a bun.

“Good morning,” Evan said, stepping aside to let Connor in. He smiled weakly before stepping in and gazing around.

“It’s not a good morning if you wake up reliving the worst day of the year over and over again,” Connor pointed out.

“You’re not wrong but uh, at least we’re not at school today?” Evan said. “Sitting through the same classes over and over again… can uh, get tiring,” Evan laughed as he sat down. Connor glanced around before sitting down next to him.

“I stopped going after the third day,” Connor said. “I only came to talk to you, and I showed up for second period just to put Mr Kelly in his place.” He chuckled quietly. Connor started looking around his house, narrowing his eyes slightly.

“I uh, I’m sorry about the mess… I know the place is kind of, cluttered and lots of knick knacks,” Evan said. Connor made eye contact with Evan.

“No it’s nice it’s… homey,” Connor said. “My house is uh… very show home like, I guess. There’s no personality… very few personal family things are displayed... I think there’s more photos of you above the fireplace than there is of me in our entire house,” Connor said.

He stood up and walked over to the photos which, admittedly, were kind of embarrassing and if Evan was brave enough, he would have told Connor to come back and sit down.

Connor chuckled and picked up a photo of Evan and Jared, probably seven years old, splattered with finger paints all over them and the white tiles of Jared’s old house.

“You and Kleinmen go way back,” Connor pointed out.

“Yeah uh, our parents are friends,” Evan said. “That’s the uh, only reason Jared and I are really friends…” He decided to stand up and join Connor at the fireplace. “If it weren’t for Jared’s parents pushing us to be friends, I don’t think he would talk to me.”

Connor put the photo back.

“That’s fucking sad,” Connor said.

“Little bit…” Evan said.

He wanted to get on the topic of what they were supposed to be talking about. They had all day to do it, but he just wanted to get it over with. He’d prefer not to reminisce about times that were so much better.

And the days when time actually moved forward and didn’t just repeat itself.

“Who’s this?” Connor said, pointing to a photo of him, his mom and their old dog. Their real estate agent had taken the photo after Heidi bought their house, two months after his dad had left.

“My uh, my mom and me,” Evan said. “I would have been maybe five or six? Maybe four?”

“Your mom is pretty,” Connor said before turning around to sit down once more.

“Yeah she’s uh, really beautiful… she’s blonde now… She’s a natural blonde? She just dyed her hair brown for a while for fun I guess? Well that’s not the reason, but it’s a stupid reason so you probably don’t care,” Evan rambled before sitting down beside Connor.

“Why’d she dye it?” he asked.

“Well I had brown hair until it started lightening around ten years old to the kind of dirty colour it is now? Weird I know, since hair usually darkens but- but anyways , uh… This is going to get deep wow… but my father had brown hair and uh, I look a lot like my dad unfortunately… but as a kid- I guess you need to know my dad left when I was really young? Like uh, completely abandoned us… Uh, so… where was I?”

Connor went to talk, but Evan quickly cut him off.

“Right! So, I didn’t look anything like my mom and this kid I used to be friends with didn’t believe she was my mom? Since we look so different… a-and it bugged me so much that for my birthday she went out and got her hair dyed brown and kept it brown for two years… just so she looked more like me,” Evan said with a small smile.

“Wow,” was all that Connor said.

Evan laughed.

“Sorry, that’s a lot to take in,” Evan said.

“No I just… my mom would never have done that for me… I don’t think, ever. She would never have needed too… but… wow, ” Connor said. “My parents don’t give a shit about me,” he laughed.

“No?” Evan asked.

“My dad literally told me once that everyone’s life would be so much better if I disappeared,” Connor flatlined. Evan made a small oh sound.

“Do you think that has something to do with us living through this loop?” Evan asked. Connor shook his head without a second thought.

“I thought about it at the beginning. It made sense… kind of. On the third day I tried so hard to make the morning go smoothly but it didn’t work. Plus, why would you be dragged into this if it was purely a me problem?” Connor said.

“That’s uh, very true,” Evan replied.

“Have you noticed that you don’t need to eat? Like you wake up feeling like you had a decent dinner last night even if you didn’t eat anything?” Connor asked.

“No I uh, yesterday- er September Second- I didn’t eat anything all day so I wake up starving,” Evan said. Connor huffed. “What about showering?”

“Haven’t showered since this started. Literally everything resets… including hygiene,” Connor said with a small shrug.

“Except my cast,” Evan said.

“Your cast?” Connor asked.

“Yeah? This is… the second day your name has stayed on my cast,” Evan said. “Did you not notice it yesterday?”

“No I didn’t noticed. No offense but my main focus isn’t on your cast,” Connor said.

“Oh well. Alana signed it yesterday and her signature is gone but yours isn’t… so I guess we did something significant?” Evan said.

“What did we do two days ago?” Connor asked.

“You don’t remember?” Evan asked. Connor thought for a second.

“Met in the computer lab meaning to just hang out, you gave that embarrassing speech and then I kissed you right?” Connor said. Evan nodded quickly. “Maybe one of those things have something to do with it all?”

“Maybe I just… which one?”

“Probably the figuring out we were both reliving the loop. That one seems the most logical, right? Everything resets until we realize that we’re together in this, and now your cast stays. So obviously this must be a multistep process,” Connor said. Evan pretended he wasn’t hurt by Connor’s complete dismissal of the kiss.

“I didn’t take you for the critical thinking type,” Evan said, mostly as a joke. Connor rolled his eyes.

“Yeah that’s the first time I’ve heard that one before,” Connor scoffed, leaning back on the couch.

“I’m sorry,” Evan said quietly. Connor offered a small, what seemed to be genuine smile and dismissed it as if it never happened.

“Do you want some tea?” Evan asked. Connor raised an eyebrow. “It’s nice tea.”

“Sure?” Connor said with a small laugh.

Evan got Connor to come with him to the kitchen and sat at the kitchen table while Evan prepared everything. There was a few seconds where neither of them spoke, both off in their own worlds. It was kind of nice. The air was tense, but the thought of having tea helped Evan ignore it just a bit.

“So if uh, it is a multi step process… what do you think the next one is?” Evan asked. Connor shrugged. His feet were kicked up on top of one of the other chairs tucked in with the table. He looked so laid back and comfortable. It was kind of weird that he had his feet kicked up, even if it was just a chair, but Evan just ignored it and turned on the stove to start heating up the water.

“No clue,” Connor said. “It could be us having to work through some sort of issue?”

“We kind of worked out our own issues already through,” Evan pointed out. Connor nodded.

“Just what I was thinking.”

“Maybe it’s like… personal issues that we have to work through and get help from each other?” Evan suggested.

“We’ve both got countless issues Evan,” Connor pointed out.

“You’re not wrong,” Evan said humorously. “I uh, on the original day I talked- with my therapist, but uh, I talked about feeling like I was living the same day over and over again? Like, theoretically, not literally… but I guess now it’s literal,” Evan said.

“Think it’s got something to do with that? Should we do some spontaneous shit and get you out of this loop?” Connor suggested.  

“I’ve kind of done that myself? Like, talking to Alana and standing up for you to Jared?” Evan said.

Connor sighed and grimace.

Once the kettle boiled and Evan had poured the tea and let it seep, the two returned to the living room and spent an hour bouncing back and forth ideas as to what could be the possible issues that they had that could be reasons for the loop.

Some of them were kind of random and little, while others were issues that Evan never even realized he was going through.

The entire time it kind of felt like Connor was holding something back. He’d open his mouth to say something, each time his face would go kind of pale and he’d get nervous, but he quickly changed back to his normal self and spitballed another idea until the two were starting to get nothing but repeated ideas.

Evan knew Connor was holding back, but Evan kind of was too. He didn’t want to outright tell Connor that he kind of, in the back of his mind- barely there , he wanted to die. That was a major issue. It had caused him a broken arm and a constant feeling of failure.

It wasn’t that strong of a feeling though. He didn’t want to go through the pain of failing again. As of now too, he wanted to live to see September Fourth, and that was enough motivation and justification to put those thoughts to the back of his mind.

Evan ran out of ideas around noon, and the two decided to give the conversation a break. Evan convinced Connor to order them a pizza (Evan was paying, of course, but Connor was going to do all the talking.)

“Turn on netflix maybe?” Connor suggested as Evan booted up his laptop, hooking it up to the TV so they could watch something on a decent sized screen.

“I don’t have netflix,” he said. That then launched an argument between the two about Connor just signing in. Evan didn't want to know his password, Connor didn't care. It was a stupid argument, but at one point it turned into the two joking around, giving impossible situations that watching Netflix could bring. (“ If you give me your password, the password gods will come and cause you to forget all your passwords” “If we don’t watch netflix we’ll be cursed to live helplessly in the loop of the next hour.” )

Eventually they let it die and Connor turned on a sitcom that he seemed to care a lot about, considering how offended he got when he found out Evan had never seen it.

Connor sighed as he looked at his phone. He ended an incoming call before it started ringing once more.

He sighed and stood up.

“I'll be right back,” he said, leaving for the kitchen. Almost immediately, he launched into an argument with whoever was on the other side of the phone. Evan shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

A knock on the door pulled his focus from listening in on Connors colourful language  (he had never heard the word fuck used so many times in a sentence.) He waited a moment. There was no way Connor was going to end the call just to get the pizza.

Evan stood up and grabbed the cash from the table. He took a moment to prepare himself before opening the door.

He gave the pizza guy two twenties, telling him to; “uh, k-keep the change?” before taking the pizza and shutting the door. He didn't want to acknowledge the over ten dollar tip he just gave the man.

Of course, tomorrow the money would be back in the kitchen, waiting for Evan to use it.

“Well fuck you too! I might as well jump off of a bridge and get out of your hair if I'm that much of a fucking problem,” Connor shouted. Evan wondered if the pizza man had heard him. “ Fuck you! ”

Connor hung up and Evan watched as he ran a hand down his face, kind of collecting himself before shaking his head and making his way back to the living room.

He forced a small smile and sat down.

“When did the pizza come?” he asked.

“A minute ago?” Evan said as he opened the two boxes up. “I uh, you were still yelling at your phone so… I decided to get it? I tipped the man over like, twelve dollars,” he laughed.

Connor chuckled and took a slice.

“Sorry you had to hear that.”

“Would you actually do it?” Evan said.

“Do what?” Connor said through a mouthful of food. Evan bit his lip.

“Would you actually drop off a bridge?” Evan asked. “I'm sorry I know that's a very personal question but I just really can't stand the thought of doing this alone or losing you and I just- ”

“No,” Connor said, cutting Evan off. “I wouldn't. Not while this is happening anyways.” He shrugged.

“Besides, I'd wake up alive and in my bed once everything reset,” he said all too casually.

“How do you know?” Evan asked. Did Connor-?

“I fell asleep in a park the first night… and on my lawn the third and woke up in my bed. So following that logic…” Connor said. Evan didn't understand how Connor could be so calm while talking about- well . It wasn't really about suicide, he was talking about passing out. Evan wasn’t an idiot though.

He knew that Connor was using falling asleep as a euphemism for what he really did, but he went along with the sleeping idea.

They just watched TV after that, neither of them really talking. Together they managed to finish a large pizza and then a third of the second one.

Evan eventually moved to grab a blanket and wrapped himself around it. At some point Connor went outside and had a cigarette, and he returned a few minutes later with his hair untied from his bun and flowing free.

“I uh, think we need to address something neither of us really talked about?” Evan said as Connor got comfortable on his side of the couch.

Connor huffed and nodded, turning to Evan.

“I… I may be wrong but- you killed yourself the first night… and uh, the third night too, right?” Evan asked.

Connor hesitated.

“I’ve killed myself every single night since this started,” Connor admitted. “I tried… I overdosed the first night, slit my wrists the second, hung myself outside the third, I drove out to a train track the fourth, maybe overdosed again on the fifth? And then…”

“I didn’t… sorry I just… I didn’t need to know how ,” Evan said quietly.

“Quit looking at me like you’re scared,” Connor scoffed. “Does it really surprise you that the school edgelord tried to kill himself?” Connor asked.

“I just…”

Connor rolled his eyes.

“I’ve tried it before… but the first day was the first time I actually did it with a true want to die. Do you know how heartbreaking it was to wake up in the morning only to find out that it’s the first day of high school again? Fuck, it was horrible- not to mention I felt like shit for making you feel like shit. Then of course I wanted to try and talk to you and make a difference but fuck like I could make a difference in a guys life when he’ll wake up the next morning thinking it was the first day of school again.

“Of course turns out you actually were living the same shit as me every day you just decided to make every day the same as the last so I couldn’t tell,” Connor ranted.

“I’m sorry?” Evan said. He didn’t know what else he could say. It was kind of overwhelming- all this information at one. Connor seemed pissed now, and Evan got that, but he was still scared to continue the conversation.

“It’s not your fault,” Connor said. “My parents are assholes, my sister hates me, no matter what I do I can’t get better. My life is a shit show.”

“Maybe that’s what we need to do? Like uh, get better?” Evan suggested.

“That’s a little one sided isn’t it?” Connor said. Evan hesitated.

“Well uh, kind of I guess I… I’m not flawless either,” Evan said.

“No one is genius,” Connor pointed out. Evan sighed and shook his head.

“I just… I uh, I well- I’m kind of a mess? I definitely have some things I need to sort through and get better with too,” Evan said. “Would you be willing to try and get better?”

“I mean, if it got us out of this loop,” Connor said. “And… I guess if it would help improve things?”

He seemed kind of frustrated now. Evan found it hard to read Connor a lot. He was like the wind- so unpredictable.

“Do you still want to die?” Evan said.

“Death is a funny concept you know-”

“ Do you? ” Evan asked, cutting him off. He was avoiding the question.

“I mean… obviously. No small conversation is going to change that,” Connor said, all too casually. Evan frowned. He didn’t like knowing Connor felt like that.

“If you go home tonight, are you going to try a uh, again?” Evan asked.

Connor didn’t say anything, and the silence pretty much said it all.

Evan frowned. He wanted to hug Connor, but it didn’t seem like an appropriate time. Plus there was the idea that they realistically, didn’t know each other all that well. If it weren’t for the universe drawing the two together, they probably would have never spoken.

If the universe hadn’t drawn them together, Connor Murphy would most likely have been dead.

“Stay here tonight… and uh, I’ll- we’ll make sure neither of us do anything stupid… maybe that’s the next step to figuring everything out,” Evan said. “I uh, I know it won’t fix it... .but I can be there for you and… maybe you can be there for me?”

Connor hesitated. He closed his eyes and sighed, before grabbing a slice of cold pizza. Connor was all too casual and chill for the situation and it made Evan uneasy. He couldn’t tell if he himself was overreacting or not and that just made him feel worse.

“We can try that,” Connor said with a slight nod.

“Cool! Uh, do you mind sleeping on my floor- or wait. I have a blow up mattress. I’ll put it on my floor and then I will uh, I’ll sleep on there and you can have my bed,” Evan said. Connor just nodded and finished his slice of pizza.

Around six Evan got a call from Heidi about him having missed both school and therapy. Evan made up some excuse and prayed that the day wouldn’t reset so he didn’t have to deal with the consequences come the morning.

Once the sun started to set the two got the air mattress set up and both just kind of got comfy in Evan’s room. There was a brief argument about who would be sleeping on the floor. Ultimately Connor decided to take the floor, despite Evan’s protest.

They talked a bit, mostly getting to know each other, but they kept the conversation light. It was unspoken, but they were both done with the stressful topic they had been discussing all day.

Around eleven, when Evan was ready to go to bed, Connor suggested they stay up until past midnight.

“Why?” Evan asked, pulling his blanket over him.

“Every night when midnight hits it just stays September Third, maybe we did something today that would have shifted it? Wouldn’t you want to know right away?” Connor said. Evan shrugged, but agreed.

When 11:59 rolled around, the two moved to sit side by side on Evan’s bed with Connor’s calendar pulled up on his phone.

The clock shifted, and so did the day. It was a short, ten second span, but for ten seconds, it was September Fourth. The two looked from the phone to each other, both disappointed and Evan very confused.  

“You saw that right?” Evan said. Connor nodded slowly.

“Does it normally happen like that?” Evan asked.

“Nope,” Connor said. He looked at Evan with a slight frown before crawling back onto the air mattress.

“That means something then, right? It moved- we did something right we just need to figure out what it was and improve it?” Evan said.

“Something like that yeah,” Connor said. His tone was almost emotionless and it was a rise for concern. Evan cocked his head to the side and watched as Connor wrapped himself in the blanket Evan had given him.

“Are you ok?” Evan asked.

“I just… got really excited there for a second,” Connor said. “Good night.”

Evan got up and turned off the light.

“See you in the morning,” Evan said.

“I’ll probably wake up in my own bed,” Connor pointed out through the darkness.

“See you at school then.”

“Yeah… at school.”

Chapter Text

He ended up waking up around one am, kind of jolting up and panicking since Connor was nowhere . Reality kind of crashed back in and Evan calmed down. Connor had given him warning that everything reset, including their sleeping positions. Still, it was kind of surreal to fall asleep with Connor in his room, and then wake up not one hour later as if he never set foot in his room.

He luckily managed to fall asleep again and got another four hours of sleep before deciding he was up and there was no point in going to sleep again.

Absently, he made his way to the kitchen and looked around. He really wanted some of that leftover pizza- it was best cold anyways- but of course, the pizza was gone, and the money was back on the kitchen counter, and the poor delivery man’s wallet was twelve dollars lighter.

Evan hummed as he made himself some tea, still wearing his pyjama bottoms and an old hoodie that was now a size too big for him.

The shower went off upstairs at 6:02 , like it normally did and Evan sat down with his tea, pulling up a book on his phone. He probably felt the most calm and relaxed than he had the passed week. It was probably because of yesterday. In spite of everything they talked about, it was nice and refreshing.

Neither of them came any closer to figuring out what was happening and how to stop it, but they didn’t have to deal with school. Not to mention there were virtually no consequences. That was probably the best thing about yesterday.

By time Heidi was ready to leave, Evan was sitting on the couch waiting for a decent time to leave. She leant against the couch and hovered beside him.

“You didn’t eat last night,” she pointed out, holding two twenties next to Evan. “You know you can order stuff online now,” she said with a small smile.

Evan shrugged.

“I uh, just made one of those tv dinners,” he said with a small bit of laugh.

“Alright…” She didn’t buy it.

They had their conversation, Evan mentioned Connor after she asked about his cast and then Heidi handed him the sharpie, for when you get more people to sign it .

“I gotta run- are you ready to go?” Heidi asked after she caught the time. She grabbed her purse from the kitchen and slipped on her shoes.

“Yeah pretty much I uh, just gotta get to the bus stop,” Evan said.

“I can drive you if we leave right now,” she said with a small smile. Evan smiled and nodded. He took the offer without hesitation.

He was at school significantly earlier than normal. Still, he managed to track down Alana and they had their conversation. It was dumb, but he loved the way she got all excited talking about whatever she had done over the summer and it just made him feel happy knowing he had done that.

Alana signed his cast after noticing Connor’s name on it and going off on a whole lecture about Connor’s personality ( “you know, I’m pretty sure Connor was my partner for english in the tenth grade… he doesn’t talk much and when he does he’s kind of on edge but he’s crazy smart and insightful.” )

Alana walked away and then Connor approached him and the two silently walked to Evan’s locker. Connor leant against the one next to his and gave a small smile.

“You feel okay?” Evan said, tearing his gaze from his locker for a brief moment just so he could look at Connor.

“Tired… I got maybe an hour of sleep?” Connor said. Evan paused.

“What time would you say you fell asleep?” Evan asked.

“Probably closer to one? I uh, woke up at like- one thirty though... in my own room,” Connor said. Evan narrowed his eyes and looked back to his locker.

“I woke up around there too,” Evan said. Connor raised an eyebrow.

“What? Are you implying that we wake up at the same time in the middle of the night?” Connor said.

“Maybe…” Evan trailed off.

“Do you wake up with a jolt?” Connor asked.

“Kind of like waking up from a nightmare,” Evan added. Connor nodded.

“What time did you wake up the day before?” Connor said.

“Around three,” Evan said. “And then uh, and then four the night before.”

“Same yeah… what times did you fall asleep?” Connor asked.

“Almost always around midnight,” Evan said without hesitation.

“Nope. I get like, half an hour of sleep before I’m woken up,” Connor said.

“Well, the date resets instantly but we don’t so like… obviously once we’re both sleeping we must kind of trigger the universe to reset everything done? And it’s kind of like a violent jolt for everyone, but only we notice it?” Evan suggested.  

“So what?” Connor said. “Like… once we both fall asleep, everything legit resets… so what would happen if one of us didn’t sleep? Would the date reset but not everyones memories?.”

“Right…” Evan muttered. “Well, maybe uh-”

“Well well well what do we have here? Connor Murphy and Evan Hansen talking? Am I dreaming?” Jared said as he approached the two. “What is this? A gossip huddle?” he asked as the two put space between them.

“Good to see you too Kleinmen.” He rolled his eyes.

“Nice new hair length, it’s very school shooter chic,” Jared said with those stupid finger guns.

“Evan likes it,” Connor said with a small smirk, putting his arm around Evan in an attempt to just annoy Jared. Jared looked at Evan who smiled and shrugged.

“What? Are you two like… fucking each other now?” Jared asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Connor taunted. “I’ll see you around Ev,” Connor said, giving Evan’s shoulder a small squeeze before smiling at him and leaving.

Jared watched as he left before looking back at Evan, clearly lost for words.

“When did that happen?” Jared asked. Evan blushed and shook his head.

“It’s uh, not a thing? Like… we’re just friends,” Evan said.

“Yeah I don’t care if you two are forbidden lovers or just fuck buddies- when did that happen? ” Jared asked.

“A week ago maybe?” Evan said. “And we’re just friends.” He shrugged.

“What? Am I not a good enough friend that you have to turn to the school freak?” Jared asked. Evan stared at him. Something clicked, but Evan didn’t know if it was right or not. Evan sighed and shook his head.

“You kind of neglect me, you know… I- I guarantee you if your parents just paid for your car insurance, you wouldn’t even look my way at school,” Evan said.

Jared frowned and scrunched his eyebrows.

“Evan come on that’s all a joke, you’re a good friend of mine,” Jared said. Yeah, that thing that clicked definitely had to be true.

“You don’t put uh, put an effort in? At least Connor makes me feel heard and cared for,” Evan said. That wasn’t particularly true, well, yeah. They only really talked because they were stuck in this together, Evan didn’t know if he and Connor were friends. Still, Connor made sure he was okay and that was really nice to have.

“Evan-” Jared cut himself off. Evan waited for a reply. “I care about you. I’m sorry I’m an ass but that’s who I am . I thought you knew that.” He trailed off with a half assed laugh.

“I know you’re an ass,” Evan said. Jared sighed and shook his head.

“That’s not what I meant…” Jared trailed off. “I’ll make it up to you… somehow just- I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“Say that all you want but you won’t remember any of this come tomorrow,” Evan said.

“Oh come on! I’ve got shit memory but I won’t just forget this,” Jared said.

“No. Literally tomorrow you won’t remember any of this. I know it doesn’t make any sense I just- I gotta get to class,” Evan muttered. He was stupid- god Evan was so stupid . What was he supposed to say though?

It just- didn’t matter. Whatever he said, whatever Jared told him- whether or not they were true (and Evan kind of hoped that stuff was true)- wouldn’t matter tomorrow.

Anything he did, anything he said, anything he managed to do was irrelevant. Sure, this wasn’t new news, far from it, but it just kind of hit him as he walked away from Jared.

Two days ago, Alana and he decided they were friends. Now, Alana considered him a step down from acquaintance. Yesterday Evan had a third of a pizza left, and now, despite none of it being eaten, it was all gone.

Everything this he did was insignificant. It didn’t matter. It would have been the same if he wasn’t reliving the loop, but at least if he wasn’t living through the loop, the people he talked to would remember the things he said.

Evan huffed as he entered the computer lab, collapsing into his usual seat. He didn’t want to write a letter. There was no point now anyways, since Connor knew the whole deal about it. He didn’t actually know if Connor was going to meet him in here or not, they had never discussed it.

He put his headphones in and turned on a podcast, getting comfortable in his spot.

Of course, the relaxation couldn’t have lasted long.

“I fucking hate everything,” Connor proclaimed rather loudly as he stormed into the computer lab, pulling the chair beside Evan out roughly before sitting down and banging his fist on the table.

“I’m done! I am so fucking done!” Connor scoffed.

“Are you uh… ok?” Evan said. Connor glared.

“Oh yeah. Fucking fantastic! Jesus you try to make conversation with your fucking- friend - in the hallway and everyone just assumes that I’m out to fucking kill you!” he said.

“Can I uh, get context… maybe? And p-please calm down Connor…” Evan said quietly, hesitantly reaching out to put his hand on Connor’s forearm. Connor’s face softened, but he pulled his arm away. Evan put his hand back on his lap and folded in on himself.

“I was walking out of my second period and this fucking girl I don’t even know comes up to me and tells me to not pick on fucking kids with anxiety disorders. Her and her fucking ten pounds of makeup and dyed black hair and stupid acrylic nails thinks she has a right to assume I was fucking picking on you! I was so fucking nice and friendly and she tells me that I need to stay away from kids who get scared off easily! Where is her fucking place to tell me I can’t talk to my friend?” Connor ranted.

Well, that wasn’t as bad as Evan thought it would. He wanted to address the fact that Connor called him his friend- which Evan wasn’t complaining- but this just wasn’t the time to talk about friendship.

“I mean- apparently I’m so bad that I fucking don’t even deserve friends! I get it- I don’t. I know that, you probably know that, everyone fucking knows it but just because I finally have one does not mean that slutbags like that can just assume what’s going on in my life! I didn’t even raise my voice this morning. What the fuck!”

Evan offered a small smile. He didn’t know what to say. It just… wow.

“Fuck I wished I managed to off myself on the first day,” Connor scoffed.

“Don’t say that…” Evan said quietly. Connor sighed and rolled his eyes.

“All of this would have been easier,” Connor pointed out. “ None of this would have happened.” He laughed bitterly.

“It would have! I would have had to go through this alone and… it just… Connor I care about you,” Evan said.

“You’re just saying that,” Connor said without hesitation. “We’ve only been talking properly for two days. There’s no way you would care.”

“I would though? I… don’t like knowing you feel that way and it sucks to feel that way and I care a-and I want to somehow- just somehow help you not feel as much like that anymore,” Evan said.

“You wouldn’t know how it feels Evan. You can’t just have a fucking heart to heart with someone and magically fix everything! It sucks. It sucks so fucking much. It sucks when just as soon as you think it’s starting to look up some bitch decides to not mind her own business and everything comes crashing down once again,” Connor said bitterly. Evan shook his head subtly.

“Connor if things are getting better- this is just a dip in the road,” Evan said. “ I know how you feel. I do -”

“How could you know?” Connor said. “How could you know how it feels to want to just to fucking die and have it be done with?” He raised his voice, abruptly standing up from his chair. “How could you know how horrible the world truly is?”

“I-”

“How could you know if you’ve never experienced it?!” He snapped. “How could you know? How could you fucking know- ”

Evan stood up and pushed Connor to get him to shut up.

“Because I’ve done it myself! I’ve been there- hell I am still there,” Evan said hopelessly. “I jumped out of a tree- yes I fucking jumped with hopes that I wouldn’t make it once I hit the ground. I’ve sat on my bed just holding a bottle of pills tempted to do it. I’ve stood on the edge of a bridge twice. So don’t you dare f-fucking tell me that I don’t know how it feels. I do. I know how you feel I know what it’s like and I hate it! And I hate knowing that you feel that way too and I hate how I know i realistically can’t help but I do Connor- I want to help so badly….” Evan said- almost yelled.

Connor stood there, dumbfounded and speechless. He furrowed his eyebrows and looked down, his mouth slightly a gap.

“I’m sorry,” Connor said quietly. “I should’ve-”

“I don’t know if I want to hear it Connor,” Evan cut him off with a small shake of the head. “I want to do this with you Connor… but… we can’t just assume that neither of us know where the other is coming from. We can’t just… we need communication. We can’t let people like that girl get us angry because, well, because uh, at the end of the day, their opinions don’t matter. O-ours are the only, the only real ones that matter,” Evan said.

“Evan-”

“We can’t keep arguing? We can’t yell at each other. That scares me. I, frankly, I just, don’t like it. Yelling could easily send me into a panic attack… and we don’t need to deal with that,” Evan said.

Connor didn’t say anything. Evan hesitated.

“I’m done, you can talk now,” Evan said with a slight nod.

“I’m sorry. You’re right I just- I don’t know how to deal with any of this. I just-”

“You don’t need to justify yourself… I get it I just… we can rant to each other, but we can’t get angry with each other,” Evan said.

Connor nodded and sighed, sticking his hands in his pockets.

“Do you… still feel that way?” Connor asked.

“Kind of? I… I instantly regretted it when I let go of the tree… and sure the thoughts are still there but uh, I keep that thought there? Like the instant regret and uh, it keeps me from actively doing it… I started taking therapy more seriously? Then uh, well, I just… yeah,” Evan said with a small shrug.

“Can I have a hug?” Connor asked. Evan nodded before stepping forward and wrapping his arms around Connor’s waist. Evan sighed and rested his head on Connor’s shoulder. Connor rubbed his back and Evan closed his eyes.

He shouldn’t feel this calm after what had happened. Connor probably shouldn’t be either. It wasn’t healthy, even with the circumstances. Connor overreacted. Evan probably did too. Evan sighed again and held him slightly tighter.

“We need to figure this out,” Evan said against Connors shoulder.

“As soon as we can,” Connor said. “I’m really sorry… I’m so sorry I just-”

“What’s done is done… all we can uh, do is grow from it,” Evan cut him off again. He didn’t need to hear Connor’s apology. At least not now.

It wasn’t ok. This whole situation was not ok. Evan knew the two would have to talk about it further later but right now Evan was ok with just ignoring it for now.

“I don’t feel like going to my classes,” Evan said. “Let’s do something.”

“Movies and chinese food?” Connor said.

Evan thought about it for a second.

“Works for me.”

Chapter Text

Evan didn’t of a lot of things. He didn’t know if you ate or drank soup. He didn’t know if he was going to die tomorrow or a thousand years from now. He still didn’t really know how the Harry Potter series ended. He didn’t know if Connor liked him back- well . He kind of knew that one.

He didn’t know when the day would move on. He didn’t whether or not it would be a good day or a bad day. He didn’t know why any of this was happening.

However, he did know one thing for sure. He was not going to school today.

It wasn’t that the morning had been particularly bad or the night before. Yesterday was actually quite pleasant. Connor was fun to be around when he wasn’t around anyone else. He let down this angsty teen personna and sure, he still had slight anger issues, but he was making an effort to try and that was what mattered.

He just- woke up around two and hadn’t been asleep since. Now, finally as the sun was slowly coming up, he was finally drifting off again. Ultimately, he decided he was better off just to sleep instead of force himself through the ninth- possibly tenth- first day of school.

Heidi seemed to notice Evan’s distraught when she came to wake him up, and after a debate between the two and a promise that Evan would make a big effort to try and make friends, she agreed he could stay home. (“ at least for the morning… try and go for the afternoon? ”)

He happily curled up into his blanket and laid there for most the morning. He never quite fell asleep, but he was in that weird state when he was getting energy from sleeping, but he was still aware of his surroundings.

Around noon he finally decided to shake himself awake and get something to eat. He felt groggy, but at least he felt a bit better than the morning. He pulled on his hoodie and sighed softly, running a hand through his hair.

He didn’t understand why Connor didn’t shower. Sure, hygiene never got worse, but Evan still felt like he needed to.

He hummed softly, choosing to make himself a decent breakfast of eggs and nearly expired lunch meat. He debated going for groceries, but considering the circumstances, there wasn’t really any point. He’d just deal with the limited selection of food in his cupboards for a while.

His phone buzzed as he was eating, and then another two times after that. He wanted to ignore it, but after the fourth one, he huffed and picked up his phone just in time for a fifth text message from Jared to show up.

From Jared: Your boyfriend wants to know where you are

From Jared: Hes like seriouslu distraught lmao

From Jared: He wants me to clarify i am talking about connor cause apparently you two arent dating

From Jared: But like friends dont just worry this much about each other

From Jared: For the love gosh darn god reply he is legit shaking

Evan furrowed his eyebrows. Connor was freaking out?

From Jared: He just screamed fuck it rlly loud and stormed of im no expert but i think hes coming to find you

From Evan: I’m at home. I’m fine. Is Connor ok?

From Jared: probbly ya he jsut seemed super freak lmao since when did u ttwo become a thing

From Evan: Couple weeks? We’re just friends.

From Jared: Friends dont freak out when the other doesnt show up to school  

From Evan: Just because you don’t care enough to make sure I’m ok doesn’t mean Connor is the same.

Evan didn’t get a reply, so he set his phone down and finished his eggs.  

There was a knock on the door, before a steady stream of quick short knocks came. Evan got to the door and opened it.

Connor almost knocked Evan’s face, but Evan jumped back. Connor froze and just kind of looked at him. He looked tired and stressed. His face was scrunched up and his jaw was clenched.

His face softened before stepping forward and hugging Evan tightly.

“You scared the fuck out of me you know,” Connor muttered. Evan furrowed his eyebrows before hugging him back. Connor tightened his grip and rested his chin on the crook of Evan’s neck. Evan was confused as hell, but he wasn’t complaining.

Connor was a really good hugger.

“Don’t do that again,” he said before pulling away.

Evan raised an eyebrow. “Do what again? Stay at home?”

“Yes stay at home!” Connor said. “I mean- we have no way to contact each other for one. A-and then yesterday you tell me you broke your arm trying to kill yourself, so everything just kind of clicked in my brain that- oh yeah Evan is about as alright as I am. Which is not good. Then yesterday when we left school you seemed so distant and off and I was worried because- like, if I try anything, it all resets but there was the chance that maybe something happened to you and it wouldn’t reset- we don’t know how to works! You could’ve and… I just… I can not lose you right now and honestly I just really fucking wanted a hug and you weren’t there,” Connor rambled. “I just- my mind went to the worse and I had to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m okay,” Evan said with a small nod. Connor chuckled and rolled his eyes playfully.

“Yeah I’m aware of that now… you’re also in your pyjamas,” Connor said. Evan blushed and put his hands in the pocket of the pullover.

“Well I mean, I uh, haven’t had a need to get dressed,” Evan said with a small shrug.

“Why didn’t you come today?”

“You’re one to talk,” Evan said. “Oh my god that was mean- fuck- wait no! Shit… nope. Sorry. That was… not nice,” he scampered to try and get his words right. Connor just smiled and laughed again.

“Evan you’re not wrong.”

“I know but-”

“So don’t apologize,” Connor said. “I’m just… glad you’re okay.” He nodded.

They sat down on the couch and Connor logged onto his netflix again. Evan wasn’t particularly interested in watching anything, but Connor just kind of started to do it, and Evan didn’t want to stop him.

“Did you really think that I wouldn’t reset?” It was weird phrasing, Evan knew that. Connor understood though, just judging by the way he slowly nodded.

“I have no clue what could happen. After a week of me signing your cast, it suddenly stays. Who knows what could happen,” Connor said. “Realistically we could do something that causes maybe someone else to start remembering and we wouldn’t even know it. I have no clue what rules are different for you than for me.”

“I wouldn’t do it,” Evan said. “I wouldn’t- I just… didn’t feel like going today? And I didn’t think you would freak out…”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Connor asked.

Why wouldn’t he. Evan hadn’t actually thought about that. Connor considered Evan a friend, but yesterday Connor told Evan Evan didn’t care, so naturally that kind of means that Connor didn’t care about him either. Granted, he was angry. When you’re angry you sometimes say stupid stuff and that could have been one of those times. Realistically, Evan didn’t know. He would never know what was going on in Connor’s head. Truthfully. Connor had a nice head- a nice face, actually .

It was just so perfect and it fit him near perfectly and his hair just framed it in the best way possible but then when it’s up in a bun it just showed everything off and it sucked knowing how deep Evan was into his stupid little crush because he knew Connor didn’t like him back and-

“You’re overthinking what I just said right?” Connor asked.

“I was thinking about you yeah,” Evan said before the words processed. “I-I mean-”

“Evan you can’t save yourself,” Connor laughed. “I care about you Evan.”

“I care about you too.”

Connor got bored and decided the two needed to do something exciting. Something interesting. Something other than sit and binge watch The Office. Evan didn’t want to stop him, seeing as how energetic he got when he figured out what to do.

Evan got dressed and followed him out the door to Connor’s car.

“So what are we doing?” Evan asked. Connor thought for a minute as he turned onto the main street.

“Honestly? Not sure yet. I’m going to let my car guide me,” he said carelessly, turning up the radio just a bit.

Connor hummed along with the song, tapping on the steering wheel. Evan smiled as he watched him from the corner of his eye in a way that he knew Connor knew he was watching him. Still, he didn’t shy away as he continued.

Connor parked in the parking lot of some park. Evan raised an eyebrow and looked at him with a small smile.

“You brought us to a park?” Evan asked as the two got out.

“Yeah! You like trees right?” Connor said as he met Evan at the front of the car.

“Well yeah.”

“Come with me, there’s a really cool path in the forest that leads to a clearing,” Connor said.

Evan just went along with it, since Connor clearly knew what he was doing. The park was pretty empty, the open field part, anyways. There were two ladies who had three dogs, all off lease, and then a man with two very little kids sitting on a bench, but that was about it.

Connor walked down the path, leading Evan through it. The path seemed straightforward enough but, knowing Evan’s sense of direction, it was probably better that Connor led and Evan followed.

“So how’d you find this place?” Evan said as they stepped off the clear path and moved to a less kept one.

“I was bored… didn’t want to go home,” Connor said. “Got lost in the forest and I found this clearing so I slept there until morning. I was like… in the seventh grade probably,” he laughed.

The two climbed over a log and Connor huffed contently as he turned around.

“Welcome to my clearing,” Connor said.

It was a small little clearing, maybe fifteen feet across and was surrounded by trees. It was slanted, having been on the side of a hill, and there wasn’t much to it, besides a root from one of the trees sticking up and some loose twigs.

“It’s nice,” Evan said.

Connor sat down at the base of one of the trees and Evan sat next to him. He noted that the one they were sitting under was probably perfect for climbing, but he didn’t know if he could do it with his cast. Maybe if he just got up a couple feet off of the ground.

Connor rested his head on Evan’s shoulder and the two closed their eyes. Evan didn’t know what was so different between sitting outside in a park versus on Evan’s couch, but he didn’t mind. It was nice and quiet here. Plus well, Connor was pretty close to him right now and that was always a plus.

“Would you get mad if I smoked?” Connor asked.

“Like cigarettes or drugs?” Evan said.

“Drugs? You mean like- weed?” Connor laughed. Evan nodded. “Yeah probably weed.”

“Go ahead,” Evan said. “I’m not stopping you.”

“You could though,” Connor said.

“Go ahead,” Evan replied.

Connor nodded before pulling a little box out of his pocket and lit a joint. Evan was clueless when it came to smoking anything, but it was interesting to watch Connor do it. It was such a simple thing, but Connor seemed to do it with such grace.

“So does that make you high?” Evan asked. “ I know it’s a stupid question I just- ”

“Yeah pretty much. I won’t like- get crazy high or anything but.”

Connor shrugged.

Evan didn’t particularly like the small that was coming off from Connor’s direction. He scrunched his nose before shifting a bit. Connor didn’t notice. He actually offered for Evan to try it, which, well, curiosity kind of got to Evan so he shared the thing with Connor. It was gross and Evan decided then and there that he would never do it again. However, it was fun. Besides, everything reset tomorrow so he was allowed to do something stupid this one time.

While Connor was still indulging himself, Evan stood up and stretched. He looked up at the tree. He could get up just a bit and sit on one of the branches.

It was a lot harder than Evan thought it would be, but he took his time, choosing his branches wisely.

“Evan what on earth are you doing?” Connor asked. He remained sitting down, Evan was climbing a part of the same tree that would have just been in his peripheral vision.

“Climbing,” Evan said happily. He got comfortable and sat down on a branch that was maybe five feet off the ground. If he didn’t have his cast, he’d probably go higher but this was good enough for him.

Connor sighed and shook his head, chuckling softly.

“Evan, that’s how you broke your arm,” Connor said.

“Yes but this time I’m only five feet up and I don’t plan on jumping,” Evan replied. It went silent for a second before Connor stood up and faced Evan.

Evan was sitting on a branch that left his knees level with Connor’s chest. Connor held what was left of his cigarette and smirked, cocking his head to the side. Evan smiled and took his hands off of the branch, hunching over just a bit.

“Put your hands back on the branch,” Connor said. He dropped his thing and smashed it, Evan assumed it was so he could put it out.

“You’re not my Mom,” Evan said with a small chuckle. He swung his legs back and forth lightly.

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” Connor said sternly.

“Geez high Connor is no fun,” Evan said. “I’m fine! Stop being so stubborn,” he laughed. Connor scowled.

“Fine stay there, see if I care,” Connor said.

“If I were to hang upside down would you spiderman kiss me?” Evan asked, not really thinking about what he was saying. Connor leant against the oak tree and shook his head.

“Evan that’s how you’d kill yourself. You have a cast,” Connor laughed. Evan shrugged.

“Well it would be fun. You know- I wanna climb higher,” Evan said.

He went to push himself up to stand on the branch, but instead Connor’s arms were wrapped around his waist.

In one swift movement, Connor pulled him down. The two tumbled, rolling down the grass just a bit in a rather painful way, but landed with Evan’s head inches away from hitting a root of a tree, with Connor laying on top of him, straddling him on either side.

Evan giggled. His arm hurt. A lot. So did his back and his butt and probably the same things for Connor, but he didn’t let it keep him from laughing at the situation.

Like- the whole thing kind of felt like it was kind of out of a random love story, and this would be the moment that the two would helplessly fall in love with each other.

Connor didn’t get up though, instead resting his arms on either side of Evan so he was propped up just a bit. Evan wasn’t moving either. Connor’s eyes flicked around Evan’s face and he smiled ever so subtly. He leant in and well.

Evan burst out laughing.

“Way to ruin a moment,” Connor said playfully, sitting up. Evan did too, but Connor still stayed on his lap.

“I’m sorry I just- I was thinking about like… this is straight out of some stupid romance novel,” Evan laughed. “Well, actually they’re not stupid. I read them sometimes and they are so cheesy but they’re good? And- you were about to kiss me,” Evan rambled.

Connor nodded slowly, closing his eyes as he did.

“Would you maybe wanna try again?” Evan asked. “I-I won’t laugh this time!”

“Maybe,” Connor said. “What’s the magic word?”

“Please,” Evan said.

“Nope.”

“Weed?”

“No.”

“Connor Murphy if you- if you do not kiss me this second well I will uh, I’ll just kiss you instead,” Evan said.

Connor laughed.

“So cheesy romance novels, eh?” Connor said.. Evan rolled his eyes.

“Just kiss me?” Evan said with a small pout.

Connor wrapped his arms around Evan’s neck and smiled, cocking his head to the side. He was deliberately taking a long time to kiss him, which set alarms off in Evans head.

Connor didn’t want to kiss him. He just knew Evan wanted to kiss Connor. Connor probably was just doing this because he felt sorry and concerned for Evan and oh god- Evan didn’t want to force Connor to do anything.

Evan pushed Connor lightly off of him, and curled his knees up to his chest. Connor looked kind of hurt, but he didn’t try to do anything again.

“Are you ok?” Connor said.

“I just- yeah but I just don’tWantYouToKissMeIfYouDon’tWantTo,” Evan said quickly. “It’s uh, it’s so unfair to you and you shouldn’t just have to do something because you pity me like. That’s stupid and I uh, don’t want you to have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“Evan…” Connor trailed off.

Evan silently awaited his rejection.

“I really do want to kiss you… Like I want to not just feel like I have to,” Connor said.

“Oh.”

“Can I kiss you?” he asked.

Evan hesitated, before nodding.

Again, Connor came closer to Evan and sat on his lap again. This time, he wasted no time in pulling Evan into him and kissing him.

It started off soft and full of doubt (whether or not that was from both parties or just Evan, he couldn’t tell) but it quickly moved to Connor’s hand in Evan’s hair and Evan’s hands just kind of resting on Connor’s hips under his shirt and it seemed like a lot was going on but Evan only really focused on his lips, since well, it was hard not to focus on them.

At one point, Connor had pushed Evan down and they were both lying on the grass. Connor pulled away, laying back on top of Evan. He smiled down at the other before kissing him again.

“I wanna try something,” Connor said hesitantly.

Evan raised an eyebrow.

“I just- I’m going to give you a hickey and I want you to give me one and just… I wanna know if they stay overnight,” Connor said. “If you don’t want to do it of course we don’t have to but I just, I wanna know the boundaries, you know?”

Evan hesitated.

“I don’t know how to give a hickey,” Evan said.

“You just… bite and suck,” Connor said with a casual smirk. Evan laughed and shook his head lightly.

“I think there’s more to it than that?” Evan said.

“Well… I’ll do it first and then you just copy me,” Connor said.

Evan nodded, and then Connor kissed him again.

Getting a hickey was a weird experience. It felt nice, yes, and Connor was good at it (He did not want to know where Connor got that skill) but it was kind of sore? Connor left it on his collar bone, just under the hem of his shirt so he could conceal it easily. It was smart. He had started it on Evan’s neck, but then quickly switched locations as Evan rambled about how he didn’t want his mom asking questions.

Giving one, on the other hand, was an awkward experience. He took maybe twice as long as Connor did and he didn’t know if he was doing it right or if Connor even liked it or not. It was nerve wracking and well, considering the two weren’t technically together, it was kind of weird.

Still, Connor kissed him again as soon as the two had matching hickies on their collar bones and then laid beside him. The two stared up at the sky, or what they could see that wasn’t concealed by the trees. Their hands were overlapping together, but neither of them made a move to actually hold the other’s hand.

“What made you change your mind? Like- why’d you want to kiss me?” Evan asked.

“Well, I had been thinking about when I did it the first time and I mean, we’ve been spending a lot of time together and then when I freaked out this morning, it kind of clicked in my brain that if I were to lose you, I would have wanted to at least have been with you first,” Connor said, lopping his head to the side so the two could look at each other.

Evan moved and rested his head on Connor’s shoulder. He wrapped his arms around Connor’s waist and got comfortable.

“You won’t lose me,” Evan said. “Not unless I uh, can’t help it anyways… I’m pretty bad with maintaining relationships? You know- not like just romantic ones… I’ve never been in a romantic relationship … but just like, friendships too? So like you’ll have to push me to keep being friends more and stuff and I’m sorry I’ll try my best but it’s just hard and-”

“Evan?”

“Yes?” Evan looked up to Connor, who placed a short kiss on his nose. That was the only place he could reach from their positions.

“Shut up,” Connor laughed.

“Okay,” Evan said softly before closing his eyes. He traced little circles on Connor’s arm with his thumb and the two enjoyed their silence.

“Do you think,” Evan started, breaking the silence once the two had started to drift off to sleep. “Maybe the universe is doing this so we start dating? Like, it’ll stop once we start dating?” Evan suggested.

“Maybe,” Connor said quietly.

“It’s a stupid idea but like…” Evan muttered.

“Not really,” Connor said. “I think it’s possible.”

Evan shrugged.

“Will you go out with me?” Connor said. “We could go bowling or some shit,” he laughed. Evan smiled and buried his  head in Connor’s chest. “I mean, we’ve already given each other hickies so like…”

“I’d like that,” Evan said.

“It’s a date then.”

“It’s a date.”

Chapter Text

Evan felt better. He felt much better and he was happy and he was kind of okay with the whole idea of reliving the day today. He was just excited to see Connor, as stupid as it was. Well, it wasn't stupid. Not really.

He liked Connor. A lot. He felt like a stupid giddy schoolgirl. Just the thought of yesterday- well. It was nice. Connor was nice. Everything was just… nice.

Connor was picking him up today too, which meant no bus ride. Which, was pretty awesome. He didn’t like the bus, and well, he liked Connor.

Did Evan mention he liked Connor?

He managed to catch Heidi before she left for work and gave her a quick hug before making his way to the kitchen.

He hummed softly as he made himself some tea in his travel mug. Today was going to be a good day. Yesterday was good, so naturally, today would be too. Well, maybe not, but who really knew. At the end of the day, it would be the same day. If it was bad he had tomorrow to make it up again.

It still sucked, a lot. He kind of hoped the day would have moved on after yesterday, but it didn’t. He didn’t have any control as to whether or not it did, so he didn’t feel the need to just sulk around, wishing for what could be. Right now he just, had to deal with right now.

Connor knocked on the door and Evan smiled as he walked over to the front door. Connor stood with his hands tucked in his pocket. He looked well rested for once.

“Morning,” Evan said. Connor smiled and stepped inside.

“You look awfully chipper,” Connor said. Evan shrugged.

“You look rested,” Evan said.

“I feel rested,” Connor said. “I woke up at like, midnight and managed to fall back asleep again,” he said with a soft chuckle. Evan smiled.

“That’s good! I probably woke up too, I can’t remember though,” Evan said.

“You can’t remember?” Connor said.

“Like, you know… it happened but I woke up and fell back asleep so quickly it didn’t process,” Evan said. Connor nodded, muttering something along the lines of “makes sense.”

Connor reached up and tugged at the edge of Evan’s collar. He tilted his head to the side and frowned.

“Guess hickies don’t stick around overnight,” Connor said with a small smirk. Evan blushed and put his hand over his neck.

“Oh yeah, uh,” Evan said. “I guess not…”

“Shame… I wanted to bug Kleinmen about it,” Connor laughed. Evan blushed deeper and shook his head lightly.

“That’s just mean,” Evan said. “I uh, does it matter anyways? Like uh, you know… it resets tomorrow anyways.”

“That’s all the more fun,” Connor laughed. Evan rolled his eyes playfully and grabbed his mug from the side table it was rested on.

“We need to get going,” Evan said.

“School, really?” Connor whined.

“You literally told me yesterday you’d drive me to… to school ,” Evan said. “I uh, we need to go.”

“Fine but I won’t enjoy it,” Connor said. Evan smiled.

“Even while I’m there?” Evan asked.

Connor purposely waited to make a response, thinking about it. Evan rolled his eyes and nudged him before opening the front door.

“What? Not even going to kiss me before you leave?” Connor said. Evan shrugged and stepped out onto the porch, sipping his tea. Connor shook his head and stepped outside. Evan quickly locked the door and stashed his keys in his pocket.

Connor stopped him from walking away by taking his hand. He turned Evan around and kissed him quickly, before walking with him down to the car.

“I didn’t take you as the uh, the flirteat- flirt-tate- wait uh, flirt- flirt- flirtatious type,” Evan said. Connor shrugged.

“I’m not. I just wanted to kiss you and you were being stubborn,” Connor said. He got into the car and Evan followed, a light blush spread across his cheeks.

“What’s going on here?” Jared said as the two approached Evan’s locker. Connor rolled his eyes and leant against the locker next to Evan’s.

“What? Can two people not walk side by side down a hallway?” Connor asked. Evan turned his back on the conversation and opened his locker.

“Well it’s just- it’s you ,” Jared said.

“And you’re better?” Connor laughed. Evan didn’t see it, but he just knew Jared rolled his eyes. Evan turned around when Jared didn’t say anything right away.

Jared stood, just kind of thinking .

“You okay?” Evan asked. Jared blinked a couple times and just nodded.

“Yeah I just… I’m getting this weird sense of deja vu,” Jared said with a slight shake of the head. “Whatever just- so what? You two friends now?”

Evan and Connor exchanged a look. This was the first time someone mentioned deja vu with the whole situation. The two had a silent conversation, one that probably looked a little suspicious to Jared and well, neither of them really knew what was going on either.

“Yeah you could uh, say that?” Evan said with a small nod.

Jared raised an eyebrow. Evan shrugged and Connor just stood there.

“When did that happen?” Jared asked.

“Why do you care?” Connor said. Jared sighed.

“It was just a question but like- if you don’t want to tell me whatever. I’ll text you tonight Evan,” Jared said before waving the two off and leaving.

“He gave up easily,” Evan commented.

“It’s refreshing,” Connor replied.

“He means well, you know,” Evan said sadly. “I mean, like he’s a dick but… I dunno, he’s my friend and… the other day he like- he means well.”

Connor opened his mouth to say something, but quickly closed it.

“Are you going to try and get him to confess it again once the day moves on?” Connor asked.

“I’d like it yeah but… it’s kind of enough to know he likes me? Like, not like me like you like me- that actually depends on whether or not you actually like me - but like, he thinks of me as a friend and uh, as sick as it is… he’s like, most of the mean things he says are jokes…” Evan said.

‘Okay, one, yes I actually like you, of course I do . Two, being mean isn’t an excuse- yes I know, I’m one to talk- but friends don’t make friends feel like shit,” Connor said.

Evan shrugged.

“When it’s all you have… I guess it’s enough,” Evan said.

“You have me,” Connor said.

“I know… I just…”

“Yeah I get it,” Connor said with a small nod. “I’m not much. Like a uh, a box of half eaten… crackers…” Connor furrowed his eyebrows as his words caught up with him. Evan laughed, earning a small chuckle from Connor. They both knew it made no sense, but neither of them acknowledged it.

Instead, Evan shut his locker and hugged Connor quickly.

“What are your plans this afternoon?” Connor asked as the bell rang. Evan shrugged.

“Whatever I usually do,” he said playfully.

“Yeah no, we’re going on a date,” Connor said. Evan raised an eyebrow.

“We are?”

“I asked you out yesterday,” Connor said. “So, meet me in the computer lab at lunch and we’ll go.”

“What are we doing?” Evan asked as the two started walking.

“Honestly, I don’t know yet, but we are doing something!” Connor laughed. Evan rolled his eyes playfully and nudged Connor.

“Great,” Evan said sarcastically. Connor frowned and Evan smiled in return.

“I’ll see you later,” Evan said playfully.

In between his first two classes, Evan decided to take his time, mostly hoping to run into Connor at some point while walking across of the school. Alas, there was no Connor in sight, which was kind of disappointing but. He was kind of being desperate and clingy and that wasn’t very attractive.

Well, at the end of the day, Evan wasn’t very attractive.

“Hey! Evan, right?” Zoe said, jogging to catch up to Evan before he walked into his next class.

“Oh! Uh, yeah,” Evan said. “Evan- yeah. I’m Evan.”

He hadn’t had a run in with Zoe in a couple days. He kind of forgot Zoe’s importance of the first day of the first day of school, with making sure Evan was okay after he got pushed by Connor. Yeah, that was not a good day.

“I saw you with my brother earlier- uh, Connor?” she said. Evan nodded quickly. “I just wanted to let you know you don’t have to be friends with him, you know? He’s… kind of psychotic and… just know if he gets rough or is rude you don’t need to keep talking to him.”

“Connor and I have uh, been friends for a while… Thanks for the concern, but uh, we’re kinda close so…” Evan trailed off with a small shrug. Zoe’s eyes widened as she furrowed her eyebrows.

“I have never heard him talk about you,” she said.

“We only started hanging out over the summer…” Evan said. “Trust me, uh Zoe? Yeah- it’ll all be fine Zoe. We’re friends and… he’s getting better.”

“Better? I can’t say I’ve seen a difference,” she scoffed. Evan shrugged.

“He’s pretty chill around me,” Evan said. The second bell rang, signaling the start of classes. “Sorry I just, gotta get to class.”

He understood where Zoe was coming from. Connor was kind of a firecracker lingering too close to a flame. Still, Connor was nice, and he meant well. He just, had some wrinkles that needed to be ironed out. Plus, well, if Evan abandoned Connor, he would literally be alone in this endless loop.

Until the two got out of this mess, Evan wasn’t going to just leave Connor. Even when the two did get out, he wouldn’t just abandon Connor. Unless he did something truly horrible, like murder someone. It wouldn’t come to that though.

At least, Evan was pretty sure that it wouldn’t come to that.

Connor beat him to the computer lab, already sitting comfortably in a chair with his feet kicked up on the desk. Evan stood in the doorway, debating if he should go up to Connor or if he should clear his throat and make his presence known.

He took a few steps forward, which immediately caught Connor’s attention. Connor smiled before walking right up to Evan. He wasted no time in engulfing Evan in a tight hug. Evan chuckled and hugged back, resting his head on Connor’s shoulder- which Connor was the perfect height for .

Connor pulled away just enough to kiss him, which Evan quickly responded. It was kind of weird- just kissing in the middle of the computer lab with the door wide open.

“So are we in the cringy honeymoon phase of our relationship?” Connor joked as the two pulled away. Evan shrugged.

“Are we even together?” Evan asked. “Like uh, we’ve made out… once, well, twice now I guess… but like, we’ve got a date but that’s it so like…” he rambled, dropping his arms from around Connor’s neck.

“Evan you could have just went along with the joke,” Connor said, earning a small oh from Evan.

Connor smirked and rolled his eyes before kissing Evan again. Evan playfully nudged him, before quickly pecking him on the lips once more. Evan smiled.

“I don’t want to stick around longer than we have to, ready to go?” Connor said. Evan nodded.

“No letter you need to write to yourself?” Connor teased. Evan rolled his eyes.

“No. I haven’t written one of those since like, the fourth day,” Evan said. The two took the emergency exit next to the computer lab and made their way to the student parking lot on the other side of the school.

“How many days have we been going through this?” Connor asked. “Have you lost count yet?”

“I think eleven? Maybe ten?” Evan said as the two got into the car. Connor started it up and the two pulled out of the parking lot. Connor claimed that he still didn’t have any idea of where the two were going, but he seemed pretty precise with where he was going. Evan was tempted to ask if he was lying about that, but he had a feeling Connor wanted to keep whatever thing he was planning a surprise.

Connor drove into a parking lot of a strip mall and parked. He looked at something on his phone before pulling out and driving again. It was quickly becoming clear that Connor did not know what they were doing. Evan let him pretend he did though, because Connor looked really cute trying to confidently drive around like he knew what he was doing.

“Do you like ice cream?” Connor asked.

“Depends on the flavour, but yeah… yeah I do… I mean like, I kinda prefer frozen yogurt but it’s not a big deal. Ice cream is good,” Evan said with a small, quick nod.

Connor chuckled and turned off his indicator.

“Frozen yogurt it is,” Connor said.

“Well no, I’m okay with ice cream. D-don’t just change your plans…. Just because I prefer yogurt,” Evan dismissed. Connor rolled his eyes.

“We’ll get yogurt. It’s a good idea,” Connor said. “We can get all the toppings and stuff then. Froyo Land is just around the corner anyways. It’s closer than any decent ice cream place,” He shrugged casually.

“There’s a McDonald's right there,” Evan argued. Connor scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“Evan McDonald's is not real ice cream! Besides, like I said we’re going to Froyo now because you like frozen yogurt so god damn it we’re getting frozen yogurt!” Connor said with a stupid smile. Evan smiled and shook his head. He didn’t argue. He liked frozen yogurt and Connor wasn’t going to budge.

If Connor and Evan weren’t different enough as it was, the way they made their frozen yogurt said a lot. Evan stuck to one swirled flavour, which was white chocolate and raspberry, and only put cheesecake, white chocolate chips and a little bit of caramel sauce. It was simple and nice and the flavours worked together. Meanwhile, Connor put almost every single favour on it and piled so many different toppings Evan couldn’t even see the frozen yogurt underneath it all. Not to mention Connor’s cost almost three times more than Evan’s.

He didn’t judge though. No, he judged because how can one deal with so many flavours at once? He didn’t bring it up though because Connor seemed happy with his choices and well, that was enough.

They sat at one of the tables by a window. They were going to sit outside, but there was a group of teenagers just sitting at one of the tables and they all looked kind of sketchy, so Evan protested.

“You know I am one of those sketchy kids right?” Connor laughed as the two slide into the booth.

“You’re not a sketchy kid,” Evan dismissed.

“Dude. Look at me, then look at them, I am one of them,” Connor said. Evan ate a spoonful of his frozen yogurt and shrugged.

“I like you though. I don’t know them,” Evan said. “Therefore, you are not sketchy.”

Connor rolled his eyes and chuckled, before the two ate their ice creams in mostly silence. The two made small, insignificant conversation as they ate.

Evan finished his before Connor did, so he sat patiently as Connor scraped at his bowl. Each spoonful was completely different from the last, and Evan still couldn’t comprehend the fact that he was eating almost every flavour at once. He was probably making a big deal of it, but it was weird.  

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Connor asked.

“No reason,” Evan replied, snapping out of his little trance. Evan felt the heat race up to his cheeks. Connor raised an eyebrow.

“What? Fantasizing about me?” Connor said. Evan blushed harder.

“N-no. Why would you think that?” Evan said. Connor laughed.

“‘Cause you’re a wreck right now,” he said.

“I’m always a wreck.”

“Touche,” Connor said, raising his spoon before dipping back into his ice cream.

Connor then proceeded to try and lick his frozen yogurt off the spoon in a somewhat seductive way, but it quickly resulted in both boys just laughing very loudly, earning an odd look from the elderly couple and the lady working at the cash register.

The two left once Connor finished. Connor pulled out of his parking spot and returned to the road.

“So what do we do now?” Connor asked.

“I thought you had a plan,” Evan teased, earning a small smile and eye roll from Connor.

“Well I don’t, so tell me what we should do,” Connor said. “We can’t go to the park- damn I should have held off of that… would’ve been a great first date. We could… go to the art museum? Or we could… go for a walk? We could… there’s that retro arcade? Or a used bookstore- there’s this really nice one downtown actually… It’s really interesting…”

Evan shrugged. “It all sounds fun… the bookstore would be kinda useless though, we can’t buy anything. It’ll… disappear,” Evan pointed out.

“Arcade then?” Connor asked.

“Yeah, the arcade works,” Evan said. Connor smiled and muttered something about not knowing how to get there from where they were. He turned around, only to turn around once again.

The ride was long and filled with music from a classic rock radio station. Connor occasionally made a small comment, which Evan would reply too, but other than that they didn’t talk much. It was a nice silence though, the kind that made you feel comfortable instead of awkward.

Once they got there, Connor cashed in a twenty for quarters and stuffed them in his pockets. Evan argued about how that was a lot of money, but Connor pointed out the day would reset and at the end of the day, no money was being used.

They both kind of sucked at the games, they quickly realized. Evan laughed as the two raced each other on some car game. Connor kept falling off of the edge of the track, while Evan kept crashing into objects.

On the bright side, they both managed to finish the race before the timer ended, even if the two only managed to get last place.

“You know, sometimes I forget that things happen in the world outside of where I am,” Evan said randomly as he put a quarter in a Pac-Man machine. Connor chuckled as he leant against it, watching Evan play.

“Yeah?” Connor said.

“Yeah like.. My mom works every day pretty much at the hospital and like… I just can’t process that she exists outside of when she’s home… and like Jared? He’s got so many uh, so many online friends? Like, Jared talks to them so much but like… has never met them… and they exist outside of our city? Like they’re all over the world and that’s just… weird,” Evan said.

Connor laughed.

“What so I don’t exist?” Connor asked.

“No you do… just… not when you’re not around me,” Evan said with a small shrug, mostly focusing on his game.

“Did you get into my pot or something?” Connor laughed. Evan shrugged.

“No, I’m just… I dunno,” Evan said.

They eventually burned through all their quarters. Connor wanted to buy more, but Evan stopped him. Realistically, there wasn’t much more to play.

There was a little merchandise shop connected to the arcade, most of the items being video game related or advertisement for the arcade. Connor decided he wanted to look around. Evan didn’t argue, seeing as it was only a gift shop.

“Look at these,” Connor said, holding up two matching rubber bracelets. One was white with player one in black letters and the second was the opposite, saying player two . “Let’s get them. We can be that couple,” Connor joked.

“They’ll be gone in the morning,” Evan pointed out, putting down another rubber bracelet.

“Yeah but they’ll be stupid to have today,” Connor said. “Come on, it’s a low risk. We spend… twenty dollars on it, wear them around and then they’re gone in the morning and I have my money back. Let’s be that couple.”

Evan gave in and agreed.

“I get player two though- you need something other than black in your wardrobe,” Evan joked.

“Oh come on! I have… greys and neutral browns,” Connor argued. Still, once they bought the bracelets and left the store, Connor gave Evan the player two bracelet and put on the player one.

“It’s uh, ironic because neither of us are really video game players,” Evan said as he looked at the bracelet.

“Little bit,” Connor laughed.

The two drove back to Evan’s place, parked the car and then went on a walk around the neighbourhood. It was close to dinner time, but neither of them were very hungry. They held hands and talked and it was really nice. Evan decided he didn’t like the feeling of the bracelet on his wrist, it got kind of sweaty and then it stuck to the top of his wrist.

“I wanna meet your parents,” Evan said as the two turned back onto Evan’s street.

“No you don’t,” Connor said quickly.

“I do though! They can’t- they can’t be that bad,” Evan said. “Tomorrow, regardless of if the day switches or not?”

“Alright,” Connor said. “Just- be warned.”

“They can’t be horrible,” Evan said with a small shake of the head.

“You’ll see tomorrow, I guess,” Connor said with a small shrug.

Connor walked Evan up to his door. Evan wrapped his arms around Connor’s neck and sheepishly kissed him, before Connor pulled him back in and kissed him properly.

“You don’t need to be scared to kiss me you know,” Connor said playfully. Evan shrugged.

“I know,” Evan said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Connor smiled and kissed him again.

“See you tomorrow,” Connor echoed.

Chapter Text

There was a violent knocking on the front door around seven in the morning, before Evan brought himself to get out of bed. Evan knew who it was, there was only one possibility, so he kind of panicked because what happened that Connor was knocking on his door at seven am?

Evan made it to the door before Heidi heard, her blowdryer probably trumping any other sounds.

He unlocked it and opened the door, expecting Connor to look sickly and panicked and scared. Instead, Connor was gleaming, a smile spread so wide across his face to the extent Evan didn’t even know was possible.

Before Evan could even say anything, Connor pulled him close and kissed him. Hard, on the mouth. Evan wrapped his arms around Connor’s neck. Connor smiled against his lips and pulled away, only to kiss him again.

Evan was still kind of concerned. Sure, he wasn’t complaining, but it wasn’t really normal for your significant other to drive over to your house at seven in the morning just to kiss you. While your mother was getting ready in the other room, whom you were technically still closeted to.

“Fuck Evan this is amazing,” Connor said excitedly as he pulled away. Evan cocked his head to the side.

“What is?” Evan asked.

Connor pulled his left arm away to show the player one bracelet still wrapped around his wrist. Evan’s jaw dropped, earning a strong nod from Connor.

“It…”

“It stayed, yeah,” Connor said.

“The day-”

“No. It’s still September third but… it stayed ,” Connor said. “Did yours?”

Evan pulled away before speed walking down the hallway to his room, Connor following behind quickly on his heels. He looked over to his desk and picked up the bracelet, which only made his smile widen.

He ran over to Connor and nearly knocked him over with a hug. Connor laughed and hugged him back, getting Evan to look up just enough for him to be able to kiss him. Evan ran his hand through Connor’s hair, tucking some of it behind his ear.

“How?” Evan said.

“I don’t know but it means something! It means… god… we’re doing something right,’ Connor said.

“This means we’re close,” Evan said. “We’re getting close! We… we’ll almost- we’re going… oh my god.”

Evan kissed him again.

“Morning- oh . I uh, good morning,” Heidi said, clearing her throat as she stood in the doorway.

Evan pulled away from Connor and felt the heat rush to his face. Evan rambled, trying to form words but nothing was coming out. Connor smiled softly and took a step forward.

“Hi, I’m Connor-” at that, Heidi’s eyes instantly went to Evan’s cast “-I uh, I’m sorry we had to meet like this,” Connor said, rather calmly, as he held out his hand. Heidi shook it.

“Well it’s nice to meet you Connor. I can’t say I’ve ever heard about you,” Heidi said, her eyes going to look at Evan. Evan blushed deeper and looked down, tucking his hands into his hoodie’s pocket as best as he could.

“I can’t say I’ve heard much either,” Connor said.

“Well, I’d love to invite you over to dinner sometime this week and get to know you… It’s kind of a big deal with Evan has a uh… special friend in his life,” she laughed.

“Mom…” Evan whined. “You don’t need to say special friend that’s uh, that’s kind of weird.”

“Well I don’t know what to call him! You never told me,” Heidi said playfully.

“Boyfriend,” Connor said.

“Boyfriend?” Evan asked.

“Yeah, boyfriend,” Connor replied.

“Oh my Evan…” Heidi chuckled. “I have to run, but I’ll see you tonight Evan. It was nice meeting you Connor.”

There was no speech about making an effort to have a good day, or to get some kids to sign his cast, or how she wanted Evan to make friends. Heidi just smiled and gave Evan a quick hug before leaving.

Connor laughed as the front door closed, which earned a light slap on the arm from Evan.

“Oh you’re so precious,” Connor laughed. Evan scowled.

“I am not!”

“You are though,” Connor laughed before kissing him. “So, what’s the plan for the day?” Connor asked.

“Go to school… and make the best of it. If uh, the bracelets stayed well… this could be our last day… I don’t want to officially start the year skipping,” Evan said with a casual shrug.

“God you’re a critical thinker,” Connor said, sitting down on Evan’s bed. Evan sighed and sat beside him, resting his head on Connor’s shoulder.

“I mean, I don’t want to go but like… it would be smart,” Evan said, lacing his hand with Connor’s. “Just in case.”

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready then?” Connor said, a slight chuckle in his voice. Evan made a small meh sound.

“I’ve got time if you’re driving me to just… sit,” Evan said.

“Get ready now and we’ll go get McDonalds,” Connor said. “I kind of want food.”

“Alright,” Evan huffed, getting off of his bed. “Are you uh, going to stay in here while I get changed?” Evan asked.

“I can go,” Connor said with a small nod. Evan nodded.

“Just uh, wait in the living room?” Evan said.

“Yeah of course,” Connor said.

Evan got changed quickly once he was alone and grabbed his bracelet. He wasn’t going to wear it, but he wanted to keep the thing with him for the day. It was stupid, but since it didn’t disappear, Evan guessed the two were going to be that couple. Just like Connor wanted.

Evan chuckled as he left the room. Connor was sitting on the couch, engulfed in his phone.

“Ready to go?” Evan said from behind him. Connor jumped and quickly tucked his phone away.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Connor muttered as he stood up.

Connor kept up his promise and the two stopped at McDonalds to get breakfast. As the two ate, Evan came to realize he hadn’t actually had McDonalds breakfast since he was maybe six years old.

He mentioned that to Connor, who just shrugged as he finished off his hashbrown.

“You’re not really missing much. I mean, the sandwiches are crap and the juice is well, juice. There’s nothing special about any of it… the hashbrowns are great though. Not special, but pretty great,” Connor said.

Evan was expecting some dramatic reaction from Connor, like the one people had on television in situations like these. He had to remind himself that this wasn’t some scripted show, and conversations like that never happened.

“When we get to school, do you mind if I take off first? I uh, I just want to talk to Alana before class, like uh, like the first day of school. The first, actual first day of school,” Evan said as they pulled into the parking lot.

“Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?” Connor asked.

No! No, god no, I just… In case this is the last time we go through this I wanna… make sure I set up Alana and I’s possible friendship,” Evan said. Connor smiled.

“You’re making friends?” he asked. Evan nodded.

“That’s… really good Evan. Like, super awesome,” Connor said.

“You could make friends too you know,” Evan said. Connor laughed and rolled his eyes.

“Ah yes, the school shooter making friends. What a wonderful concept,” Connor said.

Evan shrugged. “You got me.”

“You’re enough.”

Connor leaned in and kissed him quickly before the two said their goodbyes and parted ways.

Evan walked down the hallway and spotted Alana. He walked in her direction, and luckily she stopped Evan to talk to him.

“Hi Evan, how was your summer?” she asked. “ Mine was pretty awesome. 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. It was such a great summer.”

Evan smiled.

“I uh, didn’t do much honestly… just kind of sat around at home and stuff,” he admitted.

“That’s a shame- I guess if it makes you happy though, that’s what matters,” Alana said.

“Yeah I uh, actually broke my arm too,” Evan said as he held up the cast. “I uh, fell out of a tree.”

“Ouch! Didn’t you intern at Ellison Park? I think I either saw you there or you mentioned it to me last year,” Alana said.

Evan never told Alana he interned at Ellison outside of the time loop.

“Is that how you broke your arm?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Evan said. “Hey uh, I was wondering if you maybe wanted to hang out sometime? Like uh, go and study at the library or something… together- a-as friends,” Evan asked.

Alana smiled and nodded.

“Yeah, that sounds like fun. Give me your phone, I can give you my number,” Alana said.

Alana seemed genuinely happy, which was such a wonderful feeling. She handed Evan back his phone, said goodbye, and then skipped off down the hallway. Evan smiled to himself as he made his way to the locker.  

On que, Jared approached him.

“How does it feel being the first person to break their arm by jacking off?” Jared said, reverting back to his own saying as there were no other influences in the conversation.

“That’s not what happened,” Evan said with a small shrug. He wasn’t going to let the joke get to him. It was just a joke, as unfunny as Jared was being.

“Paint me a picture- you’re sitting in your room with Zoe Murphy’s-”

“That’s not what happened Jared. Besides, it would be weird if I was jacking off to my boyfriend’s sisters instagram,” Evan said carelessly. Evan’s face went bright red as the words processed in his brain.

“Wait- hold up . You’re dating Connor Murphy? Evan Hansen- anxiety ridden Evan Hansen is dating scary mean Connor Murphy?” Jared asked. “When the fuck did that happen?”

“He’s not as mean and scary when you get to know him, for one,” Evan said. “And it just… kinda did… it’s new, I don’t even know if he wants you to know,” Evan muttered.

“Wow. Well then, alright. Not the kind of person I pegged you with, but whatever makes your gay heart flutter,” Jared said. “You know, I kinda knew you two would end up together.”

“How?” Evan asked.

“I just… had this gut feeling,” Jared said with a casual shrug. “Speak of the devil…”

Connor approached, probably half expecting Jared’s regular response. Instead, Jared just waited for him to approach the two, which he did, rather cautiously.

“So… Connor, fucking my best friend I hear,” Jared said. Connor rolled his eyes and then looked to Evan, silently asking why Jared knew.

“We’re not… doing that Jared,” Evan muttered.

“Fine. What do you two do then?” Jared asked.

“None of your business, that’s what,” Connor said as he walked over to stand next to Evan.

“Can I put my arm around you?” Connor asked, hushing himself a bit. Evan nodded. “You’re okay with the school and stuff?”

“Yeah I mean… their opinions don’t really matter, right?” Evan said. Connor smiled softly before wrapping his arm around Evan, the smile going a bit smug as he turned to face Jared.

“You two are adorable. This is unfair,” Jared said. “I was supposed to get the boyfriend first. Not the other way around.”

“Didn’t you get to second base with that chick from New Zealand or something?”  Evan asked. Jared narrowed his eyes.

“I never told you anything like that,” Jared said. “I mean, you’re more or less right but.”

Evan shrugged. “You’re just uh, that predictable I guess.”

“Guess so,” Jared shrugged. “I’ll uh, see you two around I guess…”

Evan smiled at Jared as he left. The two exchanged a small glance, before Evan tucked his things in his locker and grabbed his things for class.

“Here’s hoping today is the last day of repeats,” Evan said as the two walked to Evan’s first class. Connor smiled and nodded.

“Here’s hoping,” Connor replied.

The classes were long and boring, exactly how they always were. In biology, Mrs Barry made a semi hostile comment about everyone showing up for the first day of school. At first, Evan thought it was maybe it was directed to him. Of course, that was crazy. He only ever skipped during the loops. She didn’t remember the previous days in the loop.

Or did she?

That was an unsettling thought. It couldn’t be true.

Of course, that would explain Jared’s deja vu yesterday… and him knowing that Evan and Connor were together… and Alana knowing…

Evan had to run out of the room and to the bathroom to throw up.

He knew he was stressing about something that couldn’t have been true. It couldn’t have! It reset every day and well… no. They were just weird coincidences.

Luckily Evan got the entire lunch hour with Connor and that could calm him right down.

“How was your morning?” Connor asked, sitting down next to Evan on the floor, in the small corner furthest from the door.

“It was okay, pretty much the same,” Evan said with a small shrug. He went to his default position, resting his head on Connor’s shoulder and holding his hand. The two sat in silence for a while. Evan closed his eyes and Connor hummed quietly.

“What’s the deal with your letters?” Connor asked, breaking the silence. “Like the uh, dear Evan Hansen things…”

“I uh, I write them for therapy? Like they’re supposed to start with dear Evan Hansen, today’s going to be a good day and here’s why but obviously the one you read wasn’t a good day, so like,” Evan said with a small shrug. “They only kinda help but not much so it’s a weird situation but I still do them since my therapist kind of insists,” Evan continued.

“Was the first day that horrible for you?” Connor asked.

“Little bit yeah…” Evan said. “I uh, looking back though… it wasn’t as bad as it could have been… I just… it’s a lot of things that have just kind of built up… They keep building up and it’s just- it had just been such an overwhelming day.”

“If you were to write a letter from scratch right now, what would it say?” Connor asked.

“Like write one right now?” Evan asked.

“Yeah, just… off the top of your head.”

“Okay uh.. Dear Evan Hansen, today is going to be a good day, and here’s why… because you’ve uh, you’ve improved so much… over eleven consecutive first days of school, and you did it yourself. You uh, you managed to talk to Alana and Jared and understand their sides of the stories and… and well, you’re making friends. It’s a process, but it’s happening.

“Then of course, it’s an amazing day because there’s Connor. Connor and himself being a lovely, non filtered version of himself… and him just being around. Oh! And today we got to keep our stupid match bracelets from yesterday… so we’re going to be uh, be that couple now,” Evan laughed. “But… but it’s a big deal that they stayed… because we’re getting closer to getting out of this stupid loop we’ve been stuck in.

“Sincerely, your… your uh, friend who’s probably second place now, me.”

Connor smiled and kissed Evan’s forehead.

“You’re adorable,” Connor said.

“You inspired me,” Evan shot back with a small smile.

The day had gone by rather quickly. Too quickly, according to Connor. Evan was for sure going over to Connor’s after school (he called his mom and told her to cancel his therapy session. He really didn’t need it anyways) and Connor wasn’t too excited about it.

“It’s going to be hell,” Connor said as the two walked to the car.

“It won’t be that bad,” Evan said.

“It will! My parents are the devil reincarnated,” Connor scoffed.

The drive was slow, but Evan filled it with chatter about things he wanted to do once the loop finished. It was awkward and tense, but at least Evan’s constant rambling eased it a bit.

“Hey Evan,” Connor said as he pulled into the driveway of what Evan assumed was Connor’s head.

“Yes?”

“No matter what they do or say, I still like you… they knew I’m dating you- I uh, kind of snapped at them this morning… but uh, I honestly don’t know how they’ll react to meeting you so… just… don’t take their words to heart,” Connor said.

“Connor… I’ll be fine. They can’t be that bad,” Evan said, for what seemed to be the billionth time.

Evan was greeted with warmth and the scent of vanilla, or some sort of artificial candle. He immediately felt a bit out of place, standing in such a nice house as, well, him.

“Connor was that you?” a voice called out from the other side of the wall in the porch.

A lady, Connor’s mom, came around the corner drying a cup. She smiled, her brunette hair tied up in a ponytail. She was wearing clothing that looked like she had just come from yoga.

“Yeah,” Connor said shortly as the two took off their jackets and school bags.

“Are you going to introduce me?” she asked.

“Oh uh, Evan, this is my mom, mom this is Evan,” Connor said, lazily gesturing between the two.

“It’s nice to meet you…” Evan trailed off, holding out his hand.

“Call me Cynthia, Evan,” Cynthia said as she shook his head. “It’s nice to meet you. Connor never brings anyone over,” she continued with a light humor in her voice.

Connor scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“The devil not home yet?” Connor asked. Cynthia gave him a warning look.

“ Your father is on his way home from work. He should be home in time for dinner. He’s picking Zoe up from her lessons,” Cynthia said.

“We’ll be upstairs,” Connor said shortly, shutting down any possibility of conversation. He took Evan’s hand and tugged him upstairs and to his room, where he shut the door.

It wasn’t what Evan expected out of Connor’s room. The walls were a light grey, with dark brown furniture. The bedspread was royal blue, matching his curtains. There was a bookshelf in the corner, overflowing with books.

“She seemed nice,” Evan said as Connor flopped down on his bed. Evan gazed around a bit more before sitting next to Connor.

“Just wait. You’ll see.”

They got called down an hour and a half later for dinner. The two made it to the dining table in time to see everyone finding their seats. Evan naturally made Connor sit closer to his family, and he took the outside seat.

The entire family looked tired. That was a rude and random observation, but it was true. They were all tired- probably had a long day, emotionally or physically. Cynthia had made fish of some sort, mashed potatoes and something that kind of looked like pasta, but Evan honestly wasn’t sure.

Cynthia and her husband were deep in conversation about something that happened while he was at work. Zoe was picking at his food and Connor looked like he was either about to explode or cry.

“Who’s this?” Mr Murphy said, nodding to Evan.

“Larry, this is Evan. My boyfriend ,” Connor said. Zoe glared at Connor before rolling his eyes.

“Connor, he’s your father, not just Larry,” Cynthia said.

“Nice to meet you,” Larry said with a small nod. He looked like was holding back something. Like a comment or something.

“How was school,” Cynthia said, leaving the topic open.

Zoe rocketed into talking about her day, and classes and everything. There was some sort of comment about a girl named Lily, and how she was back from somewhere in Europe a week and a half early but she didn’t get any details.

“What about you Connor?” Cynthia asked.

“It was school,” Connor said shortly. Larry rolled his eyes.

“Just school?”

Yes! It was boring as fuck and the only decent thing was lunch,” Connor snapped. Evan shifted in his seat.

Cynthia gave up on trying to make small talk. She was the one who was carrying the conversations. She started asking about Evan and Connor’s relationship, as a mother normally did.  At one point, Connor kind of got tipped over the edge and got up and stormed off.

Evan apologized on his behalf before offering to go talk to him.

“You deserve better,” Zoe said seriously as Evan stood up.

“Uh, I’m quite happy…” Evan said.

“You deserve better,” she repeated.

Evan sighed as he entered Connor’s bedroom. Connor was laying down on his bed, his pillow on top of his head.

“What happened?” Evan asked. Connor took the pillow off and looked at the ceiling.

“I just- can’t stand them,” Connor said. “The small, fake talk, trying to make the family seem presentable. It’s ridiculous!”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Evan said.

“For you maybe but god they were all being so fucking fake. I’m sorry you had to deal with them,” Connor said. Evan rolled his eyes.

“Connor they’re not that bad,” Evan said.

“They are! Just wait- they’re horrible,” Connor said.

Evan sighed and laid down beside Connor, wrapping his arm around Connor’s waist. He didn’t want to argue, but Evan was sticking to his statement. They weren’t that bad. They seemed nice, anyways.

Connor buried his head in the nook of Evan’s shoulder and sighed. He wrapped his arms and Evan and brought him close, one hand moving to rest at the base of Evan’s neck.

“You’re falling asleep,” Evan commented after the two had laid their for a while. Connor didn’t reply, he was already sleeping. At one point, Cynthia and Larry walked passed the open door. Cynthia smiled warmly at the sight before continuing on. Evan had pretended to have been asleep as they passed.

Connor shifted enough so Evan could slip off of the bed without waking Connor up. He didn’t believe that his parents were absolutely horrible, so maybe it wouldn’t hurt if he talked to them privately… or at least just for Cynthia.

Evan found Cynthia sitting on the couch in the living room, watching the evening news. He awkwardly cleared his throat, shifting the weight on his feet.

“I was uh, just wondering if I could get some water?” Evan asked. “Connor is uh, Connor’s sleeping.”

“Of course Evan! Come with me,” she said warmly, taking Evan to the kitchen. She grabbed a cup and filled it with  water from the fridge.

“How long have you two been together?” Cynthia asked.

“Oh uh… not long? About maybe like a uh, a week but… we’ve been talking for a while,” Evan lied. A little bit of lying- or stretching the truth- never hurt anybody.

“I never knew,” she said. “Connor doesn’t tell us anything… I worry about him.”

“Worried?” Evan asked as he sipped his water.

“Sometimes he and Larry get into fights and Connor storms off… and I never know if I’m going to see him again… I love Connor- and I love Larry but, the two just don’t mix,” Cynthia said with a small sigh, leaning against the counter on the opposite side of Evan. “He seemed so calm laying with you just now… he doesn’t even sleep like that.”

“I just… I wish I knew what I was doing wrong,” she said hopelessly. Evan frowned. He didn’t know what to say.

“I don’t know…” Evan said. “He uh, hasn’t told me much about his home life… but I think he just wants to be heard? Like uh, I know he has some issues and there was this one time that he just bursted after a little thing happened, and he felt so alone because he had no one to talk to or relate to… I uh, I helped him calm down a bit… not in the best way, but I told him he wasn’t alone and it just helped.” Evan rambled, shrugging.  

“I don’t know how to do that… I wish I did,” she said. “I wish Larry knew.”

“Have you tried therapy? I uh, I go to therapy pretty frequently and… it helps a lot. Sometimes even my mom comes to the sessions to learn how to help me out,” Evan suggested.

“Larry doesn’t believe in those things…”

“Do you?” Evan asked.

“I just want my Connor to be happy again… I want him to hug me after school and to tell me about his day with genuine happiness and… I’d do anything to get that back,” she said.

“I uh, don’t know if you can get him back- per se, but uh, there’s definitely a sweet, nice, wonderful side to Connor that I get to see all the time. I uh, don’t know how things are run here but… therapy, and rebuilding trust is the first step I think,” Evan said. Cynthia smiled softly.

“Thank you Evan,” Cynthia said. “Connor’s been talking about therapy for a while now…”

“Find him one then- a uh, a therapist- he’ll appreciate it,” Evan said. “I’m going to go talk to Connor… He might be waking up right away.”

“Thank you Evan,” she repeated.

“You’re uh, you’re welcome,” Evan said with a slight nod.

Evan took his glass back up to Connor’s room and sat down on the side of the bed Connor wasn’t lying on. Connor shifted and opened his eyes, sitting up.

“Where’d you go?” Connor asked.

“I uh, was talking to your mom,” Evan said sheepishly.

“Did she talk you down? If she was being a dick to you-”

“We had a nice conversation. She’s really nice and she cares about you,” Evan said. Connor scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“You’re so funny,” Connor said sarcastically. Evan sighed and shook his head.

“Why can’t you believe me? Your mother loves you Connor- you’re her son,” Evan said.

“Yeah this is the same lady that took the hinges off of my door, checks my emails reguarly and doesn’t believe in getting me therapy,” Connor said.

“She just said she wanted you to be happy! I just told her therapy was the best idea and she was totally on board with it. I have no idea where you’re getting this idea that she isn’t,” Evan said.

“Because I’ve been asking for therapy for two fucking years and they’ve rejected me each time!” Connor said.

“She’s trying!” Evan snapped back.

“No she isn’t! If she was, I’d be seeing progress,” Connor said bitterly. Evan’s jaw dropped.

“We’ve been living the same fucking day for almost two weeks now! How on earth can she be making progress when she’s stuck reliving the day over and over again without her knowledge? How can she make progress if we can’t even make progress Connor?” Evan snapped. They both stood up from the bed in sync.

“Before this! Before that- before… she just brushed me off and moved on with her pathetic life,” Connor said. “I am nothing to her, nothing to my father, nothing to Zoe! I’m a waste of fucking space and they’ve all given up on me! If I disappeared forever tonight they wouldn’t even care!”

“Your mother would! She just told me she was worried that one day you’d walk out that door and never return! She has that legitimate fear that her son is going to go off and kill himself and she just wants what’s best for you! Why would she bother telling me these things if they weren’t true!?” Evan asked.

“Because! Because they’re both manipulative pricks! They want you to be on their side because no one should be on mine! No one should be on Connor Murphy’s side!” Connor yelled.

“Why can’t you get it through your thick skull? They love you!” Evan yelled. “Why can’t you see that? This entire week- since this started, I’ve learned to look past the shitty things Jared’s done because yeah- he’s kinda a dick, but he’s trying. I know he cares about me and I know he means well, so I fucking forgive him!

“Alana was kind of annoying when I- when I met her, but now, looking on her side of things, she is just as lonely and just as desperate for friends as I am! Since this whole experience started I’ve grown . I’ve looked past the shitty things about people and I look at them as a whole, because that’s what they are. They’re a person, with layers and  personality and a reason to be forgiven!” Evan yelled.

“If I can grow and look passed these things, why can’t you?”

“Because,” Connor started.

“Because?” Evan echoed. Connor had nothing and he wasn’t owning up to that fact.

“My parents don’t have any reason to be forgiven! No one does because they don’t care about me! They’re horrible people!” Connor said. Evan rolled his eyes.

“So what does that make you, huh? What does that make you Connor? Because I’m looking at both sides of the story, and just by the little bit I saw of you at the dining table, you treat them like shit and you deserve to be treated that way if you do,” Evan snapped.

“That’s not fucking fair!”

“It is! You’re not flawless and neither are they. So, until you learn to look back fucking flaws and see them as your family, don’t bother talking to me,” Evan said bitterly. “I need someone who is willing to put in the effort to repair things that are broken, and clearly you’re not.”

“So what? It’s over? It’s over before it’s even begun?” Connor asked. He was suddenly crashing, feeling like absolute shit. Evan felt that way too, just knowing he did that to Connor. Evan shook his head.

“No. I don’t want to lose you Connor, I don’t. You’re my player one… but… You need to grow up,” Evan said.

“Evan…”

“I’m going home. If you care about me at all, you’ll uh, you’ll talk to your family and try to fix what’s broken,” Evan said.

“How are you getting home?” Connor asked, hopelessly clinging onto any bit of conversation that would keep Evan from leaving.

“I have a bus pass.”

Evan stormed out of there as fast as he could, barely leaving time to answer Cynthia’s question about what had happened.

Evan told her that they had a little fight, and would sort it out later. She apologized profusely, and Evan gave her a hug. She didn’t deserve to think it was her fault that it happened, but it sure as hell felt that way to her.

Evan managed to hold back tears until he got off of the bus stop by his house, where they just started flowing before he even managed to get home. He didn’t care though, this was life. Life kind of sucked sometimes.

And sometimes, you fuck everything up with the person you really like.

Chapter Text

Evan was officially done. He was just done. He was sick and tired of waking up and it being the third. He was sick of explaining his friendship with Connor over and over to his mother, because the universe had to be a fucking tease and keep Connors name on his cast. The universe had to be an asshole and let him keep that stupidly adorable player two bracelet, but not let anyone keep their damn memories. Evan barely slept, and Connor didn't either. He couldn't even remember what it was like not knowing what was to come that day.

The universe put Evan and Connor into this horrible situation filled with countless shitty things.

The worst part; Connor killed himself. Every single night. Every night Connor found something new to do and no matter what Evan said, one of these days Evan would wake up on September Fourth- alone and boyfriendless.

Well, maybe he already was.

After last night, Evan wouldn’t blame Connor if he decided he never wanted to see Evan again. As much as Evan wanted to say that the whole thing was two sided, it wasn’t. Evan was fully responsible but-

Connor needed a wake up call. Maybe it was uncalled for, maybe it wasn’t, but Connor was being unfair to his parents. Connor needed to realize not everything was about him, that his mom cared about him so much.

Evan wasn’t one to speak. He didn’t know Connor’s homelife. He didn’t know if whether or not Cynthia truly meant what she said to Evan. He didn’t know- maybe Connor wasn’t overreacting. Maybe Evan overreacted and got mad for no reason.

He wished he could go back and reply the entire afternoon word for word, but after only getting twenty minutes of sleep, the events of yesterday were fuzzy. As if they happened two months ago, when really it only happened hours ago.

“Morning Evan,” Heidi said, leaning against the doorframe. Evan forced a small smile and looked up from his phone for a brief moment, before looking back down. His phone wasn’t even on.

“You ready for your first day of senior year? This is going to be a good one, I can already feel it,” she said excitedly. Evan tried to stop himself, but he rolled his eyes.

“Yeah. Best one yet,” he said sarcastically. He turned on his phone and opened the first app that appeared, just so he was actually doing something.

“Oh come on Evan, you can’t spend another year moping around at home alone all day… You need friends, you need to go out and do crazy things and just… be a teenager,” Heidi said. Evan scoffed.

“I’m fine alone. I uh, I just. It worked every other year, and I was fine, so I’ll be fine alone,” Evan said. Heidi sighed.

“I don’t want you alone so much Evan. I worry about you you know,” she said softly.

“Yeah, well, you don’t show it ,” he muttered, typing away. He was being rude, he knew he was, but there was no point in trying to stop himself.

There was no point in anything.

“Excuse me?” she said. Evan shrugged.

“I’m fine. I don’t need friends- they just stab you in the back anyways,” he said, looking up from his phone to meet Heidi’s eyes as she walked over beside Evan.

“Who’s Connor?” she asked. Evan sighed heavily.

“Who?” Evan said. She rolled her eyes.

“Connor. The kid who signed your cast- who is he?” she asked.

“My boyfriend,” Evan said blatantly.

“Your- your what ?” She seemed happy for him, but he didn’t care. He knew she’d be fine with it. She was every other day. So, whatever.

“My boyfriend? Kind of. We had a fight so, who knows where we’re at now,” Evan said, a certain lack of emotion caring through his voice. He could just feel his entire body shutting down. He was tired. He was done.

“Why didn’t I know?” she said. “Evan that’s- that’s wonderful.”

“Maybe because I haven’t seen you in two weeks?” Evan said. “We haven’t really had time to talk so I mean, there’s been no time.”

Her face dropped.

“Evan I’m sorry I’ve been taking some extra shifts and classes but-”

“You… You don’t need to justify yourself. It’s life, it doesn’t matter,” he said with a shrug.

“Evan it does matter,” she said. “Hey, today after school why don’t you invite him over today? Connor I mean, I’ll come home and I’ll make dinner.”

Evan laughed and shook his head.

“Make the plans but uh, you’ll take Sharon’s shift and then you’ll go straight from there to your classes and I won’t see you until Saturday just with how our schedules work out so I mean…” he trailed off.

“Evan I’m trying my best here,” she said. Evan shrugged.

“And you are. You just… work so much you barely even know your own son,” he said.

Heidi bit her lip and looked at the door, before checking the time.

“Invite him over, and if I end up taking a shift have the house to yourself, but I’m trying my best here Evan. If my best isn’t good enough for you I’m sorry, but I’m trying,” Heidi said. “I’ll see you tonight, Evan. Have a good first day.”

She left, clearly hurt, and minutes later Evan heard the front door slam shut.

Evan closed his eyes and ran his uncasted hand down his face. He felt like shit. If he didn’t before, he did now. At least he knew she wouldn’t remember tomorrow. He’d apologize tonight, probably. Unless of course, the day just got worse and worse from here on out.

He debated not going at all. He wanted to just punch a wall, take some sleeping aid and then sleep the day away. He knew he should go though. Maybe apologize- or get an apology from Connor. He didn’t know which one was more important.

He took the bus. There was no sign of Connor and probably wouldn’t be.

His jaw stayed clenched the entire drive there. The elderly couple were chatting away in front of Evan, talking about the same thing on loop. He wanted them to shut up about stupid grapefruit because who the fuck cares about grapefruit?

Evan stormed off the bus once it got to his stop.

Connor got out of his car just as Evan was passing the parking lot. Evan went to speed up, but Connor quickly caught up and grabbed his hand, stopping Evan from entering the school.

“Can we talk?” Connor said.

“Do you want to?” Evan said bitterly. Connor furrowed his eyebrows.

“Of course I do… just about last night,” Connor said.

“What about it? You’re still pissed at the world, I’m pissed off at myself,” Evan said.

“Look Evan, we were both pissed but… my family isn’t the best,” Connor said. “I’m glad you’ve grown and learned to look passed these peoples flaws or whatever but… they hate me . We do nothing but argue and… I don’t think it’s repairable.”

Evan sighed and shook his head, yanking his arms away from Connor. Connor’s face fell.

“What happens when I do something that makes you upset then?” Evan asked.

“What do you mean?” Connor asked, a confused chuckle escaping.

“What happens when I say something you don’t agree with? O-or when my opinion is different… or… when I cancel plans with you, or when I do something your parents would do,” Evan said. “What happens when you start to notice my flaws? Am I going to be shut out in a bitter rage like your parents?” Evan blinked, looking at Connor, praying he changed Connor’s mind, but there was no change of emotion.

“That won’t happen,” Connor said. “Evan, you give me the light of day, you don’t just lash out on me-”

“Your parents would probably love to give you the light of day,” Evan said. “If you made an effort, they would too.”

Connor shook his head, and Evan nodded in return.

“We’re only human Connor… It’s going to happen. We’ll have… differences, we’ll have fights… Just like your parents. If you can’t apologize and forgive your parents, how can you do it to me? You get to choose your boyfriends, you don’t get to choose your family,” Evan said.

“But they’re-”

“Take a look from their point of view Connor. They mean well, they care about you… and it probably break their heart knowing you act the way you do, thinking it’s out of spite towards them,” Evan said. “Until then… give me space.”

Connor’s face fell. Evan took a step back, and Connor went to speak, but Evan turned around and went inside.

He beelined to his locker, but was stopped by, of course, Alana.

Evan still wanted to talk to her and be her friend, but by the hell if he had to listen to her talk about her summer one more time he was going to explode and lash out on her and well, that just wasn’t fair to Alana. Not to mention he just told his boyfriend to leave him alone, and that he offended him and probably ruined everything…

“Hey Evan, how was your summer? Mine was pretty good I-”

“No offense Alana, but I really don’t care. No I mean I- I don’t have time right now I need to go… I just- I don’t have time to listen about your volunteer hours. I’m already pathetic enough as it is? You telling about everything will just make it worse,” Evan interrupted. He caught a quick glance of Alana’s expression, before he stormed off.

Alana had looked at him as if he just stabbed her with a knife. She was alone. She was so alone and so desperate to feel heard, and Evan couldn’t give it to her. If he tried, it would have been a lot worse.

“Hey Evan, how does it feel-”

“-To be the first person to break my arm jerking off?” Evan cut Jared off before he was even close to approaching Evan.

Jared’s eyes widened as Evan finished his sentence. It wasn't like it was impossible to predict what he was going to say. Jared was a record that was starting to lose its charm.

“No. That’s not what happened. I jumped out of a tree cause I’m pathetic. I’ve told you this before so many times, yet you never remember because the universe hates me,” Evan rambled with a bitter laugh. “Of course I simply told you I fell but let's be real. I'm not exactly the best at lying.”

Jared furrowed his eyebrows, before his entire face widened.

“Evan- what do you mean-”

“It doesn’t matter,” Evan shot back. “Nothing matters, you know? I could do the stupidest thing in the world today and tomorrow it will never have happened!”

“Evan, are you okay?” Jared asked.

“Oh just peachy,” he said sarcastically. “My world is falling apart at the seams yet the universe keeps sewing it up shittily, with something stupid like- like string cheese.”

“Evan…”

“Please Jared, I don’t need your pity,” Evan said. He caught Connor in the corner of his eye. He signed heavily.

“Evan do you need to talk?” Jared asked. Evan rolled his eyes. “I get it, your stressed out but like, these aren’t normal stressed thoughts.”

“Like you care. I'm just, well, I'm just around for your insurance, r-right?” Evan said, shutting his locker. “Quit pretending like you care.”

The worst part of Jared’s sudden deflation of any happy emotion was that Evan knew Jared meant well. He knew it was a joke, but he couldn't bring himself to apologize. Then again, Jared didn't know Evan knew he cared, so his reaction was completely understandable.

“Evan-”

“Save it Jared. I… I really don't want to hear it right now,” Evan said.

Jared went to speak again, and Evan wanted to let him speak, but then he saw Connor coming. He glanced at him, then to Jared, and then he walked towards Connor.

He went to speak again, but Evan didn't bother acknowledging him as he stormed off, almost knocking his shoulder into Connor.

“The fuck did you say to Evan?” he heard Connor snap. Evan turned the corner and stood. He could just hear the two talking, if they stayed at that loud volume.

“I didn’t say anything mean I swear! He just… is in a weird mood. I don't- he was all angry when I walked up,” Jared said.

Evan lost the conversation over the volume of the kids around him, only catching a few words which didn't make sense alone.

“Why do you care so much about him anyways?” Jared said.

Connor started answering, but Evan walked away after hearing “because- why do you?”

It wouldn't surprise him if Connor didn't care. They only started speaking two weeks ago, fourteen first days of school ago. Connor probably didn't even want to be with him at all. It was just to comfort Evan while they were stuck here. It was something to keep him occupied until he could move on and kill himself.

Evan didn't want Connor to die. He didn't want to lose Connor. He didn't love Connor, that would be moving way too fast if he did, but he cared about him and he liked him a lot. That wasn't enough to change his mind.

Regardless of the days where the two just skipped school and have fun. Regardless of when Connor got so excited that their bracelets stayed. Regardless of their relationship- of Evan. Connor would still leave him.

Evan wasn't dumb. He knew he couldn't single handedly change Connors mind about it. He didn't have that power.

But. Well, it still broke his heart. Into a million, unfixable pieces.

He floated through his morning classes, none of it processing at all. It wasn't like any of it was different though. It didn't matter. He knew how to behave in the biology class. He knew the answer to the stupid history question was impossible to answer. He knew an airplane would land on his desk in history, and he handed it to the girl next to him without a thought.

He was tired and done.

Evan wasn't going to go to the computer lab- as rude as it was he was avoiding Connor. He didn't know what to say or do and he knew he needed to apologize he just. Didn't want to.

“Dear Evan Hansen,” Evan muttered, the keys clicking quicker than he spoke. He would go to his therapy session today and just give Dr Sherman whatever he wrote. “I will never live to see another good day again. How can I, if the world keeps skipping back and forcing me to live the first day of high school over and over again? How can it change, how can I make progress if the people around me can't remember what happened the day before?

“And sure. There's Connor, but Connor doesn't need me. He doesn't want me, he only knows I exist because we're living this loop together. Once we get out of it, if we get out of it, Connor will be gone. And I'll be alone once again.

“Maybe I'll just follow Connor. That would probably be easier. I wish I could just lead myself, but like I’m capable of that,” Evan rambled. At this point, he wasn’t even typing, just muttering to himself, his hands twitching against the keyboard, his eyes glued directly to the T key.

“I just… want this all to be done. For all of this drama to be done… I want to see tomorrow. Not like, symbolically like I want to live to see tomorrow but a, like uh, I want it to be tomorrow so I know what’s done will be done… Like, god that doesn’t make any sense. None of this makes any sense anyways. It doesn’t matter, nothing matters.

“I just went full circle…” he laughed. “I felt like nothing I did mattered, then I met Connor and something happened, but I’m back to where I was. Nothing I do matters… nothing I say, nothing I do, nothing I think . If I were to disappear tomorrow, no one would notice.”

Evan paused, wiping away at his face. He wasn’t crying, but it sure felt like he was.

“No one would notice because there is no tomorrow,” Evan sighed, running a hand down his face. He sniffed, before just closing the document and shutting off the computer.

“I’d care,” a soft voice came from behind him. Evan jumped, before turning around.

Connor looked tired, almost like he was going to collapse. His hair was tied up now, his hands tucked into his jacket pockets. His face was pale and his expression void of any possible expression.

Evan shrugged and looked down, picking at his cast.

“You heard that?” Evan asked. Connor closed his eyes and nodded slowly.

“Every bit of it,” Connor said.

“I’m sorry,” Evan said. “I-I I just… I shouldn’t have- last night… it was, I shouldn’t… I don’t know and I just- earlier today I just-”

“Evan you’re right,” Connor said.

“I- what?”

“You were right. I… My parents are assholes, but I’m one too and- well, the main reason they are is because I don’t treat them like my parents. I need to change, and it’s the thing that will help me get better and fix- or, try to repair the years of damage my family has gone through,” Connor said. “I’ll admit, I was pissed when you said that shit last night but… you were so right .”

“Why bother fixing it if you’re just uh, just… going to… to…” Evan muttered.

“I don’t,” Connor said.

“You…”

“I want to see tomorrow. I want to get better- to try and fix my relationship with my parents and Zoe and… I want to be with you… Which is crazy, and I get it this relationship is all so new but, I do… I want to see where this everything takes me,” Connor said. “I’ve still got issues, and I’ve still got those thoughts- they’re not going away over night - but everything is looking up now and…”

He shrugged and Evan smiled softly.

“That’s… that’s really good,” Evan said.

“I’m- yeah,” Connor said. “I’m sorry for getting so pissed last night- at you, at my parents.”

“It was a uh, two person effort,” Evan said. They both exchanged a small chuckle.

“So we’re okay?” Evan said.

“Our relationship is… yes but- are you?” Connor said. Evan looked down.

“No… I just… need to get out of this… whole situation,” Evan said. “I need the day to change- I need to be able to make progress I just… can’t take this anymore.”

“Come here.”

Evan stood up and wrapped his arms around Connor’s waist, resting his head on Connor’s shoulder as he resisted the urge to cry.  Connor ran his hand down Evan’s back and kissed his forehead.

“I really like you…” Evan muttered. The two smiled at each other. Evan tucked a stray piece of hair behind his ear.

“I like you too Ev,” Connor said. Evan kissed him briefly, going to rest his head on Connor’s shoulder again. Instead, Connor tilted his chin up and kissed him again. Evan smiled against it and moved his arms around Connor’s neck.

Connor tugged on the hem of Evan’s shirt, before sliding his hands into Evan’s back pockets. Evan chuckled and then suddenly there was tongue and Evan pulled away laughing.

“What?” Connor asked.

“Just… tongue,” Evan said.

“Tongue.”

“Yes, tongue,” Evan said. Connor rolled his eyes playfully and smirked.

“God you’re hopeless Evan,” Connor chuckled before kissing him again.

“Holy shit,” Jared suddenly shouted from the door of the computer lab. Evan quickly pulled away and felt the blood rush to his face. Jared walked across the class and stood in front of the two. He looked dumbfounded, probably shocked about what he walked in on. This was different from just being told the two were dating.

“Way to ruin a moment Kleinman,” Connor scoffed, rolling his eyes. Evan bit his lip and looked between the two. Jared laughed.

“Well I didn’t know there was a moment to ruin,” Jared said. “When did this happen?”

“You’re uh, taking this well,” Evan said.

“Should I not be?” Jared asked. Evan quickly shook his head.

“Alright, whatever then,” Jared said. “Have fun fucking each other. Try not to murder my friend Murphy,” he said, earning a scoff and another roll of the eye from Connor.

Jared gave a small salute before leaving again.

“I’m always so shocked by how well he reacts,” Evan said. Connor laughed.

“Considering he hates my guts? Yeah,” Connor said.

“I can’t deny that,” Evan said. “He won’t remember tomorrow… I don’t really want him to remember- er, know about this until I patch things up with him… I uh, kind of lashed out at him today…”

Connor nodded slowly.

“Starting tomorrow we’ll be more secretive of it then,” Connor said. Evan nodded.

“Wanna go home?” Evan asked. “Well, to my place…”

Connor nodded.

“Tomorrow we’ll start taking the days seriously again,” Connor said.

“Tomorrow.”

It was peaceful, just laying on Evan’s bed with Connor’s body intertwined with his. Evan didn’t know when they decided just to curl up on his bed and nap, but he was glad they did. Both of them kind of needed sleep.

Evan traced small patterns on Connor’s arm, his eyes half lidded.

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now,” Evan muttered. “I really needed this today…”

“Me too,” Connor replied. Evan looked up and kissed him softly, the moment being broken by Evan’s phone suddenly ringing.

Evan sighed and grabbed it from his side table, answering it without bothering to look at the ID. He knew who it was.

“Hello?” Evan said.

“ Evan where are you? I’m waiting outside to pick you up, ” Heidi said.

“Pick me up? I’m already home,” Evan said.

“ How? ”

“Connor drove me… around lunch,” Evan said.

“ You skipped? ” She sighed. “ Something important better have happened Evan. I’m coming home then… you’ll be late for therapy but I guess that’ll do. ”

“Therapy? I don’t wanna- I don’t really need to go… I uh, I’m with Connor right now and… today was okay,” Evan said.

“ Oh. Well… alright. I’ll call Dr Sherman then... ” There was a slight hesitation. “ I guess I should just tell you now… I took an extra shift before class so I won’t be able to do dinner tonight… I’ll be home just long enough to shower and say hello. I’m sorry, we’ll do dinner another night .”

Evan sighed. He forgot the conversation they had this morning, and the last minute decision to have Connor for dinner.

“Figures,” Evan muttered.

“ Excuse me?”

“Nothing,” Evan muttered.

“ I’ll talk to you later Evan .”

And she hung up. Evan sighed and buried his head into Connor’s shoulder. Evan closed his eyes and just let Connor’s warmth and smell engulf him.

“Stay the night?” Evan asked.

“I’ll be gone once we both fall asleep,” Connor pointed out.

“Just stay?” Evan said. “I just… want you to stay.”

“I’ll stay,” Connor said. “I’ll stay until I can’t anymore.”

“What does that mean?” Evan asked with a small chuckle.

“Honestly, no clue,” Connor said with a small chuckle. “I guess… I’m not leaving your side… until the universe decides I have to.”

“Reassuring,” Evan said with a small chuckle.

“I’m trying!” Connor exclaimed.

“Yeah… you’re trying alright.”

Chapter Text

Evan slept and he slept well. He hummed softly as his alarm buzzed, forcing his eyes open as he struggled to find his phone. His hand brushed over something warm and squishy as he found it, turning it off before curling back into the nook of the giant pillow laid beside him. That was odd… he didn’t remember having a body pillow.

“Jesus five more minutes please ,” a tired voice groaned from beside him. Evan chuckled and buried his head in the crook of Connor’s neck.

He was too tired to process anything, and was quickly falling back asleep.

“Evan?”

He opened his eyes again, yawning. He sat up and stretched, before his eyes landed on Connor. Connor, laying in his bed, half asleep.

“Wait…” Evan said. “W-why… why are you still here?”

Panic began to swelter in his chest. Did they do something to bring them closer to moving on? A hint that they… oh my god. The day did not move on. No no no. Not after yesterday not after…

Evan scrambled to grab his phone, reaching over Connor and probably hitting Connor with his cast in the progress (judging by the small ow .)

“No… no no no no,” Evan muttered. Sleepy Connor ran a hand through his hair and sat up.

“What?” Connor asked.

“It’s September Fourth…” Evan said quietly. “It’s September Fourth… it’s… I…”

Connor bolted awake at that.

“The day moved?” he asked excitedly. Evan nodded, and Connor jumped from the bed with a stupidly adorable grin on his face. Evan would have admired it more if he wasn’t about to spiral into some sort of panic attack.

“What did we do? Holy shit we did it!” Connor exclaimed.

Evan sat, his mouth agape as he looked over to Connor. His excitement fell as he sat next to Evan, putting his hand on Evan’s thigh.

“Hey, this is good … we’re free,” Connor said softly. “We did it.”

“I just… yesterday… so bad… I-I was mean to… to everyone and… I ruined everything,” Evan said, holding back the tears that were so desperate to fall. “I… I fucked up everything . No one… no one will want to forgive me and I’ll… I’ll…”

Connor sighed, cocking his head to the side.

“Evan,” Connor said softly. “You’ll be okay… Jared, Alana… your mom . They’ll forgive you. What’s done is done now, we don’t get a redo, but, we can forgive. We can apologize and we can make things right again.”

“I skipped all of my afternoon classes,” Evan said. Connor shrugged.

“You lived through it a hundred times before,” Connor said. “We’ll be okay. Besides, it’s a new day… we’re free, Evan… we’re both going into today with no clue as to what is going to happen and… well, that’s amazing.”

Evan shrugged. Connor had a point, he was right. He was so right.

“When did you get all uh, philosophical on me?” Evan asked.

“I’ve had an adorable boy feeding me all this philosophical shit the past couple days. I’ve picked up on some,” Connor joked. Evan smiled and playfully nudged him.

Connor smiled and leaned over to kiss Evan. Evan wrapped his arms around Connor’s neck and tugged him closer. Connor chuckled and crawled on Evan’s lap, before pushing him back down onto the bed; which made a small thud as Evan fell back against his pillow. He let his casted arm fall against his side and kept the other around Connor’s neck.

Connor made a small moaning sound as he shifted just a bit, placing his hands on either side of Evan’s hips.

Connor pulled away just enough to be able to look at Evan, a string of saliva ( which honestly was kind of gross ) trailing between their lips.

“Let’s just stay here,” Connor said, leaning in to kiss him instead.

Evan playfully pushed the other away. When Connor moved back to hovering over him, Evan brushed his hair behind his ear.

“It’s not a repeat anymore,” Evan said. “We kind of have to go.”

Connor sighed and rolled off of Evan’s lap, landing beside him on the bed. Evan flopped his head over to the one side and put his cast on his chest.

“Okay this actually kind of sucks,” Connor laughed. Evan chuckled and shook his head.

“That’s what I’ve been telling you,” Evan said.

There was a brief pause.

“You could always just come over after school… it’s not like anyone will be home,” Evan pointed out. Connor made a small agreement sound.

“I just-”

Connor’s phone started ringing. He sighed and looked at the contact, before answering the phone, sitting up on the bed.

Connor blinked. Evan could hear muffled yelling from the other side of the receiver.

“I’m fine, okay!... No Zoe I didn’t- why would you think … No… I… I know I’m sorry… Yes of course I’m sorry! I really am, yes… I’m uh, at Evan’s… yes Evan Hansen’s… Oh my god Zoe, do you need to know everything?...”

Connor glanced at Evan before sighing.

“We’re dating… yes… I fell asleep here by mistake… My- my pills? What ? Well, yes I uh, yes I have them… I didn’t know you were going to think that of all things.”

Connor’s face fell.  

“Zoe I’m so sorry… I didn’t know! Yes, yes I’ll be home right after school… tell Mom and Dad I’m okay… I’ll be okay… I just…. Yes Zoe… yes…”

There was a short pause, as Connor’s eyes widened.

“I care about you too… Yeah I’ll uh, I’ll see you at school… bye…”

Connor hung up the phone and looked up at Evan. Evan smiled softly and Connor bit his lip, sitting down on the bed again.

“That sounded like it went okay,” Evan said softly. Connor shook his head.

“They thought I killed myself,” Connor said. “I… they checked the park I tried… on the first night… almost as if they knew where I was going to be… I never mentioned that park to them at all... I had them up all night … I can’t believe…”

Evan offered a small smile, taking his hand and giving it a soft squeeze. He didn’t know what he could say.

“Why are you always right?” Connor asked.

“Hmm?”

“Just… I killed myself every single time, thinking that not one of them would care whether or not I woke up tomorrow- well, today… and now that the day has moved on… just hearing Zoe… she sounded genuinely worried and my parents… just the way she talk about them,” Connor said, shivering at the end.

“They love you Connor,” Evan said softly.

“I’m going to make it right,” Connor said. “Fix all of this mess I’ve created. I didn’t mean it at first but… I’ve gone missing several times, just cause I didn’t want to be home and this was the first time they thought I tried to kill myself.” Connor ran a hand through his hair.

“I must have seriously fucked something up recently to make them think that…” Connor muttered.

Evan hesitated and glanced at the clock.

“Maybe… they have the memories of every day? Like uh, suppressed… memories that kind of bring forward deja vu? That was happening a couple days ago with Jared and Alana… they were remembering things from previous loops but uh, dismissed it as deja vu or as something I told them last year… Maybe that’s what happened,” Evan said. Connor hesitated, then nodded.

“Maybe…” he said.

“We should get ready to go,” Evan said. Connor sighed and nodded.

Connor just wore what he slept in, while Evan got changed and had a quick shower. Connor insisted on not needing one, so he didn't. Evan did make Connor use his mom’s dry shampoo and his deodorant though, because he was kind of in need of a shower. Evan didn’t say anything of course. That would just be a bit rude.

“Give me your phone,” Connor said as the two sat in his car. Evan raised an eyebrow, but unlocked it and gave it over anyways. Connor typed something in before handing it back.

“Now that we’re out of the loop, I can actually give you my number and it still be on the phone the next day,” Connor joked. Evan smiled and looked down at his phone, before putting it back away in his pocket.

“Yeah I uh, I guess so,” Evan said.

The two drove to school, and walked up to the parking lot doors. They walked close together, but neither of them held the others hand. Evan sighed as they walked into the school, before pulling Connor to the side.

“I’m going to go find Jared and Alana and uh, apologize? And invite them to sit with us for lunch, maybe outside at one of the tables?” Evan said. Connor nodded.

“I’m going to go find Zoe,” Connor replied. Evan smiled softly before kissing Connor on the cheek, wishing him good luck before walking away.

He almost instantly noticed Jared walking down the hallway, looking down at his phone. He was wearing a lime green shirt, so he wasn’t hard to miss.

“Hey uh, hey Jared!” Evan said as he ran to catch up to Jared.

He called out Jared’s name again once he got close enough. He heard a small disgruntled sigh come out of Jared before he turned around, forcing a smile and waiting for Evan to talk.

“I uh, I’m sorry, about yesterday…” Evan said. “It was rude-”

“Yeah a little bit-”

“But I’m sorry… it was stressful day and I shouldn’t have talked to you like that,” Evan said. “I uh, I know you care… even if you don’t really show it.” He shrugged.

Jared sighed and stepped to the side of the hall, Evan moving with him.

“It’s okay Evan. I get it- I was kind of a dick too. You could've said a lot worse things,” he laughed.

Evan blushed and shrugged again.

“Honestly I kind of earned it but uh… are you okay?” Jared asked.

“What do you mean?” Evan said.

“Just… you were talking about how you uh, didn't matter and how nothing you did affected anyone?  Then… then about how you thought I didnt care and uh, how you… jumped out of the tree?” Jared said. “I'm fucking worried.”

Evan hesitated.

“I'm okay. Well, not like mentally okay but… I didn't mean most that stuff. Well- it was true but I … Can we maybe talk about this later?” Evan asked. Jared hesitated before nodding slowly.

“We're talking later for sure,” Jared said. Then, his seriousness melted away as he smiled, leaning against the wall. Evan bit his lip and shifted on his feet.

“So, you and resident psycho,” Jared teased. Evan blushed and rolled his eyes, looking down at the floor.

“He’s not a psycho,” Evan said. “He’s… sweet.”

“Evan I don’t know if we’re talking about the same person or not,” Jared laughed. “Connor Murphy, sweet? That sounds like some dystopian novel shit.”

“Well… when you get to know someone they show you the better sides of them,” Evan said.

“You know, it does not surprise me that you two got together,” Jared said. “I don’t know when or how or why, but I just had this feeling.”

“A feeling?” Evan said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah like- it didn’t happen because you were all pissy yesterday, but I thought Connor was going to approach you from behind and kiss you or put his arm around you or something. I’d insult him on your hair, then he’d say that you liked it, then he would just rub it in my face that you two were together,” Jared laughed. “Crazy, I know…”

“Yeah a uh, a little bit,” Evan laughed.

Evan tried to shake the feeling of being creeped out. That happened, one of the days, god only knew which one, and Jared remembered it. Well, he didn’t, but he felt like it would happen… Which meant, he probably felt like the other things were going to happen that did… which meant that maybe Alana and Zoe and that idiot he stood up to days ago probably felt what had happened.

Alana possibly thought that Evan was going to ask to eat lunch with her. She probably had a good feeling about talking to Evan yesterday, because Evan was always nice to her- every single day she talk to him. He broke that hope and trust.

“Evan?”

“What?” Evan said, snapping out of his thoughts.

“I asked when you guys got together,” Jared said.

“Couple weeks ago?” Evan said. “We uh… met at Ellison actually. Not- not like met there, but like, officially met there and talked and stuff and uh, it happened kinda quickly but I really like him and I think he likes me?”

“Well obviously if he’s sucking on your face in the middle of the computer lab,” Jared laughed. Evan rolled his eyes.

“Nice way to describe kissing,” Evan said sarcastically. Jared shrugged.

“Text me later, I gotta get to class. I’ll uh- we’ll have a proper talk either today or tomorrow, okay?” Jared said. Evan nodded.

“Tonight, yeah…” Evan said. Jared smiled and patted Evan on the back before turning to leave.

“Hey Jared?” Evan said. “Do you uh, wanna sign my cast?”

“Do you have a sharpie?” Jared asked, turning back around.

“Oh uh… no I don’t… Guess I should have thought about that,” Evan laughed awkwardly.

“Tonight… when we talk, I’ll bring a sharpie,” Jared said. Evan nodded.

Guess he and Jared were talking tonight. Evan watched as Jared walked away, tucking his uncasted hand into his pocket.

Evan sighed and made his way to his first class, sitting down in the back of the room. He sent Connor a quick text, explaining that he told Jared they met at Ellison a week before he broke his arm, and then sent another text to let him know he was going to the library for lunch.

His classes were boring, but they were classes. At least he was finally learning something new now that the day had moved on. His morning classes were fine, considering he had actually been there yesterday for them. The teachers thought nothing of him. They never did. He wondered what or if anything would happen once he got to his classes after lunch.

Once the bell rang at the end of third period, Evan took his time. Alana usually sat in the library for lunch, so he hoped that was where she was going to end up. He took his time to get there, just so she could have a chance to sit down before Evan came bombarding her with apologies and conversation.  

Evan took a deep breath as he approached the library, mentally preparing himself to go in there. He didn’t even know if Alana was going to be in there.

“Evan?” Zoe’s voice came from behind him.

Evan turned around and looked at Zoe. Her hair was tossed up in a messy bun and she wore almost what looked like pyjamas. She looked like she hadn’t slept, but she still looked happy.

‘You’re Evan right? Connor’s… boyfriend,” Zoe said.

“Yes uh, yeah that’s me,” Evan said.

Zoe smiled softly before taking a step forward and hugging him tightly. She pulled away quickly.

“I uh… just wanted to thank you,” Zoe said. “I thought Connor… We all thought- he probably told you but… when my Mom found out he was okay… and with someone … She probably cried more than she did while we were looking for him,” she said with a small laugh at the end.

“You don’t need to thank me-”

“But I do. Well, on behalf of my parents… I do. Connor’s a problematic child but… his mood has been changing ever so slightly the past week and well, it’s nice to know it’s because he found someone… like you. You’re a good influence and… he apologized to me earlier? He’s never done that- and I have no idea whether or not you assisted at all in that but… It’s nice to know there’s people out there willing to give people like my brother a chance,” Zoe rambled.

Evan smiled and shrugged.

“I uh, Connor means well… he does… he just, really needs some help and support,” Evan said. Zoe nodded.

“I get that- I do,” Zoe said. “I just, always saw him as such a monster… I can’t lie I still do… but he apologized- over the phone of course, but he did. That’s progress and well… that’s all I can ask for.”

Evan stuttered out something incoherent. How was he supposed to reply to that?

“You know… it’s funny… I could have sworn I saw him push you… and lash out on you a few times… maybe last year?” Zoe said. “I just- I don’t get it, really.”

“I uh, don’t think he knows he did that,” Evan said dismissively. “It happened months ago, and I probably egged him on? I uh, I’ve let it go.”

“Oh,” Zoe said quietly. Evan nodded.

“I uh, gotta get going now,” Evan said.

“Of course, of course yeah I uh… I’ll see you around,” Zoe said. Evan nodded.

“Yeah, I’ll see you around.”

Zoe walked off. Evan waited for her to turn a corner before he entered the library.

He looked around, before making his way over to the poetry section. Alana was sitting, hunched over her book, with her back facing Evan.

Evan was tempted to just turn around and leave. Alana could wait until another time, right?

No. No she couldn’t. Not really. He needed to apologize now and make it right.

With a soft sigh, he walked over and stood behind the seat across from Alana. She looked up at Evan, before looking back down to his textbook.

“Can I uh, sit?” Evan asked.

Alana glanced up again and shrugged. Evan sat down, but Alana didn’t say anything else. Evan bit his lip and shifted in his spot.

“I uh, wanted to apologize for yesterday,” Evan said.

“Oh?” Alana replied, looking up from her book and even shutting it. She pushed it to the side and waited for Evan to continue.

“It was rude and I actually really wanted to hear about your summer I just- I had a rough morning and well, I kind of took it out on you when I shouldn’t have,” Evan said.

“It’s okay,” Alana said, though her voice lacked forgiveness. She still sounded a bit disappointed.

Evan opened his mouth to speak, but Alana cut him off.

“You know, I just felt like yesterday was a really good day… and I felt safe approaching you because I thought you would be really nice and supportive and encourage me to talk about my summer, because you always so. I was seriously disappointed… I know I can’t just assume things, but you’re a nice kid… and I just…” Alana said. “I was going to ask if you wanted to eat lunch with me maybe- pathetic I know but whatever.”

“I uh, I do really want to hear about your summer Alana,” Evan said. “Any other day I would have totally uh, listened and… and asked questions and just carried on a nice conversation. I just… the first day of school is always rough for me,” Evan said.

Alana nodded slowly.

“I guess I understand,” she said.

“Will you tell me about your summer now?” Evan said.

“You’re not going to shut me down this time?” Alana asked. Evan shook his head.

She smiled and hesitated before bursting into the same giant paragraph about her summer and all the places she volunteered at, and then rambled about how she spent a long weekend with her family at their lake cabin, and how her seven siblings all stole the family boat and disappeared late at night one night. She laughed about it before going back to talking about her personal achievements.

“That’s enough about me though, how was your summer?” she asked.

Evan shrugged.

“I uh, broke my arm and got a boyfriend so uh, nothing exciting,” Evan joked. She rolled her eyes and smiled.

“That’s exciting- the boyfriend part, I mean. I actually had my eyes on someone who volunteered at the shelter with me over the summer but I barely have time to shower with my schedule little lone carry a relationship,” Alana said.

“You should uh, always make time for friends and relationships,” Evan said. Alana shrugged.

“I like how my life is going right now,” she said. “How’d you break your arm?”

“I fell out of a tree, actually. I uh, worked at Ellison park over the summer and uh… fell,” Evan said. She frowned, and then launched into the story about her grandma.

“Can I sign your cast? It looks like of lonely,” Alana said. Evan smiled softly.

“If you have a sharpie… I don’t have one right now,” Evan said. Alana smiled and nodded before grabbing a pencil case from her bag.

“Black, red or gold?” she asked.

“Whatever you want,” Evan replied.

Alana used the red one, signing her name in small letters along the edge of the cast, right where she did before. It almost looked like she was trying to make her name as hidden as possible. Evan smiled as she put the sharpie away and thanked her. She should have written it bigger, it wasn’t like any more people were going to sign it. Besides Jared, at least, but that wasn’t a guarantee.

They talked until the bell rang, and then Evan made sure to get her number as the two packed up their things. She still seemed a bit weary of everything, but she gave it to him with a smile and a promise to text him later.

He hoped Alana had forgiven him. Like Jared had said, there were probably worse things he could have told Alana yesterday, and everything he did say was forgivable.

The person he was worst to was his mother, without a doubt. Unlike Jared and Alana, he was rude to her throughout the day.

He made it through his next two periods, both teachers asking him where he was yesterday. He took the sheets he missed from the previous class and told his teachers that he had a doctor’s appointment.

When he entered his last period, English, he made his way to the back of the class where he usually sat. He had Mrs Crumble last year, and would probably be put in his same seat if she had bothered with making a seating plan.

Just after the bell, Connor walked in. Mrs Crumble gave him a small nod before he turned to find a seat. Their eyes locked and Connor smiled, before walking right over to Evan.

Maybe Evan was crazy, but he could have sworn he heard someone say “ did he just smile? ”

“Hey stranger,” Connor said as he pulled out a tattered notebook from his bag.

“I didn’t know we had english together,” Evan said. Connor shrugged.

“Neither did I,” he laughed.

“We lived the first day of school for what, two weeks, and we never found out we had english together,” Evan said humorously.

“Yeah,” he laughed. “I never came to any of the english classes.”

“Connor, Evan. It’s been not five minutes since class started… and neither of you were here yesterday. Don’t make me separate you two,” Mrs Crumble said from the front of the class.

The blood drained from Evan’s face as Connor just chuckled, shaking off her comment as the two decided to actually pay attention.

Connor drove Evan home at the end of the day, with Zoe sitting in the backseat. They all made small talk, though it was kind of awkward and tense. Connor kissed Evan on the cheek before Evan got out of the car and made his way up to his house. He watched as Zoe got into the front seat and waved goodbye. Connor didn’t drive away until Evan got inside his house.

Heidi was sitting on the couch with a cup of tea when Evan walked in the door. She glanced behind her shoulder before turning off the tv and setting her tea down.

“How was school?” she asked, standing up and turned to face Evan. “Did you make it through the entire day this time?”

Evan cringed at the slight bitterness in her voice.

“Mom, I’m sorry,” he said. Her expression immediately softened.

“For?” she asked.

“For… being so cold and rude and… I said some mean things and you didn’t deserve any of it,” Evan said. “I was stressed a-and Connor and I had fought the night before and I took it out on you and I shouldn’t have.”

Heidi smiled softly and opened her arms. Evan stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her, hugging Heidi as tightly as he could.

“I love you… a lot mom and I appreciate everything you do and I understand why you sometimes take extra shifts and why sometimes I never get a chance to see you for a week and I am just so sorry,” Evan muttered into his shoulder.

“You know… I prepared a whole speech for you… about when your father left and why I'm trying my best… you don't need that though,” she said softly. “I forgive you Evan… I do.”

“You didn’t deserve that,” Evan said. She rubbed his back and hummed.

“We get a lot of things we don’t deserve…” Heidi said softly. “But some of these things come for a reason and we’ve got to move on from that.”

Evan nodded and held her closer. They stood there in silence, Evan not letting her pull away from their hug for what seemed like minutes.

“Evan, baby we need to talk about what you said yesterday…” Heidi said softly, finally pulling away from Evan. She gave his arm a slight squeeze. Evan’s face fell. They sat down on the couch, Evan shifting uncomfortably, trying to find a way to sit.

“About… I apologized-”

“No Evan… Why do you think no one cares? That- no one would sign your cast? You said you were fine being alone and how it would always be like that,” Heidi said. “Evan I’m not dumb… I think I’ve connected it to what else is going on.”

“I… I just… wasn’t in a good mood and- the night before was hard? It was uh, really hard,” Evan said with a small shrug.

“And then skipping school and therapy?” Heidi asked.

“Connor and I just… needed to get out of school after uh, some things that happened so… we went home and uh, you never told me about therapy,” Evan said.

“What happened at school, Evan?” Heidi asked.

“I… had a breakdown,” Evan said, looking at the floor.

“A break down?” Heidi repeated. Evan shrugged.

“Everything was kind of building up and I uh, I wrote my letter for Dr Sherman but… I unloaded a lot of things… and Connor saw it and uh… we decided just to come back here,” Evan said. Heidi was silent. Evan looked up to see her running a hand through her hair, and then wiping at her eyes.

“What did you say in the letter Evan?” Heidi said softly.

“I uh… thought maybe I could just disappear… and uh, just stop… stop doing things? That no one would notice and uh… how I thought Connor was going to just give up on me, after uh, after what happened last night… and I just… I’m sorry mom, ” he said, his voice breaking at the end.

“Come here Evan,” she said, gesturing towards herself. Evan crawled across the couch and hugged her again.  Evan let out a small sob, before muffling it by burying his head into Heidi’s shoulder.

“I had no idea you felt that way…” she said softly.

“ I’m sorry… ” Evan whimpered.

“Don’t be… don’t be… Evan… I love you baby, to the moon and back and I’m not going anywhere. I am always going to be here… I’m just a phone call away, you know that right?” she said. Evan nodded into her chest.

“Are you going to…”

“No,” Evan interrupted. “No, no no no… never … I just… life is so hard,” he said with a sad laugh. Heidi sighed softly and kissed his forehead.

“I know baby, I know,” Heidi said. “It’ll get better… I promise you it will…”  

“I know,” Evan said. “I know it will…I just-”

“It’s okay… we don’t need to talk about this anymore but… you do need to talk to Dr Sherman, okay? He’ll… he’ll help you and I’ll even come with you to talk to him… but… you can’t keep these things bottled up,” she said. Evan nodded slowly, holding back a sob as he pulled away to look at his mom.

“I love you,” Evan said. She smiled and stroked the side of Evan’s face.

“I love you too, Evan.”

Evan smiled softly, sniffed, and then went back into hugging her.

Evan felt safe and loved. Yesterday wasn’t the best of days. It kind of sucked, but he was okay now. His mom loved him, Connor was alive and didn’t want to die, Alana and Jared both accepted his apology and well… he might have made friends.

He would never be able to tell anyone about what happened. No one but Connor would understand. That was going to make things hard, but he would get through it. He would be okay. This time loop was hard to live through, and he may never know why it happened, but he was okay with that.

He walked away from this experience with a new understanding of the people around him, and he walked away with Connor… Connor alive, and wanting to make a difference and fix his situation. Connor who wanted to be with him.

Evan used to live the day over and over again, figuratively floating through life. Then, it became literal and it was hell. Now though, well it was too soon to say, but Evan was hoping each day was a new adventure.

He wanted to live to see tomorrow.

He wanted to make each day count.

Chapter Text

Evan hummed softly as he curled up closer to Connor. It was raining outside and the two were curled up on Connor’s couch. Connor had just sat back down from adding another log onto the small fire in his fireplace, and however short the absence was, Evan missed him laying next to him. In the corner, a christmas tree glistened, despite it being halfway through november. In the background, reruns of The Office played, though was left mostly ignored.

They were alone for the first time in weeks. Evan had accidently made a pretty strong friend group of him, Connor, Jared, Alana and surprisingly Zoe, and the five of them were all almost glued to the hip. However, tonight Zoe and Alana were out, and Jared was off doing who knows what. Connor’s parents were gone too, so it was just them and the fire.

During the first week of being out of the loop, Evan and Connor had tried to figure out what was going on with everyone's deja vu and memories from the previous timelines. Most of Zoe's were all as vague memories, a lot about Connor being nicer to her throughout the loop. Some of them were just kind of feelings. 

Alana was a mix too, most were just kind of feelings she had about Evan- like making assumptions about him that were right, he had just told her about it during one of the loops date. 

Jared was interesting. He was the one that Evan talked to the most throughout it all. He was never really serious, so it was hard to try and figure out what was going on with him. Evan just decided most of Jared’s deja vu moments were just that. Deja vu. 

They had no answers and they decided not to dwell on how their friends still remembered some things. It was too much of a headache and well, they were okay now. 

Evan rubbed his arm, finally decasted after ten long weeks- well, twelve if you counted the several first days of school. It was nice to finally have it off, but it was kind of weird. It was filled with names and reminders of all of his friends, but now it was gone.

Connor and Jared had to slap some sense into him after he stressed about losing everyone since he didn’t have his cast anymore. Just to reaffirm the fact that they weren’t going anywhere, Connor and Jared scribbled their names on Evan’s bare arm. The ink was still there, despite it being three days later. Faded, but there.

“Have I ever told you how wonderful you are?” Evan asked as he traced Connor’s fading name on his arm. Connor chuckled and rested his head on his shoulder.

“Just a few times yeah,” he laughed. Evan smiled and shifted to kiss him. “When you're tired you tend to ramble a lot about how much you love me and how perfect I am.” Connor chucked as Evan blushed, hiding his face in his chest.

“Yeah well judging by the way you talked over the phone you needed it,” Evan teased, kissing his nose. Connor fell silent, Evan frowned slightly. He knew what Connor was thinking.

“What happened that night?” Evan asked.

“What night?” Connor replied. Evan shrugged.

“The other day, when the date didn’t change until three am?” Evan asked. “Why do you think the loop was about to start again?”

“My parents and I got into a fight… I relapsed a bit… I think the universe was trying to remind me what could happen,” Connor said with a playful laugh.

“You relapsed?” Evan asked. “Like- on what ?”

“I thought about… you know, for a couple hours but then you picked up my call and… well, I was reminded why I’m staying alive,” Connor said.

Evan rested his head on Connor’s shoulder and laced their fingers together.

“Do you think that’s why that happened in the first place? The time loop was the universe’s way of telling us that it wasn’t our time to go?” Evan asked. “Or well- I guess your time… I uh, you know didn't really-”

“That would make sense,” Connor said, cutting Evan off. Evan smiled softly, glad Connor decided to do that. He was about to go on a long tangent. “It starts when I do something stupid, it ends when I know it was stupid and I decide I don’t want to do said stupid thing anymore.”

Evan chuckled.

“There was probably better ways of phrasing that, but yeah, that’s what I meant,” Evan said. Connor chuckled and Evan closed his eyes.

“We’re probably never going to get answers, you know…” Connor trailed off.

“I know,” Evan said shortly. “I’m glad it worked out the way it did though…”

“I am too,” Connor replied. Evan smiled and nuzzled into Connor’s shoulder. Connor yawned and the two shifted to lay down with Evan laying on top of Connor.

“Do you think it will happen again?” Evan asked. “The time loop?”

“Let’s just hope we don’t give the universe a reason to,” Connor replied. Evan smiled and nodded before kissing Connor softly.

“Let's just hope.”