Archive of Our Own ^beta

I made my exit.

Better to burn out, right, than to fade away? Kurt Cobain said that in his letter. I watched a video about all the famous ones. Ernest Hemingway. Robin Williams. Virginia Woolf. Hunter S. Thompson. Sylvia Plath. David Foster Wallace. Van Gogh. I’m not comparing myself—trust me. Those people actually made an impact. I did nothing. I couldn’t even write a note.

Burning is the right way to paint it. You feel yourself getting so hot, day after day. Hotter and hotter. It gets to be too much. Even for stars. At some point they fizzle out or explode. Cease to be. But if you’re looking up at the sky, you don’t see it that way. You think all those stars are still there. Some aren’t. Some are already gone. Long gone. I guess, now, so am I.

My name. That was the last thing I wrote. On another kid’s cast. Not quite a goodbye note. But hey, I made my little mark. On a broken limb. Seems about right. Poetic if you think about it.

And thinking is just about all I can do now.

That’s how all my letters begin. First the Dear part, because that’s just what you write at the top of any letter. That’s standard. Next comes the name of the person you’re writing to. In this case, it’s me. I’m writing to myself. So, yeah, Evan Hansen.

Evan is actually my middle name. My mom wanted me to be Evan and my dad wanted me to be Mark, which is his name. My dad won the battle, according to my birth certificate, but my mom won the war. She has never called me anything other than Evan. As a result, neither has my dad. (Spoiler alert: My parents are no longer together.)

I’m only Mark on my driver’s license (which I never use), or when I’m filling out job applications, or when it’s the first day of school, like today. My new teachers will call out “Mark” during attendance, and I will have to ask each one to please call me by my middle name. Naturally, this will have to be done when everyone else has vacated the room.

There are a million and ten things from the subatomic to the cosmic that can rattle my nerves on a daily basis, and one of those things is my initials. M.E.H. Like the word: meh. Meh is basically a shoulder shrug, and that pretty much sums up the reaction I get from society at large. As opposed to the surprise of oh. Or the wow of ah. Or the hesitation of uh. Or the confusion of huh. Meh is pure indifference. Take it or leave it. Doesn’t matter. No one cares. Mark Evan Hansen? Meh.

But I’d rather think of myself as eh, which is more like seeking approval, waiting for confirmation. Like, How about that Evan Hansen, eh?

My mom says I’m a true Pisces. The symbol for a Pisces is two fish tied together trying to swim in opposite directions. She’s into all that astrology crap. I installed an app on her phone that displays her daily horoscope. Now she’ll leave me handwritten messages around the house, saying things like: Step outside your comfort zone. Or she’ll cram the day’s message into our conversations: Take on a new challenge. A business venture with a friend looks promising. It’s all nonsense if you ask me, but I guess, for my mom, her horoscopes give her some hope and guidance, which is what my letters are supposed to give me.

Positive outlook yields positive experience. That’s the basic concept behind this letter-writing assignment.

I tried to get out of it at first. I told Dr. Sherman, “I don’t think a letter to myself is going to help much. I wouldn’t even know what to write.”

He perked up, leaning forward in his leather chair instead of casually sitting back as he usually did. “You don’t have to know. That’s the point of the exercise. To explore. For example, you could start with something like, ‘Today is going to be an amazing day, and here’s why.’ Then go from there.”

Sometimes I feel like therapy is total bullshit, and other times I think the real problem is that I can never get myself to fully buy in.

Anyway, I ended up taking his advice—verbatim. (One less thing to think about.) Because the rest of the letter is tricky. The first line was just an opening statement, and now I have to support that statement in my own words. I have to prove why today is going to be an amazing day when all evidence suggests otherwise. Every day that came before today was definitely not amazing, so why would I think today would be any different?

Truth? I don’t. So, it’s time to power up my imagination, make sure that every single molecule of creativity is wide awake and pitching in. (It takes a molecular village to write an amazing pep talk.)

Because today all you have to do is just be yourself. But also confident. That’s important. And interesting. Easy to talk to. Approachable. And don’t hide, either. Reveal yourself to others. Not in a pervy way, don’t disrobe. Just be you—the true you. Be yourself. Be true to yourself.

The true me. What does that even mean? It sounds like one of those faux- philosophical lines you’d hear in a black-and-white cologne commercial. But okay, whatever, let’s not judge. As Dr. Sherman would say, we’re here to explore.

Deep breath.

I reach into my bedside drawer. I already took my Lexapro this morning, but Dr. Sherman says it’s fine to take an Ativan, too, if things get really overwhelming. I swallow the Ativan down, relief on the way.

That’s the problem with writing these letters. I start off on a direct route, but I always end up taking detours, wandering into the sketchy neighborhoods of my brain where nothing good ever happens.

“So you just decided not to eat last night?”

It’s my mom, standing over me, holding the twenty-dollar bill I didn’t use.

I shut my laptop and shove it under my pillow. “I wasn’t hungry.”

“Come on, honey. You need to be able to order dinner for yourself if I’m at work. You can do it all online now. You don’t even have to talk to anyone.”

But see, that’s not true, actually. You have to talk to the delivery person when they come to the door. You have to stand there while they make change and they always pretend like they don’t have enough singles, so you’re forced to decide on the spot whether to tip less than you planned or more, and if you tip less, you know they’ll curse you under their breath as they walk away, so you just tip them extra and you end up poor.

“Don’t be sorry. It’s just, this is what you’re supposed to be working on with Dr. Sherman. Talking to people. Engaging. Not avoiding.”

Didn’t I just write that exact thing in my letter? About revealing myself? Not hiding? I know all this already. I don’t need her to keep repeating it. It’s like the sweaty-hands thing; the more you acknowledge the problem, the worse it gets.

Now she’s circling my bed, arms crossed, scanning the room like it’s somehow different from when she was last in here, like there’s a new answer to the great Evan conundrum waiting on my dresser or hanging on my wall that she can finally find if she looks hard enough. Believe me, considering how much time I spend in this room, if the answer were in here, I would have spotted it already.

I slide my legs off the bed and pull on my sneakers.

“Speaking of Dr. Sherman,” she says. “I made you an appointment with him for this afternoon.”

“Today? Why? I’m seeing him next week.”

“I know,” she says, staring down at the twenty in her hands. “But I thought maybe you could use something a little sooner.”

Because I chose to skip dinner one night? I should have just pocketed the money so she wouldn’t have known, but that would be like stealing from her, and karma’s a bitch.

Maybe it’s more than just the unused twenty. Maybe I’m giving off an extra-worrisome vibe that I’m unaware of. I stand up and check myself in the mirror. I try to see what she sees. Everything looks to be in order. Shirt buttons are lined up. Hair has been tamed. I even took a shower last night. I haven’t been taking as many showers lately because it’s such a pain to have to cover my cast, first with the plastic wrap, then the shopping bag and duct tape. It’s not like I get dirty anyway. Ever since breaking my arm, I basically just sequester myself in my room all day. Besides, nobody at school will be paying attention to how I look.

“What happened to all your pins?” she says.

I turn and face the map on the wall. When I started working at Ellison State Park this summer, I got into the idea of trying to hike all the best trails in the country: Precipice Trail in Maine, Angel’s Landing in Utah, Kalalau Trail in Hawaii, Harding Icefield in Alaska. I had them all marked on my map with different colored pins. But after how the summer ended, I decided to take them all down—except one.

“I thought I’d focus on one at a time,” I say. “The first one I’m hoping to do is West Maroon Trail.”

“And that’s in Colorado?” my mom asks.

She can see it on the map, but still, she needs confirmation. I give it to her. “Yes.”

The breath she takes is painfully showy. Her shoulders practically lift up and touch her ears before they drop down even lower than they hung before. Colorado is where my dad lives. Dad is a word you have to be careful about using in our house, and the same goes for any word that makes you think of my dad, like Mark or, in this case, Colorado.

Mom turns away from the map and presents me with a face that is meant to be brave and carefree but looks exactly not those things. She’s wounded but still standing. That makes two of us. “I’ll pick you up right after school,” she says. “Have you been writing those letters Dr. Sherman wants you to do? The pep talks? You really have to keep up with those, Evan.”

I used to write a letter every single day, but over the summer I slacked off. I’m pretty sure Dr. Sherman told my mom, which is why she’s been nagging me about them lately. “I was just working on one,” I tell her, relieved to not have to lie.

“Good. Dr. Sherman is going to want to see it.”

“I know. I’ll finish it at school.”

“Those letters are important, honey. They help you build your confidence. Especially on the first day of school.”

Ah, yes. Another clue for why she thought today in particular warranted a visit to Dr. Sherman.

“I don’t want another year of you sitting home alone on your computer every Friday night. You just have to find a way to put yourself out there.”

I’m trying. It’s not like I’m not trying.

She spots something on my desk. “Hey, I know.” She pulls a Sharpie from the cup. “Why don’t you go around today and ask the other kids to sign your cast? That would be the perfect icebreaker, wouldn’t it?”

I can’t think of anything worse. That’s like panhandling for friends. Maybe I should find an emaciated puppy to sit on the corner with me, really dial up the sympathy.

It’s too late. She’s in my face. “Evan.”

“Mom, I can’t.”

She presents the Sharpie. “Seize the day. Today is the day to seize the day.”

This sounds like a horoscope. “You don’t have to add ‘today.’ ‘Seize the day’ already means ‘seize today.’”

Without meeting her eyes, I sigh and take the Sharpie. “Eh.”

She heads for the door, and just when I think I’m in the clear, she turns with an uneasy smile. “I’m proud of you already.”

“Oh. Good.”

Her smile sags a bit, and she walks off.

What am I supposed to say? She tells me she’s proud, but her eyes tell a different story. She ponders me like I’m a stain on the tub she can’t wipe clean no matter what product she uses. Proud of me? I don’t see how that’s possible. So, let’s just keep lying to each other.

It’s not like I totally mind the sessions with Dr. Sherman. Sure, our conversations are scheduled, inorganic, and typically one-sided, but there’s some comfort in sitting down and talking with another human being. You know, besides my mom, who’s so busy with work and classes that she’s hardly ever around and who never quite hears what I’m saying even when she’s listening (and is also my mom). I call my dad every once in a while, on the few occasions where I have news worth sharing. But he’s pretty busy. The problem with talking to Dr. Sherman, though, is I’m bad at it. I sit there, struggling to squeeze out even the simplest monosyllabic answers. I assume that’s why he suggested I write these letters to myself. He told me it might be a better way of extracting my feelings and could also help me learn to be a little easier on myself, but I’m pretty sure it makes things easier for him, too.

I open my computer and read what I’ve written so far.

Dear Evan Hansen,

Sometimes these letters do the opposite of what they’re intended to do. They’re supposed to keep my glass half full, but they also remind me that I’m not like everyone else. No one else at my school has an assignment from their therapist. No one else even has a therapist, probably. They don’t snack on Ativan. They don’t shift and fidget when people come too close to them, or talk to them, or even look at them. And they definitely don’t make their mother’s eyes well up with tears when they’re just sitting there not doing anything.

I don’t need reminding. I know I’m not right. Believe me, I know.

Today is going to be an amazing day.

Maybe—if I just stay here in my bedroom, then it might actually come true.

Yeah. Sure. Okay.

I’m finished at my locker, but I’m still standing here, pretending to look for something. There’s too much time before the bell rings, and if I shut my locker now, I’ll be forced to hang around. I’m awful at hanging around. Hanging around requires confidence and the right clothing and a bold but casual stance.

Robbie Oxman (aka Rox) is a master hanger-arounder, always whipping his hair out of his face and keeping his legs shoulder-distance apart. He even knows what to do with his hands: four fingers inside his jean pockets and thumbs through his belt loops. Brilliant.

I want to do what Dr. Sherman and my mother keep asking me to do —engage—but it’s not in my DNA. When I walked onto the bus this morning, everyone was either talking to their friends or staring down at their phones. What am I supposed to do? Fact: I once did a search for “how to make friends” and I clicked on one of the videos that came up and I swear I didn’t realize until the very end that I was watching a car commercial.

That’s why I prefer to keep my back to everything. Unfortunately, I have to head to class now.

I shut my locker and command my body to rotate exactly 180 degrees. I keep my head low enough to avoid eye contact but high enough to see where I’m going. Kayla Mitchell is showing off her Invisalign to Freddie Lin. (I could ask one of them to sign my cast, but no offense, I don’t need signatures from kids who register as low as I do on the relevance meter.) I pass by The Twins (not actually related; they just dress alike) and the Russian Spy. (At least I don’t have a nickname—that I know of.) Vanessa Wilton is talking on the phone, probably to her agent. (She’s been in local commercials.) Up ahead, two jocks are literally wrestling on the ground. And there’s Rox outside Mr. Bailey’s class. He’s got one thumb in his belt loop and the other hand on Kristen Caballero’s waist. Last I heard, Kristen was with Mike Miller, but he graduated last year. On to the next, I see. They’re making out now. It’s very wet. Don’t stare.

I make a pit stop at the water fountain. I’ve already forgotten the plan: Let people see you. How am I supposed to do that? Carry around sparklers? Hand out free condoms? I’m just not the seize-the-day type.

Over the running water, I hear a voice. I think the voice could possibly be talking to me. I stop drinking. There is indeed a person standing next to me. Her name is Alana Beck.

“How was your summer?” she says.

Alana sat in front of me in precalc last year, but we never spoke. Are we speaking now? I’m not convinced. “My summer?”

“Mine was productive,” Alana says. “I did three internships and ninety hours of community service. I know, wow.”

“Yeah. That’s, wow. That’s—”

“Even though I was so busy, I still made some great friends. Or, well, acquaintances, more like. There was this girl named Clarissa, or Ca-rissa—I couldn’t hear her that well. And then Bryan with a y. And my adviser at National Black Women’s Leadership Training Council, Miss P. And also...”

The only time I heard Alana’s voice last year was when she was asking or answering questions, which she’d do incessantly. Mr. Swathchild would ignore her hand at first until he realized it was the only hand up and he had no choice but to call on her—again. She’s got a bravado I’ll never have, not to mention a very committed smile, but in another way Alana Beck and I have a lot in common. Even with her class participation and her gigantic backpack always slamming into people, she goes around this school the same way I do: unnoticed.

Seize the day, Mom says. Fine, here goes. I lift my cast up. “Do you maybe want to—”

“Oh my god,” Alana says. “What happened to your arm?”

I unzip my backpack and dig around for my Sharpie. “I broke it. I was—”

“Oh, really? My grandma broke her hip getting into the bathtub in July. That was the beginning of the end, the doctors said. Because then she died.”

“Oh... that’s terrible.”

“I know, right?” she says, her smile never wavering. “Happy first day!”

She turns and her backpack knocks the Sharpie out of my hand. I bend down to pick it up, and when I’m upright again, Alana is gone and Jared Kleinman is in her place.

“Is it weird to be the first person in history to break their arm from jerking off too much, or do you consider that an honor?” Jared says much too loudly. “Paint me the picture. You’re in your bedroom. Lights off. Smooth jazz in the background. You’ve got Zoe Murphy’s Instagram up on your weird, off-brand phone.”

Jared and I have a history. His mother sells real estate. She’s the one who found my mom and me a new place to live after my dad left. For a few years there, the Kleinmans would have us at their swim club in the summertime, and we’d go to their house for dinner, once for Rosh Hashanah. I even went to Jared’s bar mitzvah. “Do you want to know what really happened?” I ask.

“Not really,” Jared says.

Something’s driving me to say it, to share it with someone, maybe just to set the record straight. No, I was not stalking Zoe Murphy’s Instagram. Not on this particular occasion. “What happened is, I was climbing a tree and I fell.”

“You fell out of a tree? What are you, like, an acorn?”

“You know how I was working as an apprentice park ranger this summer?”

“No. Why would I know that?”

“Well, anyway, I’m sort of a tree expert now. Not to brag. But I saw this incredible forty-foot-tall oak tree and I started climbing it and then I just...”

“Fell?” Jared says.

“Yeah, except it’s a funny story, because there was this solid ten minutes after I fell when I was just lying there on the ground, waiting for someone to come get me. ‘Any second now,’ I kept saying to myself. ‘Any second now, here they come.’”

“Did they?”
“No. Nobody came. That’s what’s so funny.”
“Jesus Christ.”
He looks embarrassed for me. But hey, I’m in on the joke. I know how pathetic it sounds that I waited there on the ground for someone to come and help me. I’m trying to have a laugh at my own inadequacy, but as usual, my delivery is way off. There’s a lot going on in my head right now. Grandmothers are passing away and I’ve got dark spots on my shirt from the fountain spraying everywhere, and I still haven’t made it to first period, where I’ll have to answer to “Mark” for at least forty-five minutes.

This is what I get for trying to have a conversation with Jared Kleinman, who once laughed during a lesson on the Holocaust. He swore he was laughing at something unrelated to the horrific black-and-white photos that the rest of us were gasping at, and I believe him, I guess, but still, I’m pretty sure the guy doesn’t have a conscience.

Jared hasn’t walked away yet, so I ask a question that I stole straight from Alana Beck’s mouth. “How was your summer?”

“Well, my bunk dominated in capture the flag and I got to second-base- below-the-bra with this girl from Israel who’s going to, like, be in the army. So, yeah, does that answer your question?”

“Actually.” The Sharpie is still in my hand. I don’t know why I’m even bothering with this cast-signing thing, but here I go anyway. “Do you want to sign my cast?”

He laughs. He laughs right in my face. “Why are you asking me?”

“I don’t know. Because we’re friends?”

“We’re family friends,” Jared says. “That’s a whole different thing and you know it.”

Is it? I’ve played video games on Jared’s basement couch. I even changed out of my bathing suit in front of him. He’s the one who informed me that it’s not normal to wear your underwear under your bathing suit. Fine, we don’t hang out like that anymore, and we only ever spent time together with our families around, but those memories still count for something, right? A family friend is still a friend, technically.

“Tell your mom to tell my mom I was nice to you or else my parents won’t pay for my car insurance,” Jared says, and walks away.

Jared is a dick, but he’s my dick—I mean, no, that’s not what I mean, not like that. I just mean that he’s not the worst ever. He acts like he’s the shit, but he’s not totally convincing. His tortoiseshell glasses and beach-bum shirts don’t quite fit him right, and the oversize headphones he keeps around his neck aren’t even plugged in. That being said, his whole look is far better than

I could pull off.

I make it to class just as the bell rings and find a seat. (I prefer to be in the row closest to the door at the back of the room, out of sight and near the exit.) As I’m getting situated, I feel a slight sense of accomplishment. No names yet on my cast, but I’ve already interacted with more people than I did the entire first month of school last year. How’s that for seizing the day?

Who knows? Maybe this will be an amazing day after all.

First period was fine, meaning nothing terrible happened. Same for my next few classes. All name corrections from Mark to Evan were successful. I was feeling decent, even positive.

But then, lunch.

I’ve never loved lunch. There’s not enough structure. Everyone’s free to go where they please, and where they please is nowhere near me. I tend to claim a spot at a forgotten corner table with the other randoms, force-feeding myself the SunButter and jelly sandwich I’ve packed in my bag every day for a decade. (What I eat is the only thing about lunch I can control.) But sitting in the corner now feels like hiding, and I promised myself I wouldn’t hide. Not today.

I spot Jared carrying his tray through the food line. He usually sits by himself and codes on his laptop. I wait for him at the cash register. He’s thrilled to see me.

“You again?” Jared says.

My instinct is to let him walk away, but for once I tell my instinct to fuck off. “I was thinking maybe I could sit with you today?”

Jared looks about ready to vomit. Before he can officially deny me, he disappears behind a dark shroud. Passing between us is the mysterious creature known as Connor Murphy. Connor cuts through our conversation, head low, unaware of his surroundings. Jared and I watch him go.

“Love the new hair length,” Jared mumbles to me. “Very school-shooter chic.”

I cringe.

Jared may be brazen but he’s not stupid. “I was kidding,” he tells Connor. “It was a joke.”

“Yeah, no, it was funny,” Connor says. “I’m laughing. Can’t you tell?”

Jared isn’t looking so cocky anymore.

“Am I not laughing hard enough for you?” Connor says.

Jared begins to laugh nervously, which makes me laugh nervously. I can’t help it.

“You’re such a freak,” Jared says to Connor, darting away. I should be following Jared, but I can’t move my legs.

Connor steps to me. “What the fuck are you laughing at?”

I don’t know. I do stupid things when I’m nervous, which means I’m constantly doing stupid things.

“Stop fucking laughing at me,” Connor says.

“I’m not,” I say, which is true. I’m no longer laughing. I’m officially petrified.

“You think I’m a freak?” “No. I don’t—”
“I’m not the freak.”
“I didn’t—”

“You’re the fucking freak.”

A bomb blast.

I’m on the ground. Connor is standing above.

Not a real bomb. Connor’s two arms, weighed down by all those black bracelets, slammed my chest and knocked me off my feet.

Before he storms off, I see that he looks as shaken as I feel.

•••

I sit up and lift my hands off the floor, the dust from so many sneakers clinging to my moist palms.

“Are you all right?”

I look up. Shock. Double shock. One shock because it’s the second girl who’s spoken to me today. Two shocks because it’s Zoe Murphy. Yes, the one and only.

“I’m fine,” I say.
“I’m sorry about my brother,” she says. “He’s a psychopath.” “Yeah. No. We were just messing around.”

She nods the way my mother might when she’s dealing with a delusional patient (i.e., me). “So,” Zoe says, “is it comfortable down there on the floor or...?”

Oh yeah, I’m on the floor. Why am I still on the floor? I stand up and wipe my hands on my pants.

“Evan, right?” Zoe says.

“Evan?”

“That’s your name?”

“Oh. Yeah. Evan. It’s Evan. Sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” Zoe says.

“Well, just because you said Evan, and then I repeated it. Which is so annoying when people do that.”

“Oh.” She puts out her hand. “Well, I’m Zoe.”

I wave my hand, instead of shaking hers, because of all the dust stuck to my sweaty palm, and I immediately regret doing it. I’ve somehow made this exchange even more awkward than it already was. “No, I know.”

“You know?” Zoe says.

“You apologize a lot.” “I’m sorry.”
Damn.
She lets out a laugh.

I don’t know why I’m so nervous, other than the fact that I’m always nervous and I just got thrown to the ground by a burnout who happens to be related to Zoe by blood. But why does Zoe in particular do this to me? It’s not like she’s this gorgeous, popular girl or anything. She’s just normal. Not normal as in boring. Normal as in real.

I guess it’s because I’ve waited for this moment, the chance to talk to her, for so long. It goes back to the first time I ever saw her perform. I knew she was a year below me. I had seen her around school plenty of times. But I didn’t really see her until that one concert. If you asked anyone else who was in the audience that day—and there weren’t many of us—what they thought of the guitarist’s performance, they probably would have said, “Who?” The horn players were the stars, followed by the super tall bass player and the look-at-me drummer. Zoe, meanwhile, was way off to the side. She didn’t have a solo or anything. She didn’t stand out in any overt way. Maybe it’s because she was in the background that I connected so strongly to her. To me, there was no one else onstage, just this one spotlight shining down on her. I can’t explain why it happened that way, but it did.

I’ve watched her perform many times since. I’ve studied her. I know her guitar is eggshell blue. Her strap has lightning bolts on it and the cuffs of her jeans are covered in stars scribbled in pen. She taps her right foot when she plays and keeps her eyes shut tight, and this sort of half smile forms on her face.

“Do I have something on my nose?” Zoe says. “No. Why?”
“You’re staring at me.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”

I said it again.
Zoe nods. “My lunch is getting cold.”

“Wait,” I say.

She turns back. “What?”

Reveal yourself, Evan. Say something. Anything. Tell her you like Miles Davis or Django Reinhardt, one of those famous jazz guys. Ask her if she likes them, too. Tell her about that documentary you streamed recently about EDM and how you tried to make your own EDM song afterward, and the song was atrocious, obviously, because you have no musical talent. Just give her something to hold on to, a piece of yourself that she can carry with her. Ask her to sign your cast. Do not shy away. Do not be meh. Do not do what you know full well you’re about to do.

I look down at the floor. “Nothing,” I say.

She lingers a moment, and then her toes seem to wave goodbye inside her worn-in Converse as she turns and walks away. I watch her go, step by step.

When I finally get around to eating lunch, I find that the spill I took not only flattened my already-thin ego but also my loyal SunButter and jelly sandwich.

•••

My mom texts me when I’m in the computer lab, asking me to call her. I’m thankful for the interruption. I’ve been staring at a blank screen for twenty minutes now.

I’m trying to finish this letter for Dr. Sherman. When I started seeing him back in April, I’d write a letter every morning before school. It became part of my daily routine. Every week, I’d show Dr. Sherman my letters, and although I didn’t always believe in what I’d written, I felt a sense of accomplishment just seeing him hold that stack of papers in his hands. That was me, right there. My work. My writing. But after a while, Dr. Sherman stopped asking to see my letters, and pretty soon I stopped writing them, too. It’s not like the letters were really working. They weren’t actually changing my mind.

Summer brought a new routine, and writing those letters just wasn’t part of it. Dr. Sherman sensed that I had been skipping my assignments. Now he’s asking to see my letters again, and if I don’t finish this one, I’ll have nothing to show him later today. I’ve been through that before—shown up without a letter when he was expecting one. One time I arrived at a session empty-handed (I’d forgotten my letter at home), and I’ll never forget the look Dr. Sherman gave me. He tried to keep his face neutral, but he couldn’t fool me. After all these years, I’m a wizard at detecting even the slightest hint of disappointment in others, and any amount at all is unbearable.

Of course it sounded good. Fantasies always sound good, but they’re no help when reality comes and shoves you to the ground. When it trips up your tongue and traps the right words in your head. When it leaves you to eat lunch by yourself.

There was one silver lining to the day, though. Zoe Murphy not only talked to me, but she knew who I was. She. Knew. My. Name. As with black holes or stereograms, my brain cannot compute this. As hopeful as I feel after our brief interaction, I worry that I squandered the moment and that there may never be another.

I call my mom. After a few rings, I’m ready to hang up, but then she answers.

“Honey, hi,” she says. “Listen, I know I was supposed to pick you up for your appointment, but I’m stuck at the hospital. Erica called in with the flu, and I’m the only other nurse’s aide on today, so I volunteered to pick up her shift. It’s just, they announced more budget cuts this morning, so anything I can do to show that I’m part of the team, you know?”

Sure, I know. She’s always part of the team. The thing is, she’s supposed to be part of my team. My mom is more like a coach who gives impressive pregame speeches, and then when the whistle blows and it’s time for me to step onto the field, she’s nowhere to be found.

“It’s fine,” I say. “I’ll take the bus.”

“Perfect. That’s perfect.”

Maybe I’ll skip the session with Dr. Sherman. I never asked for it in the first place. I’m finished seizing the day.

“I’m going straight from here to class, so I won’t be home until late, so please eat something. We’ve got those Trader Joe’s dumplings in the freezer.”

“Maybe.”
“Did you finish writing that letter yet? Dr. Sherman’s expecting you to have one.”

“I hope it was a good day, sweetheart.”

“Yeah. It was. Really great.” Just two periods left.

“Great. That’s great. I hope it’s the beginning of a great year. I think we both could use one of those, huh?”

Yes is the answer, but I barely have time to think it, let alone say it. “Shit, honey. I have to run. Bye. I love you.”
Her voice disappears.

I’m left with a loneliness so overpowering it threatens to seep from my eyes. I have no one. Unfortunately, that’s not fantasy. That’s all-natural, 100 percent organic, unprocessed reality. There’s Dr. Sherman, but he charges by the hour. There’s my father, but if he really gave a shit he wouldn’t have moved to the other side of the country. There’s my mom, but not tonight, or last night, or the night before. Seriously, when it actually counts, who is there?

In front of me, on my computer screen, is just one name: Evan Hansen. Me. That’s all I have.

I place my fingers on the keyboard. No more lies.

Dear Evan Hansen,

It 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?

Oh, I know, because there’s Zoe. And all my hope is pinned on Zoe. Who I don’t even know and who doesn’t know me. But maybe if I did. Maybe if I could just talk to her, really talk to her, then maybe—maybe nothing would be different at all.

I wish that everything was different. I wish that I was a part of something. I wish that anything I said mattered, to anyone. I mean, let’s face it: would anybody even notice if I disappeared tomorrow?

Sincerely, your best and most dearest friend,

I don’t even bother reading it back. I hit print and pop up from my chair, feeling energized. Something happened just now when I was writing. What a concept, saying exactly what you feel without stopping to second-guess. I mean, now I’m second-guessing, but as I was writing it and as I was sending it to the printer, no hesitation, just one fluid motion.

Except, it’s pretty clear that the letter should be torn up immediately and thrown in the garbage. I can’t show it to Dr. Sherman. He keeps asking me to seek optimism, and this letter is nothing but hopelessness and despair. I know I’m supposed to share my feelings with Dr. Sherman, and make my mom happy, but they don’t want my actual feelings. They just want me to be okay, or at least say that I am.

I turn around, eager to reach the printer, but instead, I almost run into Connor Murphy. I flinch, preparing for another shove, but he keeps his hands to himself.

“So,” Connor says. “What happened?”
“Excuse me?”
He glances down. “Your arm.”
I look down as if to check what he’s referring to. Oh, this?

“Well,” I say, “I was working as an apprentice park ranger this summer at Ellison Park, and one morning I was doing my rounds, and I saw this amazing forty-foot-tall oak tree, and I started climbing it, and I just—fell. But it’s actually a funny story, because there was a good ten minutes after I fell when I was just lying there on the ground, waiting for someone to come get me. ‘Any second now,’ I kept thinking. ‘Any second now.’ But yeah, nobody came, so...”

Connor just stares at me. Then, realizing I’m finished, he begins to laugh. It’s the reaction I pretended to want from my “funny” story, but now that it’s happening, I have to admit it’s not at all what I was going for. Maybe this is payback for me laughing at Connor before, but something about it doesn’t sound like revenge.

“You fell out of a tree?” Connor says. “That is the saddest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”

I can’t argue with him there.
Maybe it’s the few light whiskers on his chin or the smell of smoke on his hoodie or the black nail polish or the fact that I heard he got expelled from his last school for drugs, but Connor seems like he’s way older than me, like I’m a kid and he’s a man. Which is sort of weird, because standing next to him I realize he’s pretty scrawny, and if he weren’t wearing those boots, I might even be taller than him.

“Take my advice,” Connor says. “You should make up a better story.” “Yeah, probably,” I admit.
Connor drops his gaze to the floor. So do I.
“Just say you were battling some racist dude.” His voice is so quiet. “What?”

“To kill a mockingbird,” he says.

“To kill—oh, you mean the book?”

“Yeah,” Connor says. “At the end, remember? Jem and Scout are running away from that redneck guy. He breaks Jem’s arm. It’s, like, a battle wound.”

Most of us read To Kill a Mockingbird freshman year. I’m just surprised that Connor actually read it, and I’m also surprised that he wants to talk to me about it right now and so calmly.

After collecting his hair behind his ear, he spots something. “No one’s signed your cast.”

I take a hard look at my hard cast: still blank, still pathetic. Connor shrugs. “I’ll sign it.”
“Oh.” My gut says retreat. “You don’t have to.”
“Do you have a Sharpie?”

I want to say no, but my hand betrays me by reaching into my bag and presenting the Sharpie.

Connor bites off the cap and lifts up my arm. I look away, but I can still hear the squeak of the pen against my cast, individual sounds stretching out longer than you’d expect. Connor seems to be treating each letter like its own mini Picasso.

“Voilà,” Connor says, evidently completing his masterpiece.

I look down. There, on the side of my cast that faces the world, stretching the entire length and reaching up to ridiculous heights, are six of the biggest capital letters I’ve ever seen: CONNOR.

“Wow. Thank you. So much.”

He spits the cap into his hand, slides it back onto the tip and hands over the marker. “Now we can both pretend we have friends.”

I’m not exactly sure how to take this comment. How does Connor know that I don’t have friends? Is it because he has no friends and he recognizes me as one of his kind? Or is he just assuming it because no one else has signed my cast? Or, is it possible that he knows something about me? That would mean I made an impression on him. Sure, making an impression on Connor Murphy isn’t ideal, and the impression I made on him isn’t a flattering one, but still, it’s an impression, and if a certain someone were actually trying to follow his therapist’s advice and focus on the bright side, this development could be seen as something of a modest victory.

“Good point,” I say.

“By the way,” Connor says, reaching for a piece of paper tucked under his arm. “Is this yours? I found it on the printer. ‘Dear Evan Hansen.’ That’s you, right?”

I’m screaming inside. “Oh, that? That’s nothing. It’s just this writing thing I do.”

“You’re a writer?”

“No, not really. It’s not, like, for pleasure.”

He reads more and his expression changes. “‘Because there’s Zoe.’” He looks up. A cold stare. “Is this about my sister?”

His lips tighten and I see now that our momentary connection is broken. I step back. “Your sister? Who’s your sister? No, it’s not about her.”

With one menacing stride, he swallows the space between us. “I’m not fucking dumb.”

“I never said you were.”
“But you thought it,” Connor says. “No.”

“Don’t fucking lie. I know what this is. You wrote this because you knew that I would find it.”

“You saw that I was the only other person in the computer lab, so you wrote this and you printed it out so I would find it.”

I look around the lab. “Why would I do that?”

“So I would read some creepy shit you wrote about my sister and freak out, right?”

“No. Wait. What?”
“And then you can tell everyone that I’m crazy, right?” “No. I didn’t—”
He shoves a stiff finger between my eyes. “Fuck you.”

I’m expecting those two words to come with a red exclamation point, something painful, but they actually land weak. He turns around and heads for the exit. He doesn’t think I’m worth the effort. I couldn’t agree more. Anyway, I’m grateful. I’m not sure I could survive another fall today.

The air releases from my lungs, my body loosening. But the relief I feel lasts only a second. As I watch Connor Murphy stalk out, I call after him, but he’s too fast. Clenched in his fist as he slips out the door is a totally different kind of red exclamation point:

he still has my letter.

My foot is a Weedwacker. I’m kicking at a patch of grass that’s overtaken a curb at my bus stop. Underclassmen watch with worry and wonder. I know worry and wonder when I see it. They might take me for a grass hater. Not in the slightest. It’s just that my medication isn’t doing anything for me this morning. I can’t calm down. I’m about to face the firing squad, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

I begged my mom to let me stay home from school, but convincing a nurse that you’re sick demands powers of persuasion I just don’t possess. Truth is, I do feel sick. I checked the time every hour last night. 1:11. 2:47. 3:26. When my alarm finally sounded this morning, it felt like I’d just fallen asleep.

Dr. Sherman wasn’t any help. I ended up going to the session yesterday, took the bus all the way out there after school. I typed up a new letter that sounded upbeat and inoffensive, and watched as Dr. Sherman read it on my laptop without comment.

I did attempt honesty. I spoke in a vague way about a certain issue that I’m struggling with. “Someone took something from me,” I told Dr. Sherman, “something private, and I’m worried what might happen if I don’t get it back.”

“Let’s play this out,” Dr. Sherman said. “If this item isn’t returned to you, what’s the worst that could happen?”

True answer: Connor posts my letter online for the whole school to see, including Zoe, and now everyone knows that I write embarrassingly earnest letters to myself, which is just bizarre and disturbing, and all the days that were already an effort to get through become even more of a slog, and I feel even more alone and inconsequential than I already feel, which I didn’t think was possible when I began my senior year yesterday.

So far, though, from what I can tell, the worst has not happened. Yet. There’s no sign of my letter online. I searched my name and nothing new came up. No one’s talking about it.

Jared Kleinman’s last post: Just gave myself a dutch oven.

Alana Beck wrote: In Africa and Asia, children walk an average of 3.7 miles each day to collect water.

Rox liked a photo of a swimsuit model and started following the breakfast cereal Frosted Flakes.

Another food comes to mind: mashed potatoes. Last year, there was a fight during lunch between Rita Martinez and Becky Wilson. No one knows how it started, but everyone remembers what Rita said to Becky before she jumped on top of her: I’m going to stick these mashed potatoes up your... Rita garbled her last word, so it’s unclear whether she was referring to Becky’s front door or back, but it hardly mattered. A movement began. People started sending mashed potatoes to Becky’s house. They’d mime explicit mashed potato acts at lunch. In our school, if you want someone to back off, you can just say “mashed potatoes.” Or you can use the cloud emoji, which is the closest visual match. The letter that Connor stole from me is my mashed potatoes. It’ll never die if it gets out. It will follow me wherever I go.

The bus turns the corner. I give my foot a break and start to wonder if my concept of the worst that could happen is naive and uninspiring. Maybe I’m not thinking like a true sociopath. What if Connor chose to go a more old- school route? For example, he could have printed up physical copies of my letter and stuffed them inside every student’s locker. Or maybe he’s at school right now, personally handing them out as my classmates enter the building. It makes perfect sense. He thinks my letter was setting him up to look crazy, and now, to get back at me, he will make it clear to everyone at school that the person who’s really crazy here is the one writing weird letters to himself. This guy: Evan Hansen.

I step onto the bus, unsure if it’s the engine that’s rumbling or my insides. No fanfare as I slink down the aisle to my seat. The kid in the row across from me is horizontal, snoring. The bus lumbers forward. T minus ten minutes until my execution.

Or maybe sooner. Laughter draws my eyes away from my phone. Two rows ahead, a kid is cracking up. He leans across the aisle and presents his phone to his buddy. The buddy takes the phone. “No way,” he says to his friend. Now they’re both laughing.

This is it: the worst that could happen. Connor must have timed his attack for precisely this moment, when I was already on my way to school. He really is a maniacal genius. Any second now these kids will turn around and gawk at the saddest loser on the planet.

I close my eyes and prepare to open them to a new nightmare, but all I see when I finally look is the buddy handing the kid’s phone back, and the bus returning to its former quiet.

Later, when I exit the bus, there are no photocopies with my name on them being distributed. No flyers flashing my face. Still, I can’t catch my breath as I walk up the concrete path and through the metal doors of the school. What sort of dark surprise awaits me on the other side?

•••
English: no tragedies. Calculus: no problems. Chemistry: no explosions.

I make it to lunch unscathed. You’d think I’d be relieved, but no, the anticipation is murdering me. I just want it to be over already.

The cafeteria is where my first altercation with Connor occurred. Finishing me off in this same place would provide our saga with a fitting symmetry. Besides, a true showman would want to take advantage of this large and hungry audience.

Which begs the question: Why am I here? To which there is only one answer: I don’t know. The choices always seem to be fight or flight, but I typically end up somewhere in between, doing exactly neither. I stay and I take the beating.

I creep along the back wall, partly searching for a safe table, but mostly scanning the room for Connor. No sign of him. I sit and eat. I try to. My teeth snap into a baby carrot and the sound echoes in my head like a gunshot. I swallow the one piece of carrot, and that’s all I’m hungry for, because as I’m sitting here, something occurs to me. Something unsettling. Not only have I not seen Connor today, but I haven’t seen Zoe, either.

Connor’s absence, by itself, isn’t unusual. But Zoe being out on the very same day? It’s not like the Murphys would’ve scheduled a family vacation in the middle of the first week of school. Zoe doesn’t even seem to get along with Connor, so she probably wouldn’t skip with him. And besides, I can’t remember the last time Zoe missed a day, and yes, this is something I pay attention to. Some people use energy drinks or coffee, but for me, a few glimpses of Zoe is the jolt I need to power through each day. I usually get my fix at least twice, once before homeroom (her locker is down the hall from mine) and then at lunch. I’d love to call her absence a coincidence. On a different day, maybe I could. But not after what happened yesterday. Connor and Zoe both being absent today of all days has to mean something, and not to be a total narcissist, but I have this terrible feeling that that something leads straight back to me.

I hope I’m wrong. Maybe they’re both in school and I just haven’t spotted them yet. Or maybe they both have the flu and that’s why they’re out. A few tables away, Jared is half eating and half computer-staring. I tap him on the shoulder.

“What?” he says without looking up.

“Can I talk to you?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

Understood, but it’s not like I have anyone else to turn to and this is serious. “Have you seen Connor Murphy today? Or Zoe Murphy?”

“Well, well, well. I saw you talking to Zoe yesterday. Finally making the move, eh?”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Do you need help locating the vagina?” Jared says. “I’m sure there’s an app for that.”

He laughs at his own joke. He still hasn’t looked at me (or a vagina, I’m guessing). I scan the cafeteria for my dark nemesis or his much nicer sibling. It’s hard to tell. They could be in here somewhere. I turn back to Jared. “I just want to know if you’ve seen her.”

“No, I haven’t,” Jared says. “But I’ll definitely tell her you’re looking for her.”

“No, please don’t do that.”
He finally looks up. “It’s already done. Don’t mention it.” As I’m leaving, he asks, “Or what?”
“Excuse me?”

He points to my cast. I purposely wore long sleeves today even though it’s, like, ninety degrees out. Only the last two letters of Connor’s name are visible, the O and R. Connor covered so much real estate with his signature I wasn’t able to hide the whole thing.

“Death,” I answer. “Life or death.” I don’t know why I say it, or what it means, but it feels true, and not just today, but always.

•••

My cast is fully exposed in gym. Today is our physical fitness assessment. We take the test once at the beginning of every year and once at the end. Probably my two least favorite days of school.

Ms. Bortel has us in a row on the basketball baseline. Maggie Wendell, the captain of the girls’ varsity soccer team, models each exercise as Ms. Bortel delivers instructions.

I look down at my arm. How am I supposed to do a pull-up? I mean, I can barely do a pull-up when I have two functioning limbs. Forget trying to do it with a cast covering half my hand. Actually, same goes for a push-up. I see my way out of this assessment. Finally this cast shows its silver lining.

When Ms. Bortel is finished with her speech, I walk up to her and display my cast. She seems repulsed by the sight of me, as if merely by standing next to my soft, broken body, her muscles might become infected. I have to admit, it’s impressive, the work Ms. Bortel seems to put into her physique, especially for someone that age, probably older than my mom. Still, I find it a little unfair that she’s judging me without knowing exactly how I sustained my injury. What if I slipped off a roof while building a house for the homeless? Or what if I got injured while battling some racist dude?

Ms. Bortel asks, “Do you have a note for that?” For that. “A note?” I say.
“A doctor’s note.”
“I think my mom emailed it to the office.”

She mutters something that I can’t make out. I do, however, hear her sigh as she sends me off to the bleachers. A few kids of a certain body type watch me with envy.

I manage to dodge one bullet, but the real shooter’s still out there. Okay, I probably shouldn’t joke about shooters, or even think it, but how can I not? We have lockdown drills to prepare just in case there really is an attacker in school. According to the statistics, it’s usually not an outsider, but someone from the community. I sometimes imagine which one of us it would be coming through those doors. It’s a simple process of elimination. In the past, when I’ve cycled through all the possibilities, my wheel of misfortune has, I must admit, on occasion, landed on Connor Murphy.

Honestly, I don’t think Connor has it in him. He’s not actually a violent guy. Sure, he shoved me yesterday at lunch, but that was because of a misunderstanding, just like this business with my letter. Then again, that’s what people always think before something heinous happens. Then, after the fact, they say, Oh, I always had a feeling. Really, though, what do I know about what another person is capable of? I still don’t have a clue what I’m capable of. I keep surprising even myself.

Connor and I were in the same class in first grade. I remember him crying a lot. I never knew why he was crying. I just know that I was never surprised when it happened. That’s what Connor did: he cried. That was a long time ago, and Connor is way different now, but maybe I can find him and talk to him. He’s unpredictable but not unreasonable. I think. If I explain what the letter really is, maybe he’d agree to keep it a secret.

I glance up at the clock behind the basket. The day’s nearly over and the worst has yet to happen. Maybe for once I should really try to heed Dr. Sherman’s advice and choose optimism. Connor could have tossed my letter in the trash right after he took it. Why do I think he cares about me at all? He’s probably off getting high somewhere and has forgotten that I even exist.

All that sounds lovely. Except it still doesn’t explain one thing: Where’s Zoe?

It’s obvious what (probably) happened: Connor showed her the letter and convinced her that I’m some creepy stalker, and the two of them spent the day downtown securing a restraining order against me. They think I’m a threat. Me! Hilarious.

If it wasn’t that exactly, it was something equally disastrous. When the final bell rings, I skip the bus and walk home instead, trying to fend off all the terrible terrors in my head. I reach my house with no recollection of how I got there.

•••

The next day is almost identical, but worse in a cumulative sense. Again, there’s no sign of Connor Murphy. One moment I’m certain he’s about to appear and humiliate me into oblivion, and the next I’m convinced I’ve blown this letter thing way out of proportion. In a single day filled with so many moments, the world ends and it carries on.

Tonight I tried watching a movie about Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who had to flee the United States and seek asylum in a foreign country. Seeing this guy have to live every day of his life in constant fear only amped up my nerves.

If I could just talk to someone. I’ve been stuck with my own thoughts for two straight days now. Dr. Sherman was no help, and even if my mom were home, I couldn’t confide in her about this. I mentally flip through the (very short) list of people I could possibly turn to in my hour of need. There’s really only one name that fits the bill.

Jared Kleinman may laugh at the Holocaust, but on the plus side, at least you never have to guess how he’s feeling. I could use a dose of his unfiltered honesty. I message him and explain what happened with Connor.

I feel like Connor and I were actually having a civil conversation before he read my letter. It seemed like he might’ve even felt bad about pushing me earlier in the day. I mean, he didn’t have to walk over and hand-deliver my letter to me. Or sign my cast. It was sort of classy.

An image appears on my screen, sent from Jared: a gorgeous, razor-thin girl leaning against a brick wall, windswept hair falling over one eye, provocative stare straight into the camera lens.

The only time I’ve ever seen a girl hold out the end of her skirt like that is in a clothing ad. This photo has to be from a catalog or something.

The guidance counselor at school suggested it. Well, sort of. I met with her last year to go over my college plan, and she handed me a list of summer activities that would look good on my applications. Park ranger apprenticeship was really the only thing I thought I might be suited for.

When I told Dr. Sherman about my choice for a summer job, he didn’t give me the reaction I’d been hoping for. He was concerned I was falling into old habits, retreating from the world instead of engaging with it. I admit, that was one of the things that first attracted me to being a park ranger, the idea of being alone with nature. It ended up being much more than that, but Dr. Sherman was right. Spending the summer away from my normal life made it way more stressful when it came time to go back. By mid-August I started to panic about the summer ending and the school year beginning.

Also, I realized that avoiding people didn’t actually ease any of my anxieties. Out there in the woods, I still had to live with myself.

I shut my laptop and re-notice Connor’s name on my cast. It’s like he’s taunting me from afar. I try to scratch the letters away with my nails. Obviously, it’s no use.

I walk to my window. It’s pitch-dark outside. For the most part, I’ve always preferred night to day. At night, it’s okay to be hunkered down in your house. During the day, people expect you to be out and about. You can start to feel pretty guilty about wasting so much time indoors.

But right now, as I’m gazing out into the darkness, I don’t feel any sense of comfort. I notice something out there: a shape. What is that?

What I originally assume is my neighbor’s bush now resembles a figure. The figure just stands there, seeming to look right at me, through my window. I switch off my lamp to see more clearly, but when I turn back, heart racing, the figure, if that’s what I really saw, isn’t there anymore. Totally vanished from sight.

The next morning, in AP English, as Mrs. Kiczek is rattling off the images, characters, and themes she wants us to look out for in “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” an announcement comes over the loudspeaker. Everyone, all at once, turns and looks at me.

I’m already on edge, even more on edge than I usually am, because for the third day in a row, my letter is still not in my possession, nor has it been leaked, nor has the person who stole it shown his face, and neither has his sister. I would call this, what I’m in right now, full-on panic mode, but really I’m not sure I’ve ever felt this particular level of alarm. It’s almost hallucinatory.

Even Mrs. Kiczek is looking at me. It takes more than a few seconds to realize why I’m suddenly the center of the class’s attention: that was my name that was just called over the loudspeaker.

Me? Evan Hansen? I’m not the kind of person who gets called to the principal’s office. Isn’t that saved for, like, delinquents, class clowns, and fuckups? People whose actions affect others? I don’t affect anyone. I’m nonexistent.

“Evan?” Mrs. Kiczek says, confirming that, yes, my ears are in working order. The principal wants to see me. Now.

My level of clumsiness is directly proportionate to the number of people watching. With roughly twenty-five sets of eyes now trained on me, I am squeaking my chair out, ramming it into the desk behind me, kicking the contents of my unzipped backpack onto the floor, and nearly tripping over someone’s foot while making my way through the aisle.

My mind is a slide show of worst-case scenarios as I walk through the empty halls to the main office. The same image, character, and theme run through my mind: letter, Connor, shame. In three years, I’ve had only one interaction with the principal. When I was a sophomore, I placed third in some lame short-story contest and Mr. Howard presented me with an award at one of our general assemblies. My story was based on a childhood fishing trip I took with my dad and was basically a poor rip-off of Hemingway’s “Big Two-Hearted River.” I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Howard had no recollection of that day, because, really, the contest was that forgettable and third place is essentially the same as losing. But why does Mr. Howard want to see me today?

Reaching the office, I try to wipe my palms on my shirt, but they won’t get dry. I give my name to the secretary and she points at the open door behind her. I inch my way toward it like a cop nearing a dark corner. Except I’m not the cop in this scenario. Principal Howard is the cop, which makes me the criminal. Dr. Sherman says that I tend to catastrophize and that nothing is as bad as I imagine it will be, but this right here is proof positive that all my worrying over the past few days was warranted. All the parts of this equation —no Connor plus no Zoe plus my stupid letter plus my getting called to the principal’s office—add up to an amount of humiliation and doom I can’t even compute.

I poke my head into the room. I don’t see Mr. Howard, but there’s a man and woman sitting across from his desk. They look confused by my arrival. There’s nothing important or official about the room, definitely not what I imagined for the headquarters of a principal. But that’s Mr. Howard’s face in all the pictures, so I must be in the right place.

The man is bent over in his chair, elbows on his knees, thick shoulders filling out every inch of his suit jacket. The woman is in a daze, her bloodshot eyes turned in my direction but not quite seeing me.

“Sorry,” I say, because it feels like I’m interrupting something. “They said on the loudspeaker for me to come to the principal’s office?”

“You’re Evan,” the man says. Not a question, but not not a question, so I nod in affirmation.

He sits up and finally takes a proper look at me. “Mr. Howard stepped out. We wanted to speak to you in private.”

He gestures to a free chair. He wants me to sit down. I don’t understand what’s happening. Who are these people? They look a little gloomy for college reps. Not that I have any clue what a college rep actually looks like. It’s just, I heard Troy Montgomery, the star of our football team, had a few college reps come to our school to speak with him. He’s an athlete, though, and apparently a very talented one, and I’m just a kid who placed third in a second-rate short-story contest once. So who are these people and what do they want with me?

I take a seat, even though the voice in my head is telling me to remain standing.

The man adjusts the end of his tie so it falls straight between his legs. “We’re Connor’s parents.”

This is it: the worst that could happen. I waited and waited and it’s finally here. But I still don’t know what it is. Why do Connor Murphy’s parents want to speak to me? And in private?

I can’t believe these are the two people who made Connor Murphy. And Zoe Murphy, for that matter. It’s hard to imagine that both Connor and Zoe came from the same source. Where does Zoe get that hint of red in her hair? And why is Connor so skinny when his father is built like a tank? When you look at my mother and father, I think it’s pretty clear how that combination produced someone who looks like me.

Mr. Murphy places his hand over his wife’s. “Go ahead, honey.”

“I’m going as fast as I can,” she hisses.

I thought it was uncomfortable, when I was younger, watching my own parents argue. Turns out, watching other people’s parents do it is exponentially more awkward. I’m assuming I’m about to learn why both Connor and Zoe have been absent from school the last few days. And if they’re interested in telling me of all people, then this can only relate to my letter. There’s just no other link that connects all three of us.

But it’s interesting, isn’t it, how Mr. Murphy introduced himself and his wife as Connor’s parents, as opposed to Connor and Zoe’s parents. Of course this is about Connor. Of course. The question is: What did he do now?

After a long silence, Mrs. Murphy removes something from her purse and presses it into my palms. “This is from Connor. He wanted you to have this.”

Before even looking, I know what it is. I feel it. My letter—it’s back, finally, in my possession. But I can’t exhale yet. Who knows what path it took to get here and whose eyes it fell under along the way. If Connor “wanted” me to have this, why didn’t he give it to me himself? Where is he?

“We had never heard your name before,” Mr. Murphy says. “Connor never mentioned you. But then we saw ‘Dear Evan Hansen.’”

The thought of Mr. and Mrs. Murphy reading my letter is embarrassing, for sure, but it’s not the same kind of embarrassing as having Connor read it. Or Zoe. That’s what I’m really interested in knowing. Who else saw this letter? And how did it get inside Mrs. Murphy’s purse?

“We didn’t know that you two were friends,” Mr. Murphy says.

I want to laugh. If these people knew the torture I’ve experienced over the last forty-eight-plus hours because of their son, they certainly wouldn’t call us friends.

“We didn’t think Connor had any friends,” he says.

Now, that’s a more accurate observation. From what I can tell, yes, Connor is a true loner. We do have that in common.

“But this note,” Mr. Murphy says, “it seems to suggest pretty clearly that you and Connor were, or at least for Connor, he thought of you as...”

He pauses again. I thought I had trouble getting my words out, but Connor’s parents are really having a difficult time getting to their point.

He gestures to the letter. “I mean, it’s right there: ‘Dear Evan Hansen.’”

I appreciate them returning my possession, but I’d rather not have to talk about what this letter actually says. It’s humiliating enough just sitting here. Maybe it’s humiliating for them, too. Maybe that’s why they seem so agitated. Just like Zoe, they’ve probably had to apologize for Connor a thousand times and they’re just plain tired of it.

At this point, I would very much like to take my letter and get out of here. Unfortunately, Mrs. Murphy has more to say.

“Go ahead, Evan. Read it.”

I don’t have to. I know every single word by heart. I’ve imagined what these exact words would look like running across the ticker display in front of our school. Or reproduced in the school paper. Or written in smoke across the blue sky. I’ve imagined every single possible way that Connor Murphy could use them against me.

I open my mouth for the first time since I entered the room. But I don’t know what to say.

“It’s okay. You can open it. It’s addressed to you,” Mr. Murphy says. “Connor wrote this to you.”

I thought it was me who was confused. Turns out, they’re way more lost than I am. “You think Connor...” Just when I thought this couldn’t get any more uncomfortable, I now have to explain that I am my own pen pal. “No,” I say. “You don’t understand.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Murphy says. “These are the words he wanted to share with you.”

“His last words,” Mr. Murphy adds.

Again, the message doesn’t arrive right away. I look to him. To her. What I understood to be humiliation on their faces a moment ago now, suddenly, resembles something very different.

“I’m sorry. What do you mean, last words?”

Mr. Murphy clears his throat. “Connor is gone.”

I don’t know what that means. Sent to boarding school? Ran away and joined a cult?

“He took his own life,” Mr. Murphy says.

He clenches his jaw. She dabs her eye. Not humiliation. Devastation.

“He... what?” I say. “But I just saw him last night.”

“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Murphy says with new energy in her voice.

“I’m not sure,” I say. “I thought it was him. It was dark.”

“It happened two nights ago,” Mr. Murphy says, seeming to speak more to his wife than to me. “I know it’s a lot to take in.”

I couldn’t sleep last night. I wondered if it had been Connor standing on my neighbor’s lawn, looking into my window. But I guess it was just my imagination. My fear.

I need a minute. I need hours. This isn’t real. This can’t be real.

“The letter is all we found with him,” Mr. Murphy says. “He had it folded up in his pocket.”

I finally look at my letter.

“You can see,” Mr. Murphy says. “He wanted to explain it. It’s all there.”

I read the words on the page. They’re my words, the words I wrote, the words I’ve come to know by heart, but now they feel alien to me. It’s like someone jumbled them up and tried to put them back in the same order, thinking no harm would be done, that it would be the same message, but it’s not the same message. It’s two messages, depending on how you read it, and Connor’s parents are not reading it the way I intended. This letter, my letter— they think Connor wrote it. To me.

Mr. Murphy recites my words from memory. “‘I wish that everything was different. I wish that I was a part of something.’”

“Let him read it by himself, Larry.”

“‘I wish that anything I said mattered—’”

“Larry, please.”

“‘—to anyone.’”

The room goes quiet.

I look around, for what, I’m not sure: help. There’s no one. No sign of Mr. Howard.

I try to speak. I can’t. That familiar rush—panic. It finds me every day, sometimes not so intense, but this right now is enough to overpower all my faculties.

“This letter. It isn’t...”

“Isn’t what?” Mr. Murphy says.

I catch my breath. “Isn’t Connor.”

Mrs. Murphy looks at me. “What does that mean?”

“Connor...”

“Yes?”

“Connor didn’t...”

“Didn’t what?”

“Write this.”

“What does he mean, Larry?”

“He’s obviously in shock.”

“No, I just... he didn’t.” I’m trying to set them straight, but my thoughts keep coming out broken.

“It’s right here,” Mrs. Murphy says, pointing to the letter.

I hear a voice. It’s been speaking this whole time but I’m only now paying attention. Coming from within, louder and louder. Go, it’s saying. Leave.

“I’m sorry, but I should probably...”

Mrs. Murphy seizes me, gripping my hands, the letter held in our collective grasp. “If this isn’t... if Connor didn’t write this, then...”

“Cynthia. Please. Calm down.”

I avert my eyes. “I should go.”

“Did he say anything to you?” Mrs. Murphy pleads. “Did you see anything?”

“Cynthia, honey. This is not the time.”
I loosen my grip and the letter is now in her hands alone. “This is all we have,” she says. “This is the only thing we have left.”

“I really should go.”

Mr. Murphy turns to me. “Of course,” he says. “We understand. We just wanted you to be among the first to know.”

Mrs. Murphy hides her face. She’s done her best to hold it together. So have I, but I can’t help her, this woman; she’s broken, completely, and I care, I really do, I understand, as much as I can, but I don’t know how to be here with her, with them, with myself. I have to leave.

I start, but they catch me.

“Before you go.” Mr. Murphy removes a business card from his inside breast pocket, flips it over, and begins writing on the back side with one of Mr. Howard’s pens. He returns the pen and, with his eyes holding mine, hands me the card. I’m already reaching for it before I know what it is.

“The funeral is for immediate family only,” Mr. Murphy says, “but here’s the information for the wake tonight.”

I don’t know how to respond to this, nor do I have the time. Mrs. Murphy jumps up from her chair and grabs my outstretched arm.

“Larry. Look.”
It happens so fast I can’t stop it.
“Look at his cast.”
He comes around to see what she sees. There, in permanent ink, is the name of their son.

Mrs. Murphy turns to her husband, an astonished smile forming. “It’s true. It really is true. His ‘best and most dearest friend.’”

•••

From the principal’s office straight to the bathroom. I lean over a toilet, but nothing comes out. My guts are swirling, round and round, like I just sat in the passenger seat of a car driven by a blind person, the wheel jerking left to right to left. I want to get past this dizzy feeling, force it out of me, but it won’t come up.

I return to English class, but I never really return. I can’t get back to where I was before I left. I can hear Mrs. Kiczek’s voice, but not her words. The bell rings and I rise from my desk. I walk to my next class without my sneakers ever touching the floor.

My trance holds all the way to last period. Then, an announcement comes over the loudspeaker, repeating the news I learned hours ago but spent the entire day disbelieving. “It is with tremendous sorrow... one of our beloved students... services tonight from five to seven o’clock... any students who would like to talk to someone... Mrs. Alvarez will be available in the auditorium starting now.”

The news begins to register in those around me. The shock in their faces breaks my daze. It’s true. It’s really true.

Connor Murphy is dead.

The day started like any other. The whole happy family seated at the kitchen table. Eating breakfast. I wasn’t really eating. Neither was Larry: too busy with his phone. Neither was Cynthia: too busy serving the rest of us. (My parents love it when I call them by their first names.) Zoe was the only one actually consuming food.

I didn’t want to go to school. My mother wouldn’t hear it. Said it was the first day and I had no choice. School would do me good, she said. She watched me sleep all summer. She was desperate to get me out of the house.

But really, what was the point of going to school? They never knew what to do with me. If you don’t fit into one of their boxes, you get tossed aside. I could learn way more at home. Reading my own books and watching Vice. At least when I was at Hanover I could mention Nietzsche without a teacher staring back with a blank look.

(Unfortunately, the whole private school experiment was a bust. Apparently, Adderall to get through finals—or the day—is perfectly OK. But a little weed in your locker is unforgivable. Hypocrites. Maybe now they’ll see how ass- backward they are. Hey, geniuses, no one dies from marijuana. Pills, though? Yup, you guessed it.)

Then Cynthia tried to get Larry involved. That’s always good for a laugh. You’re going to school, Connor, was all he could muster. This really set off my mother, that my father couldn’t be bothered. They went at it for a while, talking like I wasn’t there. Welcome to the Murphy household. If your name is Zoe, strap in for the ride of your life. If you happen to be Connor, well, you’re going to want to stay good and numb.

I ended up going to school. Some fights aren’t worth the effort. I got a lift from Zoe. Yet another perk of being me. Your little sister drives you around.

(There was no deer in the road that night. I can come clean about that now. I crashed into that tree because I felt like it. My messiest decisions were always like that. Made in a split second. Nine times out of ten I’d walk away only wounded. Then, on the tenth time...)

Turns out I was right to want to skip school. I got singled out in homeroom (even though I wasn’t the only one on my phone). Got messed with in the cafeteria. Messed with again in the computer lab. I’m just trying to mind my own fucking business. Not even allowed to do that.

And that was only day one. What about the rest of the year? One hundred seventy-something days left. How am I supposed to get through?

I couldn’t.

I skipped my last two classes. Walked right out of the building. I couldn’t shake the feeling—free-falling. Like there’s nothing to hold on to. I reached out to the only person I thought might help. And then, when that didn’t work...

I woke up in the hospital. My family was there. All of them, looking at the floor, their phones, the insides of their eyelids—anywhere but at one another or me. I knew what was coming. I’m a fuckup—I know. Spare me. I got out of bed before anyone could say a word. Just left the room. No one bothered to come after me.

At the front desk, there were two nurses. One said, Room 124. So sad. He’s the same age as Evan.

I know, the other nurse said, sighing.

The first nurse made a call, left a message: Hey, honey, just checking in. I wanted to hear how the rest of your day went. Did you get any good signatures on your cast? You’ll probably be sleeping when I get home, but I’ll see you in the morning. I love you so much. I just want you to know that.

She put down her phone. Hands on her forehead. Soothing her temples. I couldn’t believe it. Who this woman was.

I think I know your son, I said. I signed his cast today.

She didn’t answer, just walked away. Another fan of mine. I figured Evan had told her what happened between us. Probably made it seem like he was innocent. Just standing there like a saint and here comes big, bad Connor Murphy. But he’s the one who messed with me.

(I didn’t really mean to push him. Another one of those split-second decisions. Honestly, they’re more like knee-jerk reactions. Or something deeper. Part of my nature. That’s just what I do. I ruin things. Always. Whether I want to or not. The thing I’m ruining can be the best thing in my life. And I’ll know it, too. And I’ll still be powerless to stop it. Or too scared.)

I turned back down the hall, vowing to be more patient with my waiting family. I reached my room. Room 124. I looked in. That’s when I saw him. The kid in the bed. It was me.

I bent over him—the other me. Skin gray. Mouth sagged open.

I got what I wanted, I guess.

I’m free now. No one in my way. No one waiting around a corner, setting a trap. No one checking for redness in my eyes. Asking where I’ve been all night. Making promises.

I’ve been hanging here at the hospital. Everyone is beaten up and broken, just like me. Even the staff. They just hide it better than the patients do.

Especially that one nurse. Evan’s mom. She’s kind of a disaster, always rushing around the halls. But she seems decent. Today, on her break, she barely touched her sandwich. She was looking up college stuff for Evan. I can’t picture Cynthia doing that. Even though I was her life’s work.

My mother preferred to delegate. She treated me like one of her home renovation projects. Hire help. Call in the specialists. The best in the business. Let’s get this kid fixed up. Do whatever you’ve got to do. Take him overnight, or for weeks at a time. Pump him full of meds. Solo sessions. Group sessions. We’ve got money, as much as it takes. Spare no expense. Just solve this problem of ours. And hurry. My husband’s growing impatient. Losing faith. Asking, why throw good money after bad? It hasn’t worked so far, after all these years. Maybe it’s best to abandon the project. Stop the work. At least for the time being. Let’s wait this thing out. See what happens.

And here we are.

Once I’m home, I message Jared and tell him in a hurricane of words what happened with my letter, how it was finally returned to me (temporarily) by Connor’s parents, who were under the impression that it was a letter written by Connor to me, and how they now think that Connor and I were best friends, and how that ridiculous belief was then corroborated when they caught a last-minute glimpse of my cast. After I see all this typed out on my screen, Jared’s response seems like the only appropriate one:

Mrs. Gorblinski. She actually gave a shit. Other people assumed she was a nemesis. Because of the story, I guess. The legend. That’s what happens with legends. The facts get pushed aside and replaced with something more dramatic.

I’m guilty of it, too. I’ve heard the story so many times, even told it myself. I began to believe the simple version: Connor Murphy threw a printer at Mrs. G. Well, yeah, but...

It was a long time ago. Second grade. I only remember bits and pieces. We all had jobs. On the wall was a chart: lunch helper, schedule announcer, board eraser, nurse buddy, recycler. The most prized job of all, really the only one that mattered, was line leader. Everyone wanted to be line leader. For me it was the idea of being in charge. Controlling things. (We weren’t curing cancer or anything, but trust me—this was all very serious at the time.)

Each day, Mrs. G moved our names one spot. I waited my turn, watching my name advance. Finally, I was one spot away. The next day, I came to class, dressed up probably—that’s how excited I was. But something was wrong. I wasn’t line leader. I had a different job. It was supposed to be my day.

The class was lining up behind someone else. I called out to Mrs. G.

Connor, it’s not the time for questions.

She was a real no-nonsense type, everything by the book. There was a right way to do things. An order. And that order was now out of whack. There had been an oversight. Mrs. G would fix this right away. She’d appreciate what was at stake.

I told her, I got skipped.

Get in line, Connor.

But it’s my turn to be—

You heard me.

No. It’s not fair.

I stepped in front of the line. One of the kids pushed me. I tried to explain. I felt myself getting hotter. The room closing in. Tears forming.

Connor, please find your place in line.

But...

Connor, I won’t tell you again.

But it’s my turn to be line leader!

I reached out for the first thing I could find. Felt the printer with both hands and swept it off the desk. It slid across the floor, stopping at Mrs. G’s feet. The tray broke off, flew to the other side of the room.

The room went silent. All eyes on me.

Ms. Emerson escorted the class out. Mrs. G stayed with me, tried to calm me down. I couldn’t even look at her. And that’s it. As far as everybody knows, that’s where our story ends. I freaked out and threw a printer at Mrs. G.

But it wasn’t the end.

The next day, the printer was back in place. Back on the desk, minus the tray. And on the job chart: I was line leader.

And Mrs. G had moved my seat closer to her desk. She gave me a little pad. If I had a problem or question, I could tear a blank page from the pad, crumple it into a ball and place it in the glass jar on her desk. She wouldn’t stop teaching the class on my behalf. I won’t tolerate any more disruptions, she said. But she promised that if I placed a ball in the jar, she’d see it. And when the time was right, she would get to me. But I had to be patient. If I was, she would listen. She would hear me. I would be heard.

Everyone in school knew about the printer. It became this thing that followed me around. The logline to my movie, telling people what to expect of me. Telling me what to expect of myself. I was the villain. That was my role. And Mrs. G was the victim. And for years, that’s been our story. But it demands a correction. She made a mistake. And so did I.

On my way home from Connor’s wake, I text Jared, typing faster than I can walk.

The bus ride to the Murphys’ house takes forty minutes. In a car, it would take half that, but I don’t drive.

At first, I couldn’t wait to get my license. I longed for the ability to just get up and go whenever I wanted. But any romantic vision I had of the road was quickly spoiled. In driver’s ed, they show you nightmarish videos of car crashes and alarming statistics about mortality rates, and then they hand you a learner’s permit and throw you behind the wheel. Sure, you’ve got an “expert” coaching you from the passenger seat, but you’re the one in charge, struggling to remember all the rules you learned, and then just as you’re getting the hang of it, you realize that even if you drive flawlessly, you have to trust that everyone else on the road will do the same.

But they don’t. It’s chaos out there. No one seems to use a blinker or come to a complete stop or yield to pedestrians. The light is still turning green and the person in the car behind you blares their horn. Then there are animals running into the road, cops waiting around bends, and drivers staring at their phones. It’s a miracle that anyone gets where they’re going without harming themselves or others, because so many of the worst things that could happen —paralysis, disfigurement, brain damage, accidental manslaughter, drowning, decapitation, pulverization, incineration, bleeding out while waiting for help —can happen in a car.

On the day of my driver’s test, I locked myself in the bathroom. Through the door, I heard my mom talking not so quietly on the phone: “What kind of kid isn’t excited to get their license?” At one point she tried to hand me the phone. “Your father wants to speak to you.” I hated her for calling him.

When I finally opened the door, my mom was in tears. “We can’t keep doing this,” she said. “You don’t have to feel this way. Don’t you want to feel better?” I must have said yes, because a week later I had my first appointment with Dr. Sherman. A few months after that, with the help of my pal Lexapro, I was able to get my license. I never actually use it, though. Lucky for me, we can’t afford a second car.

The Murphys live in the newer part of town, where the houses are bigger and the lawns are wider and the driveways are longer. As the bus passes the front entrance of Ellison Park, I see the well-lit WELCOME sign that I spent so much of my summer refurbishing. I always knew Zoe lived over here by the park, but I wasn’t sure exactly where. I must have passed by her street every day on my way to work and never knew it.

It’s a short walk from the bus stop, but still, by the time I arrive, my armpits are drenched and the paper wrapped around my flower bouquet has become a soppy mush in my hands. On the porch, I tear the paper off the flowers, roll it into a ball, and shove it into the pocket of my pants.

The Murphy house sits peacefully between two majestic beech trees at the end of a wide cul-de-sac. The front door is painted a storybook red. It’s time to ring the bell, but for some reason I can’t lift my arm. These flowers should be for Zoe, as a gesture of, well, my affection or whatever, but instead I’m giving them to her mother because she lost her son. The only reason I’m here is because Connor isn’t. How am I supposed to feel about that?

I’m so busy not ringing the doorbell that I barely notice the front door swing open to reveal Connor’s mom, a confused smile on her face.

“What are you doing out there?” she says.
“Good night. I mean, good evening, Mrs. Murphy.” “Come on in. And please call me Cynthia.”
I present the flowers.
“Oh. That is very sweet, Evan. Thank you.”

She pulls me in for a hug, holding on a little too long. I worry that she can feel my heart slamming out of my chest. And then, over her shoulder, I see Zoe coming down the stairs. Unlike her mother, she does not look happy to see me. Her eyes seem to know who I am, a big non-truth teller, and also a fool to have ever agreed to come here tonight.

•••

In the center of the table is a bowl of apples. They’re so shiny and perfect I assume they’re fake. But now, after staring at them for the past ten minutes, I’m convinced they’re edible.

So is the food on my plate, but I’m finding it hard to breathe, let alone swallow. I’ve been trying to trap single pieces of rice between the tines of my fork, just a little game to pass the time.

“It’s hot in here,” Mrs. Murphy says, fanning herself. “Is anyone else feeling hot?”

I’m melting, but I keep my mouth shut.

“It’s muggy for September,” Mr. Murphy says. “I can lower the AC, if you want.”

“No, it’s fine.” She dabs her head with her napkin.

Zoe hasn’t spoken since I got here. Last week we finally talked after so many years (twice!), and now it’s looking like the first two times may also be the last. I thought she’d be back at school today, it being Monday, but she was absent again. I wonder if she’s ever coming back.

Mr. Murphy lifts a platter. “Would anyone else like more chicken?”

“I think you’re the only one with an appetite, Larry,” Mrs. Murphy says.

He hesitates for a moment, then forks a piece of chicken onto his plate. “Well, I’m not going to let it go to waste. It was very considerate of the Harrises to bring it over.”

I cut off a bite of chicken, but I don’t actually bring it up to my mouth.

“Did Connor tell you about the Harrises?” Mrs. Murphy asks me.

Part of my apprentice training at the park was learning the ranger code of ethics. There’s a part in the handbook about being honest in thought and deed. Unfortunately, the park ranger handbook makes no mention of how to survive the jungle of high school, or how to not make a bad situation worse. For help with that, I’ve looked instead to Jared for advice. As terrible as that decision might prove to be, if I had just listened to him in the first place, I never would’ve gone to Connor’s wake and I never would’ve been invited to tonight’s dinner.

In response to her question, I simply nod and take a sip of water. I’m going with Jared on this—it’s not the same as lying. I’m not actually speaking words.

“They’re very old friends of ours,” she says.

I can tell she’s waiting for me to say something. I’m not supposed to— that’s the plan—but now that I’m actually face-to-face with this woman and

her needy eyes, making it through the whole night without words seems unrealistic, not to mention rude.

“Mmm,” I say, which isn’t technically a word. Even if it is, it’s barely a word, and besides, it could be referring to the food that I’m pretending to eat.

“Our families used to ski together,” Mrs. Murphy says. “We had some really nice times out there on the slopes.”

I nod and nod and nod, and then, before I can stop myself, I open my mouth. “Connor loved skiing.”

“Connor hated skiing,” Zoe says.

I can feel Zoe’s eyes on me, but I don’t dare look over. Why did I think I could handle this? If I sense even a hint of pressure, I immediately buckle. Pressure is my kryptonite. Connor hates skiing like I hate pressure.

“Right, he hated it. That’s what I meant. It was, yeah, just pure hate whenever skiing was the topic. He loved talking about how much he hated skiing.”

“So you guys hung out a lot? You and Connor?” Mrs. Murphy asks.

It’s a mistake to tear my eyes away from the bowl of apples, but I do it anyway. Mrs. Murphy’s face is begging for even the tiniest bit of information. Something. Anything.

What I come up with, finally, is, “Pretty much,” and I’m actually proud of this answer, because it’s not yes and also because a lot means something different to different people. Do I speak to my father a lot? Compared with how often soldiers in Afghanistan talk to their dads, yeah, probably, I think that’s fair to say.

But Zoe wants clarification. “Where?”

“You mean, where did we hang out?”

“Yes, where?”

Jared never specified what to do about questions that required more than a simple yes or no. It turns out this is not true/false. This is an essay exam.

“Well,” I say, forcing a quick cough, “we’d do most of our hanging out at my house. I mean, sometimes we’d go to his house—I mean, here—if nobody else was here.” She’s about to call me a liar and a phony—I know it. I’ll be thrown out of this house, and then I won’t just be invisible, I’ll be a pariah, too. I’ll be homeschooled and my only connection to the outside world will be

social media and email. Oh! “Email,” I say. “We would email a lot, mostly. Sometimes he didn’t want to hang out in person. Which I understood. We had that in common, I guess.”

“We looked through his emails,” Zoe says. “There aren’t any from you.”

Maybe I’m just excited that she’s talking to me again. Maybe that’s why, against my better judgment, I keep stringing more and more words together. “Well, yeah, I mean, that’s because he had a different account. A secret account. I should have said that before. That was probably very confusing. Sorry.”

“Why was it secret?” Zoe asks.

“Why was it secret?” I repeat. Now seems like a good time to start eating. I shovel some rice into my mouth and gesture to the others that I’ll be ready to answer Zoe’s perfectly reasonable question after I’ve swallowed all my food, just because it’s poor etiquette to talk with food in your mouth, as everyone knows, obviously. I swallow and wash it all down with some water.

“It was secret because it was just... he thought it would be more private that way.”

Mrs. Murphy shakes her head. “I told you, Larry. He knew you read his emails.”

“And I don’t regret it,” Mr. Murphy says, reaching for his wine. “Somebody had to be the bad guy.”

They stare at each other, continuing their conversation with silent, powerful words. I look away, allowing them privacy.

“It’s just weird,” Zoe says. “The only time I ever saw you and my brother together was when he shoved you at school last week.”

Shit. She remembers. Of course she remembers.

Mrs. Murphy leans over. “Connor shoved you?”

“I wouldn’t say it like that, Mrs. Murphy. In that way. I tripped, is what really happened.”

“Please, Evan, call me Cynthia.”

“Oh, right, I’m sorry.” Relief at the change of subject. “Cynthia.” I smile at her.

“I was there,” Zoe says. “I saw the whole thing. He pushed you. Hard.”

A drop of sweat falls from my armpit all the way down my torso to the waistband of my jeans. No mere subject change will get me out of this.

“Oh, I remember now,” I say. “About what happened. That was a misunderstanding. Because, the thing was, he didn’t want us to talk at school, and that’s exactly what I did. I tried to talk to him at school. It wasn’t really a big deal, seriously. It was my fault.”

“Why didn’t he want you to talk to him at school?” Zoe says.

It never ends. The more I answer, the more they ask. I have to stop this. But how?

“He didn’t really want anyone to know we were friends,” I tell them. “He was embarrassed, I guess.”

“Why would he be embarrassed?” Mrs. Murphy—I mean, Cynthia—says. I wipe my forehead with my napkin, not sophisticated but so necessary. “I

guess because he thought I was sort of...”

“A nerd?” Zoe says.

“Zoe!” Her father shoots her a look, but Zoe ignores him, not about to let up on me. “Isn’t that what you meant?” she says.

“Loser, I was going to say, actually. But nerd works, too.”
Cynthia places her hand on my arm. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“Well,” Zoe says, “Connor wasn’t very nice, so that makes sense.” Cynthia sighs. “Connor was... a complicated person.”
“No, Connor was a bad person. There’s a difference.”
“Zoe, please,” Mr. Murphy says.
“Dad, don’t pretend like you don’t agree with me.”
“It’s too hot in here,” Cynthia says, which is exactly what I was thinking. “I’ll lower the AC,” Mr. Murphy repeats, but he doesn’t leave the table.

I can now appreciate at least one plus side of having divorced parents and never actually sitting down to eat dinner with my mom at home—not having to endure this.

Cynthia wipes her brow. “You refuse to remember any of the good things. Both of you. You refuse to see anything positive.”

“Because there were no good things,” Zoe says. “What were the good

things?”

“I don’t want to have this conversation in front of our guest,” Cynthia says.

I drink more water and I keep pretending to drink long after my glass is empty.

“What were the good things, Mom?”
“There were good things,” Cynthia insists.
“Okay, then say what they were. Tell me.”
“There were good things.”
“Yes, you keep saying that. What were they?”
Cynthia doesn’t answer. Mr. Murphy looks down at his plate.

The question hangs in the room, a thick, hot smog that no one can get out from under. I watch them all, struggling to breathe, struggling to be. Struggling.

“I remember a lot of good things about Connor.”

All eyes turn. That was me who just spoke. I said that. Why did I just say that? How did those words come out of my mouth?

“Like what?” Zoe wants to know.
“Never mind,” I say. “I shouldn’t have... I’m sorry.”
“Again you’re sorry,” Zoe says, dismissing my entire existence. “Go ahead, Evan. You were saying something,” Cynthia says. “It doesn’t matter. Really.”
“We want to hear what you have to say. Please, Evan.”

I don’t know how to do it, how to let this woman down after all she’s been through. Her heart is in my hands. That’s what it feels like. Even her husband is standing by, all alert, his fork down, just waiting. I glance at the last person at the table: Zoe. Her expression is softer now, as if her curiosity has briefly overpowered her doubt. They need something, this family. They need me to say something that will make them feel better.

“Well,” I begin, “Connor and I had a really great time together, this one day, recently. That’s something good that I remember about Connor. That’s what I keep thinking about. That day. That one day.”

I already know that what I just said won’t be enough. They’ll want more. I keep painting myself into a corner. They want specifics, details. They need them. I’m scrambling for the next tidbit, the whole time staring at that bowl in the middle of the table.

“Apples,” I say, before thinking it through. “We went to the apples... place.” I look up. “Anyway, I knew it was stupid. I don’t know why I even brought it up.” I need to leave. Right now. I squeeze my fists in my lap, my nails digging into my palms. How can I get away from here without being rude?

“He took you to the orchard?” Cynthia says.

I scan her expression. It looks like I’ve touched on something. There’s a new brightness in everyone’s eyes. Their faces encourage me. I can’t leave now. “Yes, he did.”

“When?” Cynthia asks.

“Once. It was just that once.”

“I thought that place closed,” Mr. Murphy says. “Years ago.”

“Exactly, which is why we were so bummed when we got there, because it was totally closed down, and Connor said the apples there were the best.”

Cynthia is smiling, but also tearing up. “We used to go to the orchard all the time. We’d do picnics out there. Remember that, Zoe?”

“Yeah,” Zoe says, her expression somewhere between wistful surprise and forced indifference.

Cynthia looks to her husband across the table. “You and Connor had that little toy plane you would fly. Until you flew it into the creek.”

Mr. Murphy almost smiles. “That was an emergency landing.”

“Oh, Evan, I can’t believe Connor took you there,” Cynthia says. “I bet that was fun. I bet you two had some real fun.”

“We did. The whole day was just... amazing. That was back in the spring, I think.”

“Larry, what was the name of that ice cream place out there we loved?” Cynthia asks.

“À La Mode,” he answers.
“That was it,” she says with genuine appreciation. “À La Mode.”

“That’s where we went, actually,” I say, my enthusiasm getting the better of me. “We got ice cream at that À La Mode place.”

“They had that homemade hot fudge,” Mr. Murphy recalls.

“We would sit in the meadow with all the sycamores,” Cynthia says, smiling at Zoe. “And you and your brother would look for four-leaf clovers.”

“I’d completely forgotten about that place,” Mr. Murphy says.

“Well, I guess Connor didn’t,” Cynthia says. “Isn’t that right, Evan?”

I look at her and then Mr. Murphy and then Zoe, and I release all the air from my chest, and I tell them exactly what they are aching to hear: “That’s right.”

The air releases from their chests, too. It feels that way. There’s relief, real relief, small but tangible, in the room. What I’m doing, what I’m saying, is working, it’s helping, and that’s all I want, to help.

“We would do that sort of thing all the time, actually,” I say, not knowing how to stop myself now. “Just go somewhere and talk.” Like buddies. Like friends. “We’d talk about movies and people at school. We’d talk about girls. You know... just normal stuff. Connor was easy to talk to.”

I see how much my words mean to them. It feels good to make them feel good. It’s the right thing for me to be doing, to be making their hurt go away, even for a moment.

“That one day,” I say, “at the orchard, I remember, we found this field, and collapsed on the grass, and we looked up at the sky, and we just... talked.”

About our lives. Where we were. Where we were going. What would happen after school. We didn’t know exactly. We just knew we’d figure it out. We’d have each other’s backs. Whatever it was...

“...anything seemed possible.”

I pause, thinking I’ve lost them, that I’ve lost myself, but it’s too late now. My mouth forges on without my mind, the words arriving as if they’ve been waiting a lifetime to be spoken.

“And the sun that day, I can picture it, it was so bright. And we were lying there, looking up at the sky. It looked endless, like it went on forever.”

And the tree.

“We saw this tree. This incredibly tall oak tree. Bigger than all the others. We got up and we ran over to it and we started climbing it. We didn’t even

think.”

The Murphys climb with me, hanging on my every word.

“We kept climbing. Higher and higher.” Climbing and climbing, almost at the top, but then... “The branch gave way.”

I fell.
“I’m on the ground. My arm is numb. I’m waiting.” Any second now. Any second now.
“And I look, and I see...”
I see...
“...Connor. He’s come to get me.”

I stop talking, finally. They’re all looking at me, as if waiting for me to say more. But I can hardly comprehend what I’ve already spoken. It’s like I’m waking from a dream. I was sitting here, describing that day, that nightmare day, except it wasn’t that day, not exactly. This time Connor was there. I mean, he wasn’t really there, but in my mind, it was like he was, and all of a sudden that same day wasn’t such a nightmare. It was something else.

In my periphery, I see Cynthia reaching over and then I feel her arms wrapping around me.

“Thank you, Evan,” she says. “Thank you.” It’s the best feeling. And the worst.

•••
Zoe follows me out of the house. “I’ll take you home,” she says.

I never thought there’d be an instance where I would deny Zoe Murphy, but all I want right now is to be alone. “You don’t have to.”

“I need to go for a drive. Hop in.”

She loops around the horseshoe driveway and zips out into the street. I thought I’d finally be able to breathe out for the first time in hours, but no. I’m now sitting shotgun in Zoe Murphy’s blue Volvo.

I have literally dreamed about this moment, having a chance to be alone with her like this, just a few inches away. But right now I’m in no condition to be on. Someone, please, turn me off.

The silence is begging me to kill it. “This is a nice car. What is it,

German?”

“It’s a piece of crap,” Zoe says. “There’s always something wrong with it.”

The engine growls as Zoe picks up speed. She doesn’t say another word to me the whole ride home, even when I’m telling her which streets to take to my house. The quiet ride gives me the opportunity to review the night and arrive at the assessment that it was a complete and unequivocal failure. At one point, when the speedometer is up past sixty, I imagine unbuckling my belt, pulling the door handle, and tumbling out onto the busy road. What a tragedy.

Once we’re parked outside my unlit house, Zoe finally turns and acknowledges me. “You probably think I’m just a junior and I’m clueless, but I know what’s really going on.”

A frightening sharpness to her expression. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You and Connor weren’t sending secret emails because you were friends.”

I should have done it, jumped out of the car when I had the chance. “What?”

“I’ve been racking my brain all night trying to figure out why you two would possibly be talking to each other,” Zoe says. “Let me guess. Was it about drugs?”

“Drugs?”

“That’s what he was mad about the other day at lunch, isn’t it? When he pushed you? Be honest with me, please. I just want to know the truth.”

“No. Are you crazy? Me? I would never. That’s not something I’m involved in. I swear.” Finally, a truthful truth.

“Oh yeah? You swear?”

Zoe’s mother keeps showering me with hugs, but Zoe only douses me with suspicion. “I swear.”

She studies me for a moment, and then turns away, making it clear I’m dismissed.

I try to open the door, but it’s locked. She hits a button, but at the same time I’m pulling the handle. I release the handle so she can now unlock the door without my stupid hand getting in the way. When I finally hear that heavenly click, I throw open my door and inhale a whole chestful of fresh air. I shut the door gently behind me and watch her accelerate into the night. How wrong I’ve been about everything from the very start. The worst that could happen.

It’s still happening.

But I’m so lost right now, sitting alone on the couch in my dark living room. Jared is the only person in the entire world who has even the slightest appreciation for where I am. I’m floating through space and he’s the voice in my earpiece from central command. I might not agree with his tactics, but without him, there’s a good chance I may never get back home.

I bring Jared up to speed with what happened at the Murphys. As usual, I somehow fail to anticipate where he’ll focus his critique.

His parents think you were lovers.

You realize that, right?

Evan Hansen:

What? Why would they think that?

Umm. You were best friends,
but he wouldn’t let you talk to him at school?
And when you did, he kicked your ass?
That’s like the exact formula for secret gay high school lovers.

Evan Hansen:

Oh my gosh.

What did I say?
Nod and confirm. That’s all.

Evan Hansen:

I tried. You don’t understand. It’s different when they’re looking you in the eye. I got nervous. I just started talking, and once I started

Evan Hansen:

__________________________

It’s true. I don’t think I realized it until just now, but it’s like they were helping me along, filling in the gaps when I didn’t know where the story should go next. I’m not blaming them. Obviously. I know this is all on me, but I also know, from the looks on their faces, that they wanted me to keep going. They needed me to.

The thing is, I tried to tell them the truth. I mean, I did tell them the truth. I told Connor’s parents that he wasn’t the one who wrote the letter. I told them, point-blank, but they wouldn’t listen.

__________________

Jared Kleinman:

So what else did you completely fuck up?

Evan Hansen:

Well, I’m pretty sure Zoe hates me.

You’re the best.
I really mean that. What else?

Evan Hansen:

Nothing

Jared Kleinman:

Nothing?

Evan Hansen:

I mean, I told them we wrote emails.

Emails.

Evan Hansen

Yeah. I told them that Connor and I emailed. And that he had a secret email account.

Oh, right, one of those “secret” email accounts. Sure. For sending pictures of your penises to each other.

______________________

It’s all just a big joke to him. I really don’t know why I keep turning to Jared for advice.

____________

Evan Hansen:

Could you be any worse at this?

Evan Hansen:

Is that so bad?

Jared Kleinman:

Evan Hansen

Jared Kleinman:

Oh yes.

Evan Hansen:

Oh shit.

_______________

_______________

Evan Hansen:

I’m so screwed. What the hell am I going to do?

Evan Hansen:

What do you mean??

Jared Kleinman:

I can make the emails.

Evan Hansen:

You can? How?

It’s easy. You make up an account and backdate the emails. There’s a reason I was the only CIT with key card access to the computer cluster this summer: I have skills, son.

 _______________________________

I’d be giving them what they want—what they need. I’d be helping them.

I turn my phone over so it’s facedown. The light from the screen waves over my cast. The memory of the story I conjured up for the Murphys hits me anew. They were talking about the orchard, and I guess the way they were talking about it made me think of Ellison Park. And I can no longer think of Ellison Park without thinking of the tree and my fall. Connor wasn’t there that day, of course. But I guess... he could’ve been.

I leave the dark living room and head upstairs. Once in bed, I put on my headphones and stream a playlist called “Jazz for Newbies.” I can’t say I totally get jazz, but I’ve been trying. I wait for the music to take me somewhere, but it never does. I’m too invested in what I’m listening to for my mind to escape. Frankly, only one of the instruments even interests me. I keep waiting to hear what the guitar is going to do.

My mom appears at my doorway, forcing my head up off the pillow. I remove my headphones to hear her.

“Did you eat already?” she asks.

“Um. Yeah.” I already know what she’ll ask next, so I quickly cycle through potential answers: made a sandwich, warmed up frozen pizza, grabbed Chinese.

But instead, she says, “Darn,” and it almost sounds like maybe she was hoping I hadn’t eaten yet.

“That was fun the other day, right?” she says. “Going out for breakfast?”

So much has happened since our breakfast it already feels like ages ago. “Yeah. Definitely. It was.”

“I was thinking, how about I bag one of my shifts this week? When’s the last time we did a taco night?”

I can’t remember, but I’m pretty sure those tortillas in the freezer have officially turned by now. “Oh. You don’t have to.”

“No, I want to. Maybe we could even start brainstorming those essay questions together.”

The essays. Of course. Her face waits expectantly. “Sure,” I say. “That would be great.”

“Oh. That’s exciting,” she says, looking victorious. “I’m excited now. Something to look forward to.”

“Yeah.”

•••

The next day, I see Zoe walking through the cafeteria, joining friends at a table. If I weren’t already seated, I would’ve had to sit down. It’s that much of a shock to my system. I haven’t seen her in school since the first day.

So much has happened in a week. I’ve interacted with Zoe more than ever —at the wake, at her house, in her car—but all those moments were under the worst of circumstances. This, seeing her right now, seated at a table in the school cafeteria, feels right and normal. This is how I’m used to seeing her.

This makes sense.

Zoe must have felt my stare from across the room, because now she’s staring back at me. She’s staring so intensely that it’s almost as if she’s daring me to turn away. I can’t. I don’t want to. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. I smile, hoping she’ll do the same. She does not. It’s like she couldn’t do it even if she tried.

She lifts her tray and leaves her friends at the table. Her food goes into the trash, and without even a peek in my direction, she walks out of the cafeteria.

I’m much better at interpreting books and stories than I am at understanding the decisions made by living, breathing people. But in this case, I can easily apply Mrs. Kiczek’s strategies for critical analysis to the real-life behavior I just witnessed. The action of our beautiful and righteous heroine Zoe Murphy throwing her food in the garbage is really a metaphor for how she feels about our narrator. In Zoe Murphy’s eyes, Evan Hansen is trash.

There I go again, overestimating my importance. How quickly I forget meh-self. Why should I assume this has anything to do with me? Her brother is dead. Maybe she just doesn’t have an appetite. I can relate to that. It’s just that it’s hard to see her look so troubled, especially after the way she began to lighten up at dinner. Her mood shifted when we were talking about Connor. When I was telling her and her parents things they didn’t already know. Filling in missing pieces. It’s like I was able to make them forget the weight of their misery. I brought them some relief.

I look across the cafeteria to where Jared’s sitting. Leaving my stomach with only my morning medication to feed on, I pack up my lunch and head over to his table.

“How do the emails work?” I ask.

“Well, email is short for ‘electronic mail,’” Jared says. “Ray Tomlinson is credited as inventing the technology in 1971, but we all know it was really the brainchild of Shiva Ayyadurai.”

“This is serious.” I keep my voice as low as possible. Jared leans back conspiratorially. “It’s going to cost you.” “How much?”
“Two grand,” Jared says.
“Two thousand dollars? Are you insane?”
“Five hundred.”

“Fine. But you’re a dick,” Jared says.

“Meet me at four after school. I’ll text you the location.”