Chapter Text
"That's- That's my letter," Evan said, fighting a lost fight against the tears that had been falling since he'd heard the news. "I'm sorry, but it's not- He didn't write it. It's a therapy assignment."
He looked at the family in front of him; he felt like he knew each and every one of them from the things Connor had told him, but he also knew they wouldn't know who he was. "He was teasing me this morning," he explained. "I'd written it at school because I didn't make time for it at home and my mom had been hounding me about it. Connor had just snagged it out of my hand when the bell rang and I had to dash."
Connor's father reached the letter out to him, and Evan took it. He noticed his hand was shaking, and vaguely registered that should bother him.
"You were friends?" Connor's mother asked, and Evan nodded.
"Yeah, we- We recognised something in each other."
Zoe remained sceptical, and really, Evan couldn't blame her. He and Connor had gone to great lengths to hide the time they spent together. He wanted to reassure her, tell her it was the truth, but he couldn't think past the lump of grief in his chest.
"Would you tell us about him sometime?" His mother sounded so hopeful all Evan could do was nod. He had no idea what to tell them, but he just hoped that when the time came, inspiration would strike. Connor had always said he had a great imagination, maybe that would help him figure out the right words to say.
He all but fled the principal's office, clutching the letter to his chest.
Today was not a good day.
His mom had come home early, her night class professor letting them go because he had some thing he couldn't miss. The one night Evan really, really wanted to be alone, she was here. Of course.
"I heard about Connor Murphy," she said, and Evan spared a thought for how strange it felt to hear that name said out loud within these walls. He was sitting on the couch, staring into nothing, as he'd done for the past couple of hours. "Did you know him?"
"He was my best friend." Evan choked on a sob, and his mother sat down next to him, putting his head on her shoulder.
"Oh, sweetie." She stroked his hair, and Evan let himself be comforted, trying not to think of how similar this was to the last time they'd sat together like this, when his father had left and he'd ended up all alone. "I didn't know you had a best friend."
It didn't sound like she was attacking him, but Evan felt the accusation anyway. "He was more than a friend," he whispered. "It's not like we were in love or anything, but he was... I don't know what he was." He struggled to find the right words to describe what Connor had meant to him. Friend felt like such an understatement, like it could never do justice to how they had helped each other. "Family."
"I'm so sorry," his mother said.
"He didn't tell me," Evan whispered through his tears. "We knew everything about each other, and still, he didn't tell me. Why didn't he tell me?"
"I think," his mother said, then trailed off as if she couldn't find the right words. Evan knew how she felt. How could you even explain something like that? "I think sometimes people are afraid that if they say something out loud, the other person still won't care. Like, if you don't give anyone access to your innermost thoughts and feelings, at least they're safe. It's easier not to take the risk your fears of being all alone will be proven right."
"Connor knew I wouldn't want him to die!" Evan said hotly, straightening his back and shaking his mother off. "He would never doubt that."
"Maybe rationally he knew," his mother agreed. "But in his heart? Our emotions aren't so easily swayed by knowledge. Maybe he knew you'd try to help him, but he was still too scared to find out if you really would. I think when the world seems that dark, seeing things clearly is almost impossible."
They sat in silence for a while, the only sound the ticking from the clock. Evan wished his mind would shut off again, go back to that numb place it had been in before his mother sat down, but it was churning out thought after thought after thought. Connor had died. Connor hadn't told him he was planning on anything. His family expected Evan to tell them about a son who had hated them.
Evan had never told him why he had fallen out of the tree.
"It's just me and my mom," Evan explained as he sat in the Murphy's living room. "And she has to work a lot, so most of the time it's just me. Connor became my family."
"How did you meet?" Connor's mother - Cynthia, she had asked him to call her Cynthia - asked.
"In the orchard, you know, not that far from here?" The family nodded. "It's closed, so there's never anyone there, which means it's quiet and- safe. It's where I go when I want to calm down. I love trees. One day, I was sitting in one of the trees, when Connor sat down under it. I guess he was looking for a place to get high where nobody would bother him."
It was weird to tell their story. Their friendship had been a secret for so long it almost felt like betraying Connor to talk about it, but Evan wanted to, and not just for Connor's family. Saying those words out loud made it real; not even his therapist knew about Evan's best friend, and sometimes he wondered whether he hadn't made him all up.
"He started talking to the tree," Evan continued. "He talked about needing to get away from life, about feeling all alone in a room full of people. I had never heard anyone say the thoughts that I'd been thinking, so I answered. I told him I knew how he felt. I told him I had always thought I was the only one to feel that way." He chuckled. "Connor later told me he'd thought it the most natural thing in the world a tree was answering him. For the first, I don't know how long, I think about a month? of conversations we had, I was talking with Connor, and he was talking with a tree."
Connor's parents were listening with rapt attention, Cynthia having a hint of tears in her eyes. Zoe tried to look like she didn't care, but Evan had invented that look, and he could see straight through it.
"Then, one day, he came in sober." Evan smiled, thinking back to that day. "He immediately looked up when he came to the tree and saw me sitting. He was furious, flinging all sorts of insults my way, the worst things he could think to say, I guess."
"Why are you smiling?" Zoe asked, and Evan could almost physically feel the pain in her voice, could almost taste the memories that were haunting her. "That sounds awful."
Evan nodded and shrugged, unwilling to go into how terrified he had been. Even back then, it had been obvious that running away would have meant giving up on something real.
"It wasn't fun. But I knew the real boy underneath. Connor used his anger to keep everyone at bay. Why would anyone want to get to know someone who only tried to hurt them? And that way he could keep from being hurt. I knew that. I'd heard him talk about it. So I let him rant and rave and when he was done, I told him I'd never lied to him. I did know how he felt. And I'd love to be his friend."
"And he backed down at that?" Zoe again, scepticism loud in her voice, and Evan smiled. He'd always had a soft spot for her, even after all the ways Connor had told him she annoyed him. He admired how Connor's death hadn't suddenly turned him into a saint in her eyes, the way people so often did after death.
He shook his head. "He fled without another word. It must have been really scary to realise that someone out there, another person, knew all his deepest secrets and could use them against him."
The Murphy family shared a look, as if they hardly recognised the person Evan was describing. Did they really never think beyond the anger? Did they never consider that maybe, just maybe, there was more underneath all that? Even just being on the outside of it made Evan hurt all over, and he couldn't imagine how much worse it must have been for Connor.
"How did you go from that to being best friends?" Connor's father, Larry, asked.
"He came back." Evan shrugged. It wasn't like any of this had been an elaborate scheme set up by the two of them, things had just happened. It felt strange, even, to put it into words, as if saying it out loud emphasised the weirdness of it all, as if they'd done something wrong. "He stalked into the orchard, found me in my tree, pointed an angry finger at me, and said I wasn't to talk to anyone about anything he had said. I told him I hadn't yet, right? And that was enough for him."
What he didn't tell the Murphys, was how he'd been trembling in his tree. How scared he had been for what Connor would do. Not just right then and there, and not just physically, but Connor had a vicious tongue, and if he had wanted to, he could have made life even more of a living hell for Evan than it had already been. But he'd decided to take the plunge, figuring he couldn't expect Connor to trust him if he couldn't offer that implicit trust back.
He talked a little more about some of the lighter conversations they'd had, and he could feel the Murphys dancing around the question they really wanted to ask. He was grateful when he was on his way home without having to have answered it.
"Didn't he tell you what he was planning to do?"
Because Connor hadn't. But Evan should have seen the signs anyway.
At Connor's funeral, one thing became clear in Evan's mind. It hadn't been anything tangible. It wasn't like the service had told him anything about Connor he hadn't known (it had been glaringly obvious Evan had known him so much better than the pastor who had led the service), or that all the grief around him made him re-evaluate his own importance. In fact, he wondered how many people there were actually grieving for Connor, and how many were just shocked and scared.
No, it was the grief in his own chest. It was the pain that made everything hazy and unreal, the tears clogging up his throat. Even while part of him was happy Connor had found the rest he so desperately needed, a huge part of him kept going back to all the things Connor was going to miss. Graduation. Finding love. Warm nights in the orchard. Finding his passion.
Evan couldn't be mad at him, because he knew how Connor had felt, how hard life had been for him. He didn't recognise the anger he could feel radiating off of Zoe, who hadn't been able to muster any tears at the funeral, or even Larry, who seemed to feel like Connor had been ungrateful, even though he didn't say it in that many words.
He just felt the pain. The pain that Connor wouldn't have the chance to make things better. That his life would always end in tragedy. And he realised, now more than ever, that that was not the ending he wanted. And even though Connor might have laughed at him were he still alive, Evan really didn't think he'd want him to feel that pain either. To stop his life here, where it could never get any better.
So when he came back home, and his mother was waiting for him for once with dinner and a comforting hug, he told her he needed to talk.
"Of course, sweetie," she said, and they sat down at the couch after dinner, a mug of hot chocolate in their hands. He wasn't used to getting his mother's full attention, and suddenly he wondered whether that was all on her, or if maybe he hadn't given her the chance to focus on him because that would have meant she'd get a glimpse of all he was going through. She'd know just how broken he was.
"I don't really know how to say this," he said, and he glanced at his mother. He could see she wanted him to just come out and say it, could see the worry and impatience in her eyes, but when she noticed him watching, she just gave him a smile. She would allow him to set the pace, and Evan wondered whether maybe she already knew what he was going to say and wanted to postpone the inevitable.
Evan took a deep breath. "I didn't fall from that tree." He looked at his mother, but felt unable to form the next words while looking her in the eye, so he looked back at the steaming mug in his hands. "I jumped."
"Oh, Evan." His mother put down her hot chocolate and put her arms around him, and Evan wasn't sure what reaction he'd been expecting, but it wasn't this one.
They just sat there, his mother holding him, and Evan closed his eyes. For a moment, he was young again, his father had just left, and he clung to his mother in the absolute conviction she would leave as well. And in a way she had, even though she was right there. Maybe that had been worse, because he was supposed to be grateful for all the time she spent away at work.
"Why didn't you say something?" she asked.
"Because you're never here," Evan answered and he felt his mother tensing, but it was the truth. "It isn't something you just say over dinner. Oh, by the way, mom, I'm thinking of killing myself, and could you please sign this form for our school trip?"
Evan could feel his mother swallowing and he disentangled himself from their embrace. He wasn't sure whether to comfort her or yell at her, and so he opted for neither, waiting until she said something.
"I've always tried to be here for you," she stammered, and Evan could feel her anger simmering. "I sent you to therapy, didn't I?"
"You've always tried to fix me," Evan spat, because that stupid therapist had obviously done nothing for him and not once had his mother asked whether this felt right. "You've just wanted me to hurry up and get better so I wouldn't be as much of a burden. So you could just go on living your life without having to worry about me on top of it."
"Evan-"
"No!" Evan was furious now, getting to his feet. "I know you're a single mom and that's tough and you can't help but never be around. But it hurts, mom. I am always on my own and it hurts. And then, when you do notice I don't have any friends and never bring anyone home and ask me why, and I tell you that I have trouble talking to people because kids are scary, what do you do? You ship me off to the nearest therapist. You don't even stop and pause to see whether this is the right therapist for me. You never once asked me how I felt about therapy, only wanted to know what stupid assignments that guy had given me so you could make sure I do them."
He felt himself getting a little dizzy from all the emotion building up, but he couldn't sit down just yet.
"Those letters don't do anything, mom." He started crying now, rage replaced by grief, and he sank to his knees, all but falling to the ground. "Today is not a good day and it never will be again. Because he's gone, he was the only one I had and now he's gone and I'm back to being all alone."
A mirthless laugh fell from his lips and Evan shook his head at himself, angry for the thoughts that were spilling out. "Even when he was here, I was alone. I couldn't talk about him with anyone, couldn't even acknowledge his existence at school and all we had were those moments in the orchard and now I can't even go there anymore because it's been ruined."
"When your father left," his mother began hesitantly, and even looking at the ground Evan could hear she was crying. "I was devastated. Suddenly this life that I thought we had was meaningless. I had to figure it all out anew."
"Connor's not just up and left," Evan said. "He's dead."
"I know," his mother said. "But in a way, Mark being dead would have been easier. Now he chose to leave-"
"Connor did both, didn't he?" Evan said, hating the bitterness in his voice. "He chose death over me."
"Oh, Evan, I'm sorry, I keep saying all the wrong things."
Evan looked up and his mother looked so stricken he felt a wave of tenderness welling up inside of him. "At least you're trying," he said, and he realised he meant it. All he'd needed from her was to try. It had never felt like she'd done so before, not really, not to see him, to connect.
"I want another therapist," he said, suddenly sure of it. "And I really want it this time, mum. I'm not just going because you make me. I will do my best and work my hardest, but I want a therapist who I can trust. I hate this one. He has no idea what being a teenager is like, and if he ever was one, his life was nothing like mine. I want someone who understands, or at least who tries to understand."
"Okay." His mother smiled and looked at him with something like pride in her eyes. "I'm so sorry I let you down, Evan. I really did think I was doing what was best for you."
"So this is where you would meet."
Evan startled so badly he almost fell out of the tree - again. On instinct he looked down, but he was glad to find that Zoe hadn't taken up Connor's usual place. A little surprised, though, when he looked up and found her sitting in the tree opposite him. His heart was racing a little, both from the almost-fall and from the idea of being in the vicinity of Zoe Murphy.
"It is," he confirmed, grateful his voice wasn't shaking. "Though he'd usually stay on the ground."
Zoe actually laughed at that. "He would. He fell out of a tree when he was eight, and never went back up again."
"To hear him tell it, it was a daring rescue mission." Evan remembered Connor telling him when he'd found him... after.
"Oh, it was. Except the cat wasn't in any distress and nimbly climbed out of the tree the moment Connor reached her. He overreached, lost his balance and fell to the ground. It wasn't far and physically he was fine, but it scared him anyway."
"Larry was furious," Evan supplied. He remembered that too, the way Connor had flinched away from elaborating on his father's reaction, how he'd instead talked up his own prowess and tried to make Evan laugh through the pain.
"He thought Connor was reckless," Zoe said. "Connor tried to tell him about the cat, but dad wouldn't listen."
"Well, that never changed," Evan said, thinking that maybe if Larry had been listening a little harder, Connor wouldn't have been so damn unhappy.
"It's good to talk about him," he said. "I think most people don't really believe me and expect me to be over it already. As if a month is long enough. I'm not sure it will ever be long enough."
Silence descended over the orchard, then, and though it wasn't the quietude and alone-time Evan had been looking for, it was comforting in its own way.
"I'm not sure how to grieve him," Zoe said, her voice so low Evan almost couldn't hear it over the birdsong in the distance. "We hated each other."
He and Connor hadn't talked about Zoe often; Evan couldn't really hide his feelings and Connor didn't really want to know about them. It was the one topic they tended to skirt around. So he might have a biased idea of Connor's view of Zoe, but still: "I don't think he hated you."
"My brother?" Zoe scoffed. "Now I'm wondering whether you made this whole thing up. Believe me, he hated me."
"He hated that you were stuck with him," Evan said, picking his words carefully. "He hated all the expectations your family heaped upon him. He hated that none of you seemed to realize he was hurting."
"He didn't talk about you often," he continued, leaving out all the reasons why. "But when he did, he talked about how he wished the connection between the two of you was stronger. He always felt like your parents' idea of who you had to be was driving a wedge between you, that maybe if they hadn't made you into his keeper, you could have just been siblings instead."
"I wasn't his keeper," Zoe said. "It's just... He was my brother. I had to look out for him."
"Exactly." Evan smiled. "That was the thing he hated the most, you know? That you thought you had to look out for him."
They were silent for a bit, and Evan mused over how insane it was that he was sitting opposite Zoe Murphy. The emotions swirling inside of him were making him dizzy, as if his heart couldn't settle on just one of them and instead had chosen to feed him every emotion all at once.
"Do you know why he did it?"
Zoe's voice was small, but the question reverberated in Evan's skull as if she'd shouted at him. He'd known this question would come, of course, he just didn't know how to talk about it without revealing quite how much he understood why Connor had done it.
"His life was miserable," he settled on, thinking that was the most neutral way he could phrase things.
"Yeah, but, like," Zoe said, and even looking away from her to give her a semblance of privacy Evan could hear the tears in her voice. "What was the specific reason?"
"Oh." Evan shook his head, forcing his eyes back to Zoe now, thinking she needed the connection to make sense of what he was saying.
"That's not how it works, Zo." The pet name slipped out, but if Zoe noticed, she didn't let on. "It's never just one thing. It's an accumulation of everything, and there doesn't even need to be a specific catalyst. Life just boils over and it keeps boiling over until one day, you can't deal with it anymore. You wish you could just put life on pause and give yourself time to catch up, but you can't, and there's no way out and no way forward and all you want is just for the world to stop spinning."
"You knew," she whispered.
"I didn't know," Evan countered. "I didn't know he was planning on ending things. I didn't know he had a method in mind, or a day. If I had known things had gotten that far-"
He choked on a sob. "I would have stopped him, given the chance. And I think that's why he didn't tell me. Because he knew. He knew I cared enough about him, knew I wanted him in my life badly enough to keep him here. I didn't see the final warning signs because he didn't want me to see."
Tears were blurring his vision now, and he had no idea whether Zoe was still there. It didn't matter anyhow; the realization that he wouldn't have been able to see the signs because Connor hadn't shown them, just like nobody had known he was planning on jumping out of a tree, lifted some weight off of his chest, freeing the tears and grief that had been stuck underneath it.
"I forgive you," he whispered to the tree, stroking the bark that had connected him to Connor on so many conversations. "I understand, and I forgive you."