Nope. Not amazing.
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.
Connor halts, his heavy boots landing with a thud. His eyes—what little I can see of them through his overgrown hair—are two steely blue death rays. He definitely heard Jared. I guess he’s not as oblivious as he seems.
Connor isn’t moving, isn’t speaking, just staring. Everything about this kid makes me shiver. He’s permafrost. Maybe that’s why he’s wearing all those thick layers even though it’s still technically summer.
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.
People walk by, stepping around me, some offering unhelpful commentary, but it doesn’t matter. I can’t hear them. I can’t move, either. I don’t want to. Why should I? It’s like when I fell from that tree in Ellison Park. I just lay there. I should have stayed under that tree forever. Just like I should have stayed home today. What’s wrong with hiding? At least it’s safe. Why do I keep doing this to myself?
“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.
“No, I mean, I know you. I know who you are. I’ve seen you play guitar in jazz band. I love jazz band. I love jazz. Not all jazz. But definitely jazz band jazz. That’s so weird. I’m sorry.”
“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.”
Something tells me she’s done this a million times before, arrived to clean up one of her brother’s messes. Now that she’s confirmed that I’m okay, she can go about her day. But I don’t want to be just another mess to her.
“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.
I’ll have to show Dr. Sherman something, and all I have so far is Dear Evan Hansen. I erased all the stuff from this morning. All that crap about being true to myself. I just wrote it because I thought it sounded good.
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.”
It’s official. The two of them definitely talked. “Yeah, no, I already finished it. I’m in the computer lab right now, printing it out.”
“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,
Me
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.
Connor nods, admiring his creation. I’m not about to burst his bubble. “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.”
“What?”
“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.