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.