Evan Hansen was not having a good day. The skin under his cast itch. He had hit his funny bone while in the shower. And now, he was hungry, but all they had in the fridge was Alfredo pasta his Mom had made three nights ago and Evan knew for a fact that the Alfredo had sat on the stove top all night before it had been refrigerated and he wasn't about to risk food poisoning. Mom had left him twenty bucks for pizza, but the idea of talking to a pizza delivery person who probably went to the same school as him was unbearable. Evan, despite hating talking, hated silence even more. When the delivery person made change for the twenty dollars, Evan would feel compelled to say something, probably about the weather or maybe about the itchy skin under his cast, and then the pizza delivery person would tell all his friends at school just how much of an awkward freak Evan Hansen really was. He thought the cherry topper to this no good day would be trying to sleep while desperately avoiding thinking of school. Tomorrow would be the first day of his senior year, which meant tomorrow would be a a battle of claims. Claiming a new locker. Claiming new seats in the classroom. Claiming a spot in the cafeteria. Claiming a spot in the school quad when he would inevitably avoid eating in the cafeteria. Every claim risked confrontation. And if that weren't enough, both his therapist and mom decided that it was time to change his entire social paradigm and try to connect with people. To make friends. To put himself out there for rejection.
But these thoughts were nothing. Well, that wasn't true. They were enough to keep him awake at night and plan for worst case scenarios. But he was accustomed to these obsessive thoughts. Evan really couldn't remember a time where he didn't have obsessive thoughts. But they were nothing compared to the horrifying message Jared just sent him.
JARED: Holy shit. Zombie Unicorn is breaking up. Twitter is losing their fucking minds!
For a long moment, Evan just stared. Jared sent the twitter link next. He numbly tapped it and there it was, written on the social media account of his favorite band.
Zombie UnicornZombieUnicornBand
After two years, the members of Zombie Unicorn are splitting up. Thanks for all the memories! Follow TheMoonBandMan and LittleDrummerGirl for more details.
That was it. No other explanation. No previous tweets that hinted that the Evan's music world was coming to an end. He swallowed hard and swiped back to his messenger app.
EVAN: Do you know why they broke up?
JARED: Apparently, Neil and Natalie were signed by a record label.
EVAN: Why just them?
JARED: Who the hell knows?
EVAN: Is it because Zoe and Connor are minors? Maybe their parents want them to finish high school?
JARED: Or maybe it's because Connor is a fucking psycho and they're worried crazy runs in the family?
EVAN: Zoe isn't crazy.
JARED: Crazy hot though, amiright?
EVAN: I got to go.
JARED: Don't break your arm with all your sad wanks ;)
Evan closed the messenger app with shaking fingers. He wasn't numb anymore. Far from it. His heart was racing. His eyes couldn't focus. His lungs couldn't expand. His shakes got so bad that his phone fumbled out of his hands and on to his bed. He should do those breathing exercises or distraction tactics Dr. Sherman had taught him at his first therapy appointment two years ago. Instead, Evan pulled out his laptop from the nightstand and opened it on his lap. His fingers tapped only a few letters before "YouTube Zombie Unicorn" popped up from his search history. Within a minute, the live version of Zombie Unicorn's "Rockstar Mermaid Bra" came on the screen.
Here's the thing. Evan didn't know much about music. Or at least, he didn't know much about musical instruments. The only thing he felt a little bit knowledgeable on (and by little he means extremely little because he's Evan Hansen and the only thing he was an expert on is trees) was singing. Neil Armstrung was a pretty good singer. Despite Evan not liking loud noises, he really admired the way Neil could shout some of his notes in that screamy yet musical way. But when it came to everything else, Evan had no idea. He thought Natalie Cho was a good drummer—the only other comparison he knew was Jared who occasionally played the drum set when Evan came over if Evan was too nervous to play Call of Duty. Neil seemed decent on the guitar. And no one seemed more dedicated to his instrument than Connor did on the bass. But it was Zoe Murphy, the lead guitarist, who had captured his attention.
The Murphy siblings were something of a legend at his school. He'd never forget that day in fourth grade when all the students in his class went to the band classroom. They were supposed to try out the instruments to see if they'd be interested in joining band next year. He remembered how nervous Mr. Van Brugen was as he kept a careful eye on Connor who kept picking up woodwind and brass instruments and staring at them like they were pieces of garbage. Not that Evan blamed Mr. Van Brugen at the time. Saxophones were considerably more expensive than printers and Connor had gotten a reputation for his anger even at that point.
But when Connor picked up a guitar, his face changed. When he strummed a note, his eyes furrowed in concentration. By the end of the period, he could play "All Star" by Smashmouth. Everyone was impressed, even if the chords were a little off because Connor didn't have the proper finger strength. For a brief moment, Connor was the coolest kid in their class. Then Mr. Van Brugen asked him if he were interested in band and Connor responded by tossing the guitar on the ground, flipping the teacher off, and saying "fuck that." He got sent to the principle's office and that was the end of Connor's school music career and popularity.
But if Connor was gifted at the guitar, Zoe was a gift. Obviously, Evan didn't share any music classes with her since she was a year younger than him, but he heard the rumors. How she was a prodigy. How she learned all the guitar chords within the first week of band. How she could play solos meant for high school students. By the time she was a freshman in high school, she was the jazz band's lead guitarist. And after the jazz band's first performance, her legendary status was sealed. Even Evan went to one of her jazz concerts, despite the auditorium being filled with people and being forced to sit next to strangers. He was scared for her when she stood up. The idea of standing in spotlight while hundreds of people stared at you was on the top five list of recurring Evan Hansen nightmares. But she was fearless. Her face held no tension, only a gentle smile. And even though her fingers flew in a furious dance, her eyes closed as though she were in meditation. When she finished, the parents and students who had been half-heartedly applauding for all the other performances stood up to give her a standing ovation.
A lot of people were disappointed when she quit jazz band to join a local rock band. The whispers grew even worse when they realized her brother had also been recruited. Evan overheard Zoe talking to her parents on the phone one day shortly after she had joined the Zombie Unicorn, (which had been a pure coincidence because Evan just happened to be standing in the school parking lot because he certainly wouldn't follow her or stalk her as Jared so often teased him because if there was one thing about Evan was that he respected people's need for personal space) and she'd been yelling that she didn't care if a jazz band looked better on a college resume and that it wasn't her job to keep her brother out of trouble. She had walked around school looking tired for weeks. Then someone recorded "Rockstar Mermaid Bra" at one of their concerts and they had gone viral.
Evan sat on his bad, silently mouthing the lyrics with Neil. Like most of their songs, it had a silly theme—this one being about the star shapes on mermaid bras—but it had a deeper meaning behind it. On how it was okay to dress the way you wanted, even if it made other people uncomfortable. It spoke a lot to the band's aesthetic. Zoe dyed her hair every color of the rainbow. Natalie's self-proclaimed fashion icon was "Emo Hello Kitty." Neil frequently wore kilts and pigtails. And Connor… well, he painted his fingernails, which wasn't really much compared to the rest of the band, but it was something.
The reason why this particular video had gone viral was without a doubt Zoe's doing. That night her hair was dyed red and she had dressed in a bustier with teal sequin stars. Matched with her skinny jeans, boots, and new nose piercing, she looked like a rockstar Ariel. The video had closed in on her during her solo, when she had her eyes closed and that small smile on her lips. When her solo ended, she flipped her hair, opened her eyes directly to the camera, and winked. If Evan hadn't fallen in love with her before, he would have then.
But the panic over Zombie Unicorn breaking up wasn't about Zoe. Or, at least, it wasn't only about Zoe. Mostly, it was about Evan. More than anything, Evan had wanted to go to one of their concerts. He almost did, twice. But each time he had spiraled into a panic attack in his mom or Jared's car. School concerts in the school auditorium were one thing. Concert venues and bars were something else entirely. What if the music was too loud and he had a panic attack? What if someone tried to give him drugs? What if he accidentally tripped and stumbled into someone and they punched him in the face? His mom had driven him home the first time and Jared had left him in the parking lot the second time. Evan had been disappointed with himself, but he wasn't disheartened. Because he thought he had time to get better. It had even been the subject of his Dear Evan Hansen letters once or twice, how he would reward himself by going to a Zombie Unicorn concert once he could manage his symptoms. But now, that would never happen.
One more reason why Evan Hansen was a failure.
His phone rang and disrupted his thoughts. He flipped his phone on the bed and looked at the screen. It was his mom. Evan slammed his laptop shut and leaped to his feet. He paced the room, shaking his hands, doing his best to breathe. He had five rings until it went to voicemail. Five rings until Mom would worry and call again and ask too many questions on how he was doing and did he order pizza and does she need to come home and so on and so forth. When the fifth ring came, Evan snatched the phone off the bed and answered it.
"Yeah, hello, it's Evan."
His mom laughed a bit. "Yes. Hi Evan. It's good that it's you answering your own phone."
"Right, right." He pulled the phone away to take a deep breath. "So what's up?"
"Just checking in. Did you order that pizza?"
"Not yet."
"It's after eight."
"I had a late lunch."
"Evan."
"Mom, it's fine."
"Fine, fine." She sighed and Evan instantly felt that knife of guilt. He hated making his mother worry. But before he could stammer out an apology, she continued. "I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna be home until tomorrow morning. Rachel called in sick and guess who got stuck pulling a double. But come hell or high water, you will have your first day of school pancakes. I promise."
"You don't have to—"
"I want to. Now, tell me about your day."
The rest of the conversation (which lasted only a few minutes until Mom got called off her fifteen minute break early due to her patient falling out of their bed) was spent Evan trying to make his day seem interesting. Considering all he had done was pour over his class schedule, memorize his classroom locations, and obsessively match his notebooks and binders by color to each class, he had his work cut out for him. When it was time for his Mom to go, it was a sweet relief. But the relief only lasted a few minutes before he realized he was alone and hungry, school was tomorrow, and Zombie Unicorn was still broken up.
It was so hard to be by himself in moments like this. Part of him wanted to open his laptop to YouTube and obsessively watch Zombie Unicorn clips until he passed out from exhaustion. But part of him worried that watching Zombie Unicorn would spiral the feelings inside of him until they were out of control and then it would be that day in the park again when Evan was on the branch of the tree and he looked down and he began to wonder if he was too high or not high enough.
Evan pinched his nose. He was doing it again. Thinking. Spiraling. He looked to the bedroom wall. Mrs. Lindgren, their twin home neighbor who shared a wall with the Hansens, probably wouldn't mind. She always said she never minded. But it was almost nine o'clock and she was old and she needed sleep and the last thing Evan wanted was to inconvenience anyone. He ran down the stairs and then again to the basement. Evan didn't like being in the basement. The floor was cement, there was spiderwebs in the pipes, and the furnace made weird noises. But it was the most soundproof room in the house and Evan didn't think he could hold back.
He took a deep breath.
And started to sing.
"Dude, didn't I warn you not to break your arm with the sad wanks last night?"
"Ha ha." Evan's voice was a little raspy. He had spent hours last night singing. If he were a few years younger, he would have lost his voice entirely the next day. But in the last few years—and after scattered impromptu voice lessons from Mrs. Lindgren next door—he knew how to take care of his vocal cords.
Jared leans in close. "Paint me a picture. You're in your bedroom, you've got one of Unicorn Zombie's videos up on your weird, off-brand cell phone—"
"That's not what happened!" Evan hissed, looking furiously around to make sure no one overheard. "I was, um, well I was climbing a tree. And I fell."
"You fell out of tree? What are you, an acorn?"
Evan proceeded to tell the whole story. How he was an apprentice park ranger at Ellison State Park. How he was a tree expert. How he climbed a oak tree forty feet into the air. And then how he fell and it was super funny how he just laid on the ground waiting for someone to come only to have no one come and hahaha wasn't that just so hilarious?
"Jesus Christ." Jared looked at Evan and Evan now knew that it had been a huge mistake to say anything because now Jared thought he was a bigger loser than he had been junior year and God he needed to change the subject.
"So what did you do this summer?"
Jared, fortunately, was happy to change the topic. About how band camp was amazing, how all the ladies fawned over his incredibly cool self, and how one girl from Israel let him… well, do stuff. Then Evan tried to make him sign his cast if only to hide his embarrassment.
"Why are you asking me?" Jared said slowly.
"Well, I thought, because we're friends—"
"We're not friends, Hansen. We're family friends. That's a whole different thing and you know it." He stepped forward, dodging the sharpie to punch Evan in the arm. "But hey, tell your mom I was nice so my parents keep paying for my car insurance."
It hurt. It shouldn't hurt. Evan should known better. But it still hurt to hear Jared reject him. Would it have been easier to swallow had he not written his Dear Evan Hansen letter this morning? All those letters seem to do was have him write out his deepest wishes only to confront how he failed fulfilling them the next day. This year was going to be different? Who was he kidding.
"Hey, Connor." Jared suddenly said. Evan's shoulders shoot up as he peered behind him. Sure, enough it was Connor Murphy.
It always seemed odd to Evan that people like Zoe and Connor Murphy still went to school. They were bona fide rockstars. They had things like gigs, fans, and CD cases with their faces on it. But they still came to school. They still had homework. Zoe at least made sense. The things from her rockstar life trickled into her school life. She had friends constantly surrounding her and people constantly crushing on her. But Connor was always alone, which seemed odd with all the fans screaming love for him in all caps online.
"Is it true you smashed your bass guitar into Neil's windshield last night?" Jared said. "How psycho rocker of you."
And suddenly, Evan was very scared for Jared.
Connor slowly turned. He didn't say anything. Only stared.
"I was kidding. It was a joke," Jared backpedaled.
"Yeah, no, it was funny." Connor deadpanned. He stepped closer. "Can't you tell? Am I not laughing hard enough for you?"
Jared mumbled something that sounded like freak and ran away and Evan was so grateful that nothing worse had happened that he let out an awkward laugh. Of course, this turned out to be the worst thing to do because Connor's eyes, which had previously been tired and steel, turned to him and became fire and rage.
"What the fuck are you laughing at?" Connor said, stomping toward him.
Evan shook his head, his brain desperately trying to think of any word but, "What?"
"Stop fucking laughing at me."
"I'm not"
"You think I'm a freak?"
"No, I—"
"I'm not the freak."
"I wasn't—"
"You're the fucking freak!"
And suddenly Connor's hands were on his chest and Evan was falling. And he should have just accepted it. He should accepted he was falling like he accepted he was falling out of that old oak tree this summer and accepted that there would be pain and humiliation and that he would have to get up off that floor alone like he got up alone with a broken arm. But his body refused to cooperate. So instead of falling, self-preservation forced Evan to grab hold of the thing closest to him, which just so happened to be the very person who caused him to fall. But instead of keeping him upright, Evan only pulled Connor down with him like a person drowning in water.
"Fuck!" Connor shouted. Only it's muffled, because Connor face-planted into his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Evan rasped.
"Move!"
Evan desperately tried to worm away from Connor, but the metal clasps of Connor's boots had tangled into his shoelaces. "I'm trying."
"Try harder."
"I—Augh!"
In Connor's desperate attempts to separate himself, he ended up pushing against Evan. Unfortunately for Evan, the spot he pushed against just happened to be his broken arm.
Connor froze. "Shit… Hansen? Are you… are you okay?"
Evan desperately wanted to say he's okay. He desperately wanted to say he's fine and that he's sorry for laughing and for pulling him down and for getting stuck in Connor's boots. But the pain was too much and made him too honest, so he said, "No."
Somehow, Connor unhooked his boot from Evan's shoe laces. Then, he did something that shocked Evan to the core. Connor reached out for Evan's good arm with his calloused hand and gently lifted him to his feet. Yet fespite how gentle his actions were, his face still looked barely contained with the rage. Thankfully, instead of just blasting it out, Connor kept it locked away, biting his lip to prevent it from escaping. Evan cradled his cast and stole a glance to Connor. "Thanks for, uh, helping me up."
Connor ran a hand through his hair. "Do you need to go the doctor?"
"I, uh, don't think so." His arm was throbbing and the skin under his cast was getting uncomfortably hot and tight. "I'll just, um, get some pain meds and an ice pack from the nurse's office."
Connor kept biting his lip. After a moment, he drummed his chipped fingernails against the canvas of his messenger bag. He kept staring at Evan and Evan didn't know how to handle it.
"How'd you break your arm, Hansen?"
It was the last thing Evan expected. Connor was prolonging the conversation. He had just shoved him and called him a freak and now he was talking to him.
"I… fell out of a tree."
Connor stopped drumming on his bag and, miraculously, a sideways smile peeked at the corner of his mouth. "That is just the saddest fucking thing I've ever heard."
Evan's mouth twitched back. "I know."
"No one's signed your cast."
"Uh, no. Not yet."
"I'll sign it."
Dumbly, Evan dug the sharpie out of his pocket and handed it over. Evan couldn't hide the yelp that escaped his lips when Connor yanked his cast a bit too harshly. Connor paused, looked at Evan briefly, before signing. Evan twitched. If he had done what Connor had done, he had said sorry so many times that he would have passed out. But Connor hadn't apologized. At least, not in the normal way. Evan couldn't help notice (and maybe appreciate?) the difference.
When Connor finished, the entire side of Evan's cast was covered in his name. "Now we can both pretend that we have friends," Connor said and passed back the sharpie.
"You have friends." Evan stuttered.
The hint of a smile disappeared. "Are you the expert of my life now?"
"Sorry. No. It's just… you're…"
"A bass guitar player for a local band that never made a full album or played a venue with more than a hundred people?"
"But Facebook—"
"Loves Zoe and couldn't give a shit about the rest of us."
"That's not true."
"Why don't you shut up because you don't know what the fuck you're talking about?"
Then the bell rang and it was like the signal Connor been waiting for. He punched the lockers Evan didn't realize he had backed up against. When he stormed away, Evan turned around shaking. There, only inches from his head, was a freshly dented locker and Evan could only wonder if Connor had missed his true target.
The school day ended. No one else signed his cast. He had sat alone during lunch. And now he was in the computer lab, staring at his pathetic excuse of a letter.
Dear Evan Hansen,
Today was not an amazing day. It won't be an amazing week or amazing year. Because why would it be?
I don't even have Zombie Unicorn anymore. All my hope was pinned on attending one of their shows and now they're broken up. Maybe if I could talk to Zoe that would be enough. Maybe things would be different. But I talked to Connor and nothing changed at all.
I wish everything was different. I wish I was a part of something. The same something I use to feel when I listened to Zombie Unicorn. I just want to matter. To anyone. But let's face it: if I disappeared tomorrow, would anyone notice?
Sincerely, your best and most dearest friend,
Me
It had taken him longer to write it than it should have. By the time he pressed print, everyone in the computer lab had left. When he walked to the printer, his feet felt heavy. When he opened the lab room's door, his hands felt too large for his body. When he walked down the empty school hallways, he felt small. Too small to live in a world so big and so full of… everything. It should scare Evan, but instead he felt numb.
This wasn't a new feeling for Evan, and were he capable of emotion, he might be worried about that. But instead, he simply walked and thought of trees and wondered how hard it might be to climb with a cast on his arm.
As he walked, his footsteps echoed step by step. But then those echoes were joined by something else. Music. Numbly, he kept walking and the music grew louder as he approached the band room. Guitars. Odd. As far as he could tell, the same melody was being played over and over. Something that built in intensity before erupting into something huge. When he was right outside the classroom, he peered through the window and saw them. Connor and Zoe. They were sitting across from each other, each with a guitar in their lap: Zoe's, her own. Connor's, one borrowed from the band's closet. The music had stopped and they were talking. And for some reason, Evan's feet didn't move. He kept watching until Connor's words morphed into shouting until finally he tossed the guitar on the ground with a god awful twang before rushing to the door. The door where Evan was standing. He barely jumped out of the way before Connor slammed it open.
"Sorry, I, uh…"
Connor stopped, mid-rage. "Hansen? Are you creeping on my sister?"
"No. I was, uh just …"
"Stay the fuck away from Zoe!"
Evan watched Connor walk away with a sense of finality. Again. Evan had screwed up again.
"Hey, are you okay?"
And suddenly Zoe was there and Evan waited for his heart to kick start into a blind panic. It did lurch, a little. But that wrongness from earlier didn't disappear. If anything, it became more amplified when placed next to something so perfect.
"I'm fine."
Zoe was leaning against the doorway. Her guitar was still slung over her shoulder and she stared down the hallways with an unreadable expression.
"Sorry my brother's such a psycho."
"I don't… I don't think."
Before he could finish his thought, Zoe closed the door and went back to the band room to practice. She was too distracted to talk to Evan. That's fine. He wouldn't talk to him either if he had the option. So Evan kept walking. Down the hallways. Out the school. Out the school property. But he didn't turn left, the direction of Dr. Sherman.
Evan turned right instead.
By the time he made it to Ellison State Park, the sun had almost set. He must have walked five miles. The empty feeling had disappeared, but not his sense of empty purpose. Numbness had been replaced by oversensitivity. The roar of passing cars sent his skin on edge and the smell of forest made the air taste like green. Thinking was bad. So Evan had succumbed to humming. But not radio songs. He was humming the song he heard the Murphy siblings play over and over in the high school band room. The more he hummed it, the deeper he connected it to his emotions. And soon, he had words.
When you've fallen in a forest, and nobody's around, do you ever really crash or even make a sound?
He kept repeating it obsessively and when he got to the chorus he cut to the heart of his loneliness. It didn't make him feel better, but it slowly lessened the dense feeling in his chest.
He was a bit worried as he passed through the front gate of the park. There were a few cars in the lot, but they were probably just the park rangers. Having worked there all summer, he knew the rangers would stay at the registration cabin or patrol the campground during sunset hours. The forests and the trails would be free of people.
In less than twenty minutes, he found his oak tree. It was the beacon and Evan was the fly drawn to its light. He stumbled over roots. He kicked up clumps of grass. Evan couldn't keep his eyes off the branches. And when he got to the base of the tree, he didn't even plot out his climbing path. He just set down his backpack and pulled himself up with his one good arm.
It was slow going but eventually he climbed up to the top. Higher than he had climbed before. He didn't look down. It wasn't a refusal born from fear, but of focus. Evan wanted to spend his time in the tree as peacefully as possible.
But he was nervous. Over-sensitized. And he was beginning to over think. And he was so tired of over-thinking everything. He knew why he did it. It made things less painful to assume the worst so you wouldn't be disappointed when things ended up exactly the way you planned it. But it was like living in a war zone, only there was no hope of escaping it because the war zone existed in his head. So he quieted the battle the only way he knew how. He began to sing. And he didn't just hum and mumble like he had the walk over. He sang the way he sang in the sanctity of his home. Raw, loud, and full of emotion.
For the first time since he printed his letter, he truly let himself feel and think back to that day in the forest. He was so sick of this perpetual loneliness and constant sense of failure. How did people connect? How did people find meaning in the day-to-day? He ended the song on that note of desperation, of wanting. His breath shuddered, trying to recover.
And then he heard the sound of clapping.
Mortified, Evan looked below. Down the sixty feet. Down the distance that had a higher likelihood of succeeding where forty feet had failed, was none other than Connor Murphy, sitting by the tree on the opposite side Evan had climbed from.
The claps were sloppy. Connor kept smacking his hands together, but occasionally they would miss. And sometimes, Connor's head would loll to the side as though he was struggling to keep it upright.
"Connor!?"
The clapping stopped and Connor said something. But the words were so mumbled that Evan couldn't make them out across the distance. He didn't know what to do. Should he stay in the tree and wait for Connor to leave? Should he climb down and give him space?
In the end, it was Connor throwing up that made the decision for him.
He scrambled down the tree quickly, scrapping his hands, arms, and face as he passed through the branches. At the bottom he jumped, falling to the ground when he landed in the grass. And when he scrambled over to Connor, nausea passed through him. Not because of the vomit, even though it was gross and rancid and forced Evan to breathe through his mouth. But because of the empty orange pill bottles sitting beside Connor and the glazed expression on Connor's face.
Evan hovered at first, not sure what to do. Connor looked so horrible. He was pale, sweaty, and looked to be in pain. But through it all, he gave Evan that same sideways smile he had given him that morning in the school hallway.
"You've got a fucking beautiful voice, Hansen."
Then he puked again. And again. And again until he passed out against the tree and stopped looking at Evan at all.