I do not own Dear Evan Hansen or Newsies.
"Come on guys," Jack had been trying to get any of them to speak to him for at least an hour and soon they'd all have to go to sleep. His window of opportunity was slowly closing. "Give me a break already."
"Actually Jack," Finally, someone was talking to him even if their tone didn't sound promising. "You could have given up and stopped trying to get us to talk to you an hour ago. We didn't have to give you a break, you did." Not what Jack had hoped to hear from Henry.
"At least someone talked to me," He mumbled.
In all honesty, all of the newsboys had acted like it had been a typical night. The only thing was they had pretended that he wasn't even in the same room as them. Multiple times, Romeo, Kenny, or one of the younger boys would walk straight pass him, narrowly missing bumping into him. They were very talented at making him feel even worse than before.
Jack already felt like the jerk of the year for what he had said and done, did they really have to rub it in? If Race had answered that, he would have said, "Yes, yes indeed."
The time was 9:45 and with about 15 minutes until they would head up to bed, Jack just gave up and retired to the left corner of the room away from the door. He shut his eyes and only thought, I am such an idiot. How did I make this such a mess? I never meant for it to go so far. I was just talking and talking and talking and this happened. I'm so sorry and I need to find something to say. Anything at all. Words have failed, they have failed so badly. There's nothing I can say to convince them, so how can I show them?
"Hey! That's not fair!"
He snapped out of his daze. Across the room, he saw that Race, Finch, Albert, Mush, Henry, and Ike were playing a card game. Based off the number of players and how they were sitting, they were playing Rich-Man, Poor-Man. Rather, they were playing. Now the six of them were in a full out argument. Albert and Race to be exact. Jack listened in.
How the game was typically played was that one deck of cards was split between five or more players, it didn't matter if one person had one more card than everyone else. Then, whoever was sitting in the "Rich-Man" spot then would start by putting a card face up in the center. Then the person in the "Well-Off" spot would try to place a card higher than the one from before on top, Aces beat Kings and twos beat Aces. If they can't beat it, then they could pass and it wouldn't affect them. Then the people in the "Upper-Middle Class" spot, "Lower-Middle Class" spot, "Lower Class" spot, and "Poor-Man" spot would do the same until someone put a card down that everyone else passed. Then, those cards would be put aside and the person who put down the card that everyone passed would start again by putting down a new card. Whoever runs out of cards first wins the round and the next people who run out of cards get 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th. Then based off their places, they switch seats. The new "Rich-Man" or winner and so on.
From what Jack was seeing, there weren't playing an actual round. Instead arguing over what they had to do in between rounds. Between rounds the "Rich-Man" gave the "Poor-Man" their lowest card and the "Poor-Man" gave their highest. The same thing happens with the "Well-Off" and "Lower-Class" players. And the "Middle-Class" would trade for what they wanted. Even though they didn't have to tell the truth about the cards they would trade. And that was the route of their entire problem.
"You son of a-!"
"Little kids in the room!" Specs interrupted an infuriated Albert.
He said that loud enough for the youngest of them to hear so Kenny answered, "We're not that little!"
"Still."
"Butternut squash." Albert finished, "Happy?"
"Very," Specs, who was in the "Poor-Man" spot replied.
"You gave me a four!" He accused, Race and him were in the "Middle-Class" spots, "But told me you'd give me a nine!"
"That's called doing business," Race said casually.
"That's called being a lying, cheating jerk!"
"Hey! I didn't cheat. I don't have to tell you the truth about what I'll give you! Ask anyone." For once, Race was right. There was no rule against lying. However Albert may have forgotten the rule.
In a matter of seconds, all civility had gone straight out of the window and the two were screaming anything and everything at each other. Relevant or not, it didn't matter. Words were just coming out of their mouths and if they were actually listening to what the other was saying, they would have been very offended.
He was ready to intervene and solve the problem like he normally would but hesitated. This was not a normal day and there was no point like acting like it was. None of them would listen to anything he had to say. So he let them sort it out themselves. Jack sure didn't expect them to be able to work it out by themselves but miracles happen.
All of the newsies had gathered where the game had been played to try to stop the argument or just out of curiosity. Some were taking sides and Jack had to do everything he could to not break it up. Then someone interrupted everything.
"Everyone shut the hell up! And sit your asses down!"
The boys sat down where they were and then Jack saw who had caught everyone's attention. Buttons? Jack thought, Since when has he ever tried to take charge. He even told me that he'd rather get thrown off a boat in the middle of the ocean than have to lead.
"Damn Buttons," Henry said under his breaths. Yeah, no kidding.
"Shut up, no one asked you," None of them had ever seen him so pissed. Silence filled the air. "Now, who's half-assed idea was it to play Rich-Man, Poor-Man?" No one was sure, they had just started playing. "Well, whoever it was, congratulations, you started an all out war. Only an idiot wouldn't know that the rules are so confusing that we fight every single time over a misunderstood rule."
"Sorry."
"What?"
"I said I'm sorry," Albert repeated, "I forgot the rule when I was mad, I'm sorry."
"Thank you," Buttons turned and headed up the stairs to the bunks.
Halfway up, Mush asked, "Where are you going?"
"Bed, and you should too."
Jack was impressed. No, that was an understatement. He was absolutely astonished. They had sorted things out themselves without him. Then it hit him. They had sorted things out themselves without him. They didn't need him anymore. They were so set on the idea that they were fine by themselves that one of the shyest people in the world stepped up to prove it.
The newsies slowly filed upstairs, leaving Jack in the dark.
He nearly screamed when one of the boys gave him a quick hug. It was Romeo, one of the shorter newsies.
"Good luck Jack, it'll be hard to get them back on your side."
"Wait, you're back on my side?" Jack asked.
By then Romeo was halfway up the stairs and hadn't heard him, "Oh, and by the way, Crutchie isn't back yet. Just thought you'd like to know."
Crutchie. That's what was missing. I haven't seen him all night. This isn't good, I need to find him. No, I should calm down first. But Crutchie. But I'll do something stupid if I don't stop myself from freaking out. I need to clear my head. The roof. But I need to find… Aggghhhh!
"What the hell?"
Romeo had told him that Crutchie hadn't returned to the lodging house yet there he was, sitting on his blanket.
"Oh, hey Jack," Crutchie responded in a whisper.
"Where were ya?"
"Around."
If Crutchie was going to act like nothing had happened earlier that day, then Jack wouldn't either. Whenever his younger friend wasn't acting like normal, he would sit with him until he started talking. Sometimes it would take a while but that was okay.
A few minutes after Jack sat down he reminded, "You do know that I'm gonna sit here until you start talking. I'm not going anywhere. Not anymore."
"Really?" Crutchie looked up, "You're not going?"
"Not anymore," Jack sighed, "Listen, I'm so sorry about everything. There's nothing I can say."
"You're right."
"What?"
"You're right," He repeated, "There's nothing you can say. Maybe one or two of the boys will eventually forgive you, but not all of them. And certainly not me."
Jack's heart was slowly breaking. This was horrible, Jack had thought that Crutchie would have been the most forgiving. Not the least.
"I don't know what I was thinking, okay. I just… I just guess I never thought that I'd ever get an opportunity like that. Or that I'd have this perfect girl who could show me the good in everything, even me. I just didn't want it to go away so I somehow thought that leaving would help preserve it. I don't know why, I just thought it was a good idea. But it wasn't."
"You don't say," Crutchie muttered.
"I don't know, I just never had a dad who stuck it out through everything. Or a mom who was there just because." Jack paused, but not long enough for his brother to respond, "That's not a good excuse. I know. Nothing will make sense of everything I've done. Words fail. That's the truth."
"I know."
"You know what?"
"I know that words fail. There are so many things I could have fixed if I had just found a way to say what I was thinking." Jack wanted to ask what things his friend was talking about but that would have to wait. "But, I don't believe you. I don't believe it when you say that words fail. I may have just said that you don't have anything to say to make things right, but you do. I just didn't want to admit that there was something you could say. And I don't think you do either."
"Well, I guess sometimes you get a taste of everything you've ever wanted. Everything you wish you had. And it's right there. All you have to do is say yes and it becomes a reality. Then you make it true. Because everybody wants something, needs something too. Even if it's different for different people." Jack couldn't believe he had just said that. It was the reason why he had actually accepted the offer originally. He thought he had stopped thinking about running away from the city but deep down, he still wanted to. "I've gotta go," Not even sure where he'd go, Jack started for the ladder.
"Wait," Crutchie called. Now he wasn't mad at Jack anymore, he only wanted to keep his brother from running away. "Don't run."
Instead of climbing down the ladder, Jack leaned onto the railing next to the ladder. Unable to control himself anymore, tears started to roll down his face. The last time he cried had been sometime during the strike. Crutchie heard the quiet sobs and slowly stood up and placed himself next to Jack.
"What's the matter?"
"None of this was real, just a sad idea. There is no way that me leaving could have done any good. I was just so scared. Scared that unless I did something, all of the happiness in our life would just disappear. All of us were happy and I just couldn't give it up." He sniffled, "You know I'd rather pretend that I'm more than just some broken parts." He almost laughed, "Imagine that I'm better than this mess I really am. Then I never have to think about how broken I am or let anyone else see. I'm constantly stopping myself to make sure I don't make a mistake. If I don't lead with the worst parts of me then no one else sees it. I don't have to worry about what would happen if everyone saw. They would hate it."
"We're not like that, you know that," Crutchie couldn't wrap his head around why Jack thought this.
"All I will ever do is run, and you know that."
"Then stop. Stay here and if something bad happens, stick it out. You know you can. Step into the sun, quit hiding in the shadows." As much as a show boat Jack was, Crutchie knew that he really would rather go unnoticed.
"But how?"
"I don't know, I really don't know." Then he added with a smile, "But hey, we'll figure it out. We always do."
I'm not sure if I liked how that turned out. It's a lot less long as Good For You but hey, it's an ending.
Spring Break starts for me on Friday and on Saturday I'm seeing Finding Neverland so I'm excited. Spring Break also means that I'll have more time to write. Normally I don't actually end up writing anymore on breaks but I'll try. It might help that I have an idea for a multichapter story. I'm going to try to start writing it soon. But before I start, what Newsie would you not hate me too much for killing off? And if you're completely against that I can just make one up.