The first thing you notice is the way that he's lying, propped up against the bed with his head tilted back, like he's staring at the ceiling.
The second thing you notice is the smell. He must've pissed himself - there's no other explanation for the puddle of fluid that's soaked his stupid ripped jeans. There's vomit trailing down his chin, coagulating on his soft, worn hoodie.
Nearing closer, even though that's the last thing you want to do, you realise that there's still puke dripping in clumps from his mouth. His eyes are half-lidded but bulging, and you tilt his head forward. Like a puppet with its strings suddenly cut, he slumps over, thwacking his head on the floor. He's dead. Connor is dead.
With shaking hands you call 911, and yell for your mom and dad, who're enjoying dinner downstairs. You hear the scrape of chairs and the clink of cutlery as it's set down, the thumping of your dad's feet on the stairs.
Absently, you collapse in his desk chair, resting your forearm on the desk. Something crumples there. You glance at it, but there's nothing resembling a note. There is, however, an opened, empty bottle of pills. They aren't his - you honestly aren't sure what poor kid he'd been able to nick sleeping pills off of, but the name label's so scratched that it's useless trying to decipher it.
You're still in high school, and your brother's just killed himself. The thought, that dumb thought, occurs to you as your parents enter the room. Your mom screams the second she sees his body, sliding down the doorframe to sit in a heap similar to your brother, although his positioning is much more awkward. It looks painful, actually. You wonder if you should readjust him.
Your dad squats, takes a shuddering breath. He places a hand on your mom's back, then looks up at you.
"I didn't mean for this to happen. I didn't think it was this bad - I figured it was just for attention, you know, the..." Dad whispers.
He seems to lose what he was saying, and sighs. 911 picks up the line (finally), and you wordlessly pass your cellphone to him. Your mom just sits there for a little while, until the ambulance arrives and soon he's nice and neat inside a black bag - zipped up tight. You just know he would hate the efficiency of the whole manoeuvre. He would want chaos, anger, anything so he wouldn't feel alone. Not this weepy, almost silent affair. The medic tells you that it's always "so god damn sad" when a teenager dies like this. Frankly, you think that if Connor were still alive, he would be flipping him off.
Dad rides in the ambulance, mom pours herself a glass of dad's scotch (because frankly, it doesn't seem like one of her vegan health shakes is going to cut it right now) and you get the bleach from under the bathroom sink.
You scrub at the floor until there's no remaining fluid. The room smells clinical now, and it's vaguely nauseating, but you grit your teeth and make the bed. There are no scraps of paper, no note, no goodbye. You throw his dirty laundry into the back of his closet, because washing it seems pointless now. You turn off his lamp, close his blinds, and shut the door on your way out.
Your dad gets home, several hours later, to your mom sleeping on the sofa, her head on your lap while you mindlessly watch a rerun of an old show. You aren't really watching. You're thinking about how Connor was such a fucking asshole sometimes. How he was moody and angry and it seemed like he made everything go to shit. You think about how he screamed in your face when you would argue. How he got physical, broke a lamp that one time, slammed the door so hard that the walls shivered. Now he's locked up in what's basically a glorified freezer until the funeral.
Your dad places a (somewhat) wrinkled sheet of paper in your hand. You can't bring yourself to look at it just yet. It's the note, you're sure of it. But you don't want to read it and you don't want to understand. Mostly, you're angry. You don't want to be sympathetic to your brother and honestly, he can suck a dick. You don't want to dance around your words just because he's dead, he was a real jerk. A real shitty brother.
Yet he was your brother. At the funeral, two nights later, you cry. You mourn the relationship that will never be. As you get up to speak about Connor, you realise so few people are here who Connor even liked - and you're escorted from the lectern as you sob. You know your dad wanted to keep it quiet, and thus, no one from his work or from your school is here. Dad's presenting a facade of normalcy available only to those deeply in denial. He does cry in the car on the way home, but you think it has more to do with the fact that your mom isn't talking to him at the moment than the fact that Connor's dead.
The night before you're due back at school, you read the note he left, the one your dad gave to you.
("It was in his back pocket, Zoe. When they were confirming that he had... Well. They found it, anyway. At the hospital.")
'Dear Evan Hansen...'
It figures, really, that his last words are to someone you're pretty sure he's never even really talked to. It's fitting that you feel like you barely understand your brother and his motives, even in death. You set the note on your nightstand, and curl up in bed. Tomorrow will bring a fresh set of horrors as you navigate the school in the wake of your brother's asshole decision. You wonder blankly, if Evan maybe understood your brother. You think you'll ask him tomorrow, maybe. You miss your brother.