"Dear Evan Hansen,
This is not going to be a good day and here's why:
You are hallucinating the dead kid you are faking being friends with."
.
.
.
It starts on the way back from the Murphy's, when he is walking back home, mind spiralling away with all the lies and lies and lies and-
"You know, that's not what I meant when I said we could pretend to have friends."
And then Connor Murphy is falling into step beside him, hands in his hoodie's pocket, and Evan, like a normal, sensible person, shrieks and scrambles away, and, "What? You- How? Y-You? You are dead!"
"Well, yeah, duh," Connor shrugs like there is nothing confusing or weird or wrong or out of the ordinary with that, "or did you think I was a secret evil twin? Eviler, I mean."
"I-what?" Evan gapes, shuts his eyes, presses the heels of his hands against his eyelids, because this can't be real, "You- this isn't happening, it's not real, it's all in my head, you're dead, oh god, I'm going crazy, holy shit, this is a whole new level-"
"Okay, I'm going to stop you right fucking there because dude, calm the fuck down and breathe." Connor, no, the hallucination glares at him from a few feet away, "you just lied your way into my house, you can get used to some fucking haunting, asshole."
The words are spat at him with so much bitterness that they filter through the haze in Evan's mind, burning their way into understanding, and oh, "Right, right, it makes sense, in a very fucked up kind of way, but yes, it's the guilty- the guilty!" Evan nods fervently as he explains to Not-Connor standing in the driveway, "I just got into this mess, so my brain is freaking out, of course, and it's making me hallucinate you, obviously."
Evan almost smiles; his brain turning on him? He can deal with that, yeah, maybe change his meds or something. Maybe if he concentrates really hard or dig his nails on his hands, it will go away.
Except.
The hallucination, Connor, is still glowering at him from the driveaway, arms crossed against his chest, looking as real as the day he signed Evan's cast and as angry as the moment he shoved Evan to the floor.
They stare at each other in silence for another minute, but then a car turns the corner and runs over the spot Connor had been occupying and he looks alarmed for a second before his image blinks and fades away.
Evan finds himself alone in the street, wondering what the hell had just happened. He shakes his head, stuffs his hands in his pockets and goes home.
Tomorrow there will be enough to worry without him seeing things. He doesn't get enough sleep, not right away, and he hadn't expected to. He turns and tosses, limbs tangling up in the sheets; he thinks of all the lies he spun around the Murphy's, of how Zoe looked under the artificial light, of how his own house seemed so much emptier now. Strangely, it's the scared look on Connor's face when the car sped through him that sticks to his mind as Evan finally falls asleep.
.
.
.
The first thing Evan notices when he wakes up is that he had forgotten he owned a yellow shirt.
The second thing is that his yellow shirt had no business being up in the ceiling fan.
The third thing he notices is that a nuclear bomb seemed to have gone off in his room over night without him realizing it. His clothes had been scattered everywhere, from the ceiling to the window, and his closet had been thrown open, drawers tossed around and emptied. There is a shoe carefully placed on top of his computer, which, of course, had been relocated to the ceiling fan next to his yellow shirt.
"Dude, your clothes are lame."
Evan shuts his eyes again. He recognizes that voice, unfortunely, he really does. This has got to be a dream. Some terrible, horrible nightmare he is going to wake up from.
"Like, who even owns a yellow Save the Bees teeshirt?"
Anytime now.
"What are you, some vegan freak?"
He's going to wake up soon. Evan can feel it. Right about now.
"Oh god, I got stuck haunting some vegan freak, that's just pathetic, I wanna lodge a complaint."
There is a headache building on the back of his head and Evan doesn't think you can get those in dreams, not with the medication he's taking.
So, back to hallucinating.
"Why didn't I made you up nicer?" He wonders aloud, because really, couldn't his brain give him a break?
Connor, though, doesn't seem to appreciate his woes. Instead, he looks at him warily from where he sits cross legged in the carpet, "you know, you are going to have to accept I'm not just a figment of your imagination at some point or other."
"Right, yeah, no, you are the evil twin no one knew about, how could I possibly forget."
"Okay, first off, eviler, I was clearly pretty damn evil on my own when I was alive," and now Evan found himself agreeing with his hallucination, "second, dude, how do you think your lame ass shirt ended up on the ceiling, uh? Or the shoe on the computer on the fan? And how do you explain the pentagram draw in blood in the roof? Or the socks in the coffee maker?"
"The what on the roof?"
"That's beside the point," Connor waves him off distractedly, and Evan backs away as much as possible, plasters himself against the wall, as the boy walks up to the bed and towers over him, "you gotta accept I'm a fucking ghost because it's no fun haunting you when you think I'm not real, and trust me, I'm going to keep haunting your lying ass until you drop this shit."
Evan is dizzy. There is a lot of words going on around him now, but he can't focus because holy shit, Connor Murphy is a ghost holy shit holyshitholyshitholysh-
He looks wide eyed at the boy in front of him, tries to say something, he is not exactly sure what, but it doesn't matter anyway because there isn't enough air in his lungs and he's choking and-
There is a loud bang.
It startles Evan out of the panic attack he had been spiraling into, he opens his eyes.
( when had he closed them? )
The glass of water he always keeps on his bedside table is broken on the ground, a wet stain on the wall, shards glistening in the morning sun.
Connor is gone.
Evan takes a deep breath. His room still looks like a warzone.
He is so glad his mom isn't home yet.