A/N: Hello reader, thanks for being here! Here comes chapter two, which I wrote and rewrote three times before this version. I hope it's good enough, because the positivity following the last chapter just makes me want to make this whole thing great. (Also one of you said I wrote Evan stammering quite well in the last chapter. Thanks so much, but I'm sorry to say, I think I've overdone it in this one :3)
TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter includes non-explicit discussions of a suicide attempt.
Please, I beg you, don't read this if you have even the slightest fear that it could have a negative impact on your mental health. YOU come first, your emotional well-being is worth infinitely more to me than you reading this. If you still think this is something you want to read, then I hope you enjoy it!
These Broken Parts - Chapter 2
The grey sky above mirrored Evan Hansen's sentiments perfectly when he returned to school on Thursday, two days after receiving the only signature on his cast. He hadn't breathed a word to anyone about what had happened with Connor and the letter, not even to Jared, who often found himself on the receiving end of Evan's recounts of his latest social disaster. This time round, the prospect of enduring his family friend's scathing criticisms seemed an unnecessary punishment, especially when the barrier between himself and the closest thing he had to a friend seemed even more impenetrable after an entire summer with no contact. Besides, Evan was already racked with guilt over the whole affair, to the extent that he had taken the previous day off specifically to avoid the infamous school stoner, pleading a headache to his mother. She hadn't pressed the matter - perhaps she could tell just how much he needed to be alone and quiet for a day. Or, maybe the name on her son's cast had made her so proud that she was willing to compromise.
Truth be told, he would have gladly spent a second day in laying silently bed, except that he didn't want her to worry that there was something genuinely wrong with him. Well, something else wrong with him.
At least today should be uneventful: no assignments due in, no awful classes, no more room for people to sign my cast so no reason to ask - heck, I probably won't need to speak at all today.
That very realistic idea offered Evan the greatest consolation since his panic attack on Tuesday evening; It was perfectly feasible, considering a grand total of two of his classmates ever actually spoke to him, and even then it was only under specific conditions (Namely, Jared would sometimes stray over if he decided his other insanely cool friends were being a little too boring for his taste, or occasionally Alana Beck would chat to him if she happened to be passing him in the halls or sitting nearby in class.). Even the teachers were prevented from calling on him in class ever since he'd been given a doctor's note half way through the last year, so he had a good chance of being able to simply keep his head down and muddle through the day without it somehow becoming even worse than Tuesday.
The mere memory of that awful day caused his step to falter as he passed the school gates. What am I doing here, I shouldn't be here, I should be someplace where I can't hurt anyone. He hesitated to set another foot down, but after biting his lip to consider the pro's and con's of bunking off, he decided it wasn't worth it. No, keep going. You can't skip again, it wouldn't be fair on mom. In an attempt to distract himself, he began to mentally write a new letter to himself.
Dear Evan Hansen, today is going to be a good day because all you have to do is just go into school and not talk to anybody and not make anyone mad, just enter that building and go straight to your form room and then just sit there quietly and write all of this down in a letter without saying anything stupid like the day before yesterday and then wait for the bell and then go to class and then -
"Evan, oh good, you're here. There's someone who needs to talk to you."
His perfect plan was dashed before he'd even entered the building, let alone committed it to paper. He glanced up at the uncomfortably close voice, and saw that it came from Mrs Harper, the school receptionist. Staring at the ground, he hadn't noticed her approach, but she was right next to him, looking down on him through her thick glasses. His hunched form became rigid when, without warning, she set a hand on his elbow and began and guiding him away from the main entrance to the school building, instead directing him towards the separate block containing conference rooms and, most infamously, the Principal's office.
The very presence of the receptionist, whose sympathetic smile and condescending tone he'd become familiar with during his many times signing out early for doctors appointments, in any place other than her perpetual post at the front desk, was alone enough to unnerve him. But added to the fact that she had to be taking him to see the Principal made his stomach drop way past his unsteady knees, and he felt compelled to wipe his suddenly clammy hands on his jeans, except she was still holding his arm and he couldn't reach, and he couldn't just pull away from her without looking crazy, and it felt like people were staring and he didn't want to cause a scene but he was panicking, white noise thrumming in his head, and mentally he couldn't stop scolding his own idiocy, See this is exactly the kind of thing you wanted to avoid, you should have skipped you should have skipped you should have skipped...
Evan had never actually seen the inside of that block, but he knew that it was where the worst behaved students were sent to be disciplined, or worse, expelled. He began digging his fingernails into his thumb as Mrs Harper informed him, "You'll not be going to class today, your teachers have already been told. They may choose to email you some work to catch up on, but I doubt it considering the circumstances..."
She shook her head solemnly, and Evan was sure he had never felt more baffled. I'm not going to class, I'm being taken to the Principal's office instead, and the teachers might not even send me work to catch up on - am I being thrown out of the school? Immediately his mind jumped to the overly exposing letter, Did Connor show Zoe the letter, is that what this is about? What if this is part of some... I don't know, some restraining order, what if she thinks I'm a threat to her? I know she must think I'm weird, but could she really...
Another, even more horrifying alternative struck him, Did someone see the letter and decide I belong in a psychiatric hospital? Are they going to take me away - can they do that?
He nearly bolted for it then and there, but Mrs Harper's had was suddenly on his back rather than his elbow, nudging him through the door, which they had reached in the time it took for Evan's frightened mind to race through the possible explanations. "Come on," she coaxed, her condescending, pity-filled smile at an all-time maximum.
As irritating as it was, a part of his mind rationed that she wouldn't try (and fail) to reassure him if it had been decided that he was mentally unstable enough to pose a threat to himself and others. The main part of his mind, however, was immediately preoccupied with honing in on the voices coming from Principal Howard's ajar office door.
"Of course, I completely respect that this must be a very distressing time for your family. Zoe can take all the time she needs to come to terms with what's happened."
Zoe... Fear for the girl he'd adored since the sixth grade struck him, but was quickly succeeded by renewed guilt. Something's happened to her - or is it that she's afraid that something will happen to her if I'm allowed to be within, like, five miles of her? It's a restraining order, it must be a restraining order, well that's just brilliant, how can I ever explain that to Mom? I'll have to change schools, we might have to move house to be further away, or what if we can't move and I end up with a criminal record for accidentally breaking my totally unnecessary restraining order and then I have to explain to any future employers that I'm technically a reprobate because my house was a little too close to the house of a girl I had a crush on and wrote one line of one letter about when I was seventeen?
His agitated mind continued to race, before a second male voice replied to the principal:
"And Evan Hansen?"
Evan stopped walked altogether, freezing outside the door though Mrs Harper indicated for him to step inside.
One of the men sighed, then Mr Howard replied, "Of course. He should arrive soon, and I can step outside if you would prefer, allow you to explain the situation to him yourself. We'll sign him out, and then you can take him straight to the hospital."
Fuck.
Well, at least being institutionalized in some hospital in the middle of nowhere will make adhering to a restraining order more doable.
"Alright Evan, go on in. Sir, Evan Hansen's here," Mrs Harper called, before opening the door fully and gently pushing him over the threshold.
Principal Howard was already standing, and swiftly made to leave as soon as he saw the unremarkable student, standing there awkwardly and twisting his agitated hands into knots. He slipped past Evan, forcing him to shuffle slightly further into the room, then closed the door, both members of staff shut off from Evan and the stranger.
The other man had been sitting, but jumped to his feet at once, running one hand across his greying head of hair and closely regarding the newcomer.
His eyes narrowed, and he looked the teenager up and down searchingly, curious, a little surprised as if he had been anticipating something other than a shortish, round-faced, broken-armed nervous wreck of a boy. His search was fruitless, something he seemed to accept after a few seconds of just staring, when he shook his head quickly and began, "Sorry, you're just not what I expected at all. I don't really know what I expected, I never thought, I never even knew he -" the man caught himself babbling and stopped at once, with a level of self-restraint that the teenager could only dream of possessing. He took a deep breath before plastering a shaky, business-like smile onto his face and offering a hand. "Evan Hansen, right?" Evan nodded, and wiped both hands firmly on his jeans one last time before reluctantly extending one to the man. "I'm Mr Murphy - Larry, Larry Murphy. Connor's dad?"
The family resemblance would have been clear to anyone who paid attention to Connor's physical appearance beyond the greasy hair and black nails - they shared the same tall figure, high cheekbones, and piercing blue eyes, but these similarities were lost on Evan. He only nodded, and looked away, his gaze happening to fall on a chair.
Larry noticed, and hurriedly invited, "Take a seat, please." He did the same, and after a second, Evan copied, deeply confused by the entire situation. His best guess, amidst the many running haphazardly through his mind, was that Connor had shown his dad his letter and sent him in to warn him off his daughter. Which, for some reason, the school had consented to, but then that didn't exactly make sense either... The puzzled boy frowned involuntarily.
But Mr Murphy seemed in no hurry to explain, since he took a moment to breathe slowly a few times, and then rummage carefully, purposefully, inside his pocket. He unfolded a sheet of paper, and appeared to read it, before offering it to the perplexed young man before him, and only then did he begin to explain:
"Connor, he, uh... He left this for you, I think."
Evan took the paper, and recognized it for what it was as soon as it was between his fingertips. My letter... He gave it back to me. Or he told his dad to. Stunned, he stuttered, "H-he - uh, Connor - told you to... give me this?"
Mr Murphy grimaced, "It's addressed to you, isn't it?"
"So he told -"
"It's unexpected, he's never mentioned you before," the man unintentionally disregarded Evan's attempt to extract some more conclusive details. Understandably, his focus wasn't quite at his usual standard.
Trying again to comprehend the situation, Evan tentatively began, "Then did he actually -"
"You must be pretty close, you two." Mr Murphy continued, his words clipped and quick.
His unanswered questions yielded no answers, only more bewilderment. Utterly at sea, Evan clarified, "Close?"
"Or Connor thought so, anyway." A pattern was becoming clear, in that Larry Murphy seemed set on being as vague as possible, and scarcely delving into any information that might actually serve to enlighten the thoroughly baffled teenager.
Determined to get a real answer, Evan didn't allow any interruption to stop him asking, "But about Connor - did he actually, um, I mean, uh - what did he say about this? Did he tell you to give it to me or not?"
Mr Murphy didn't reply promptly, which Evan took as a good sign, until he sighed, the formal persona deflating, and shook his head. Apprehension building as he started to put the pieces together, Evan noticed how exhausted the man looked, his eyes bloodshot, his greyed hair untidy as if he'd forgotten to comb it and had tried to palm it into cooperation instead, and one of his shirt buttons paired to the wrong hole. He listened with rapt attention, which soon melted into fear, as Mr Murphy explained, "He couldn't tell us, it was too late for that by the time we got to him. He already -" his voice cracked, and he had to swallow hard before continuing, "- he was already passed out, when we found him. It didn't look like - no, it wasn't - an accident, he had tried to -" Larry's internal battle to resist crying became visible upon his strained face, and with a jolt of cold realisation, it became clear to Evan exactly why the man had been keen to keep his replies so short, why he didn't dare look further into his emotions, and what the struggling father was trying to say:
"Y-your s - Connor, um... He tried to end it?" He offered. He couldn't bring himself to speak aloud the phrase kill himself, it sounded so much more violent. To end it seemed gentler, like slipping away, just letting go...
Mr Murphy nodded, and forcefully collected himself. "Yes, he... Yeah. We got him to the hospital as soon as we found him, and he went straight into surgery. They were working on him until this morning." At Evan's widening eyes, he added, "He's stable, or he was stable when I left. My wife refused to leave the hospital, so she would have told me if anything had changed since I've been gone."
Though he hardly knew the suicidal teenager, (and hadn't gotten the best impression of him on Tuesday) Evan's relief that at least he wasn't dead was enormous. He's okay. There's clearly been a terrible mistake, a wild assumption made about what my letter actually meant, but he can just explain to his parents about why he had the letter, and they'll think I'm crazy but they'll let me shuffle off out of their lives without getting caught up in whatever Larry Murphy thinks this is.
But Larry's continuation dashed those hopes somewhat, "He's in a coma now, they don't know at all how long he'll stay that way, but he wasn't breathing for a little while so the doctors said that, even though it wasn't medically induced, it's the best thing for him, it, uh, it reduces the risk of lasting brain damage." The teenager couldn't understand how a father could discuss how his son was in such a serious condition without breaking down, but he didn't dare judge him; Larry might be doing a good job at keeping his emotions in check when he spoke, but he emanated such a strong sense of despair that Evan had no doubt of how real his grief was. "I came here to collect you, because Cynthia, my wife, thought that if he has a friend he cares about more than anyone in his family, then that friend should be allowed to see Connor."
Evan blinked. "A f-friend?"
Mr Murphy frowned momentarily. "Well, normally it's family only at this stage, but in these circumstances, yes, a friend. That letter was all he had with him, and you can see that he... He wanted them to be his last words, and he wanted them to be to you. He wanted you to understand, more than anyone else."
Larry's sombre, sincere gaze was heavily loaded with expectation. Evan wanted to disappear.
No, no, no, you've got it all wrong, so, so wrong.
Evan didn't respond. Misinterpreting the reason for his silence, Larry kept on talking, seeming to grow more exasperated as he did so, "You're his best friend, right, I mean, he clearly thinks you're his best friend. He wrote that to you, he must want it to go to you, and I'm sure he would really appreciate you being there at the hospital, so..." He gestured towards the paper again, as if that meant the case was well and truly closed. Still the boy didn't respond - couldn't begin to process it all. "I know it's a lot to take in, maybe you'll see more clearly once you're at the hospital. But we should get going as soon as possible, I mean, just in case..."
He didn't have to say anything more to make it achingly blatant that he still feared so terribly for his son's life. Evan had always hated disappointing people, especially when they were already so low - it was the same reason he hadn't feigned an illness that morning, and that was a decision he was regretting more than he could possibly have guessed fifteen minutes previously, when he had been wondering whether he should just turn around and go back home.
Regardless of regrets, when looking at Larry Murphy, the smallest glimmer of hope shone out amidst the dull sorrow that had all but consumed the poor man. The letter, that's what it must be. That's what his tiny bit of hope is. Evan nodded.
A terse smile formed on Mr Murphy's face, and he stood, trusting the small teenager to follow when he strode towards the door and out of the office block, towards a sleek grey car. At least he wasn't pulling Evan along, something the anxious teenager appreciated; it made him feel almost like he was in control of the situation.
He opened the passenger side door for Evan, then walked around to the other side, briskly explaining as he did so, "We just need to make a stop at the house, I've got to pick up a change of clothes for Zoe and Cynthia. Then we'll be at the hospital, and you can see him."
His own experiences of hospitals told him that a change of clothes meant it had been either a relatively long stay or a really messy incident. Evan began wondering about the hows, whats and whens of Connor's attempt, They must have been at the hospital for a while. When did they find Connor, yesterday? The day before? Was he at home, or had he been missing? Was there any blood, or did he try something else? How long have they been waiting for news, how long have they been hoping that their son's supposed best friend can come along and make things seem a little bit better?
Evan stole a look at Larry. His hands gripped the steering wheel tightly, so much so that his white knuckles pressed against his skin. He swallowed again, still fighting against the grief welling up inside him.
At once the teenager looked away from the tortured father, feeling like an intruder and ardently wishing he could be anywhere else but shut in a car beside a man on the brink of falling apart.
It seemed like a huge responsibility, to take on the role of a comatose boy's best friend, one he definitely didn't want: he didn't intend to become involved in any kind of deception, he just couldn't bring himself to let down Mr Murphy, to tell him that the thing he'd been hoping for, that his son could have someone he was close to waiting beside his hospital bed, was an impossible dream.
I can't tell him the truth, not when it looks like that tiny shred of hope is the only thing keeping him going.
"It's good," Mr Murphy eventually choked, drawing Evan's attention back to him, "that you're coming. You're the one person Connor actually cared about explaining it to, it's right that you should be there for him through this. You clearly mean the most to him, more than any of his family. I'm sure he wouldn't even want us there, but you..." He shook his head. "He deserves to have at least one person he actually cares about waiting for him. I'm glad he'll have that. I'm sorry that I couldn't... be that."
Mr Murphy's words faded into a hoarse whisper, and this time he didn't swallow when the urge to cry hit hard; he relinquished just the tiniest bit of ground, permitting a sole tear to fall.
Not bothering to wipe it away, he rammed his key into the car, started the engine, and drove, with not one word more passing between them for the rest of the journey.
Evan paid attention to the street names and house numbers on the short drive to the Murphy's house and then to the hospital, since having something to focus on kept him from completely freaking out on the way. Even then, it was with a small gasp that he drew in every breath, and his palms grew moist and itchy against his knees as he worked his fingers into the fabric of his trousers.
The familiar, sharp scent of disinfectant hit Evan in the back of the throat the instant he stepped into a compartment of the revolving door, and the glaring lights seemed too bright compared to the miserable sky outside as soon as he entered the hospital.
Dragging his feet, he followed Mr Murphy to the intensive care unit, past a series of dimly lit, windowed rooms with single beds inside, until the man stopped at the second door from the end of the corridor, and knocked.
Peering through the window to the room, Evan saw a white sheet covering a person-sized lump, the face blocked from his sight by the figure of a familiar girl in purple pyjamas, who remained totally still, and an older woman with red hair in a brown tracksuit, who turned immediately at the knock and came straight out of the room. She approached them, arms stretched towards Mr Murphy. Relief seemed to radiate from her teary smile - Evan supposed she must be clinging onto the small victories by this point, to stay sane. He knew the technique well.
She spoke softly and keenly, more like a new parent beside the cot of a sleeping baby than a mother of a suicidal, comatose teenager. "Larry! You're back, they said we could start going in to sit with him just after you left. Zoe's still in there now. You should go and check she's alright, she wouldn't talk - to me, or to Connor."
Her spouse sighed, tension evident in his face as he muttered, "Why should she talk to him? He's in a coma, Cynthia, he can't hear you."
At once, Mrs Murphy's open arms dropped coolly to her side, and her hushed voice became indignant as she insisted, "The nurses said that he might be able to hear things when he's closer to waking up, and that for some patients, stimulating their senses might make their recovery faster. Every case is different, you can't just base all your knowledge of our son's coma on what you've picked up from whatever that ridiculous medical drama you watch is. It doesn't make you smarter than a real life nurse!"
"Did I say it did?" Mr Murphy snapped back, equal parts angered and hurt, and for a few seconds Evan recognized a spark of Connor Murphy reflected in his father. Almost as soon as it appeared, the flame died, and the exhausted husband shook his head, defeated. "I brought your clothes, and Zoe's. I'll go talk to her," Mr Murphy replied, passing his wife half of the pile in his arms, before walking away to do as he said.
Evan didn't watch them - he already felt like he was intruding on the family's struggle, without staring at an exchange between father and daughter. Instead, his focus became the middle-aged woman before him. It was clear that she'd recently been crying, but she managed a genuinely warm smile as she greeted, "You must be Evan. I wish I could say I'd heard plenty about you, but..." She glanced through the window, towards her motionless son. The look of agony in her eyes caused Evan's pounding chest to tighten. The smiling facade crumbled tragically easily, and she sobbed, pressing shaking hands to her mouth, evidently still in shock from her son's suicide attempt. "He never told us, not a word." Her quaking shoulders were hunched, heavy with the burden of failure. Wailing, she lamented, "He didn't tell us anything, he couldn't even tell his own family." She produced a small pack of tissues from her pocket, and took one for herself as well as Evan and dabbed delicately at her nose before she could go on, "He didn't talk to us, not about you, not about himself, how bad it had become - what kind of mother does that make me? What kind of mother doesn't know even the smallest thing about her son?"
Her raspy tears were a tragedy to witness, but Evan was at a loss for words; anything he told her would be a blatant lie, and on top of that, plain hypocrisy. He knew, or at least he thought he knew, why Mrs Murphy felt so helpless, because he recognized in her the same lost look his mom always had when she tried to talk to him: he never told her when something was really wrong, and it seemed Connor was the same, so he was in no position to judge either the mother or the son.
Her sobbing eventually subsided, and the shuddering lessened. Cynthia's hands pressed against the glass as she murmured, "I'm so sorry this is your first impression of our family. You must think we're awful for having let it get this far."
"No, I don't, y- you're not -" The urge to defend himself against what wasn't even really an accusation was automatic. He didn't want to cause offence, and besides, it was clear the poor woman was blaming herself so much that he couldn't help but sympathize.
Though he hardly knew her, her obvious self-reproach made him feel awful. He'd imagined his own mother, how she would have reacted if he'd told her the truth about what he'd done that summer, and it was exactly the sight he saw looking at Cynthia Murphy.
Reaching for something reassuring to say, he tried, "He uh, it's just that he's a really... private person?" I know better than anyone, no one comes running if they don't hear you fall.
Mrs Murphy sniffed, and nodded, thankful for that small shred of comfort despite being certain she didn't deserve it. Gratitude compelled her to reply, "You know him, you must. Even with him being so private, you..." She smiled, and Evan could feel how much it caused her heart to ache as she insisted, "He trusts you. His letter, written to you, it shows how much you mean to him."
You clearly mean the most to him, more than any of his family, I'm sure he wouldn't even want us there, but you...
Larry Murphy's words played through his mind again, striking Evan once again with self-condemnation, as he recognized not for the first time the way his little white lie had made another member of Connor's family feel like they were not enough.
His conviction that he was helping the family's hope to endure wavered. You're doing more harm than good here, you should just tell her the truth and be done with it. Best case scenario, you could be on a bus back to school in time for the start of second period, worst case, you arrive halfway through, but then you could just wait until break and join in third period. Either way, it would be like you were never even here.
But Cynthia spoke again, her smile growing beyond a bittersweet grimace, into a beaming ray of appreciation, and she continued, "I'm so pleased he has somebody like that, someone who really understands him. I'm so glad you're here for my Connor, Evan." She tentatively put a hand on his shoulder, oblivious to how he cringed and shuffled incrementally away from her touch.
Evan's resolve to come clean melted away completely.
"Hey, um..." He hesitated, uncertain what to say. Not the truth, that was for sure. The next idea to come to him was something that would have made Tuesday-Evan feel nauseous, but made perfect sense to Thursday-Evan and his guilty conscience. He reached into his pocket and produced the folded letter, opening it and handing it to Cynthia. "I guess... You need it more than I do."
Cynthia gasped, her entire face lighting up. Her eyes filled with tears once more, but this time they did not fall.
Is that a nice thing I just did? By this point I guess I should be lucky to consider anything I do as even vaguely helpful.
Regardless of his misgivings, the gesture meant the world to the suffering woman. She pulled him into a fierce, thankful embrace. On his mission to do good, Evan resisted the instinctive response to squirm out of her grasp and instead allowed her to hold him, albeit only when he was as stiff as a board, the ache of guilt fading slightly as she murmured, "Thank you, Evan." After a few seconds, she released him, and breathed deeply, gathering herself. She didn't pretend to force a smile this time, which might explain why her calmness seemed marginally less transient. "I suppose you'll be wanting to go in and see him?"
Stand next to the body that presently terrifies me more than any other? "Um, y-yes, yeah, that would be..." horrible, what if he wakes up and sees me? He'd kill me at a glance. But there's no way to get out of it without looking like I'm a bad friend - hilarious, considering I don't even know the guy, but this family is relying on me and I don't want to let them down... "Great, uh, great."
"Great? Great!" Cynthia chuckled despite her grief, and motioned for Evan to follow her the short distance to the door. "He probably won't wake up for a little while, it can last from hours to days to even longer, but you can speak to him, or hold his hand, or just sit with him - whatever you want." He nodded nervously, and she opened the door.
He thought he was ready, but he couldn't have possibly prepared himself for the gut-wrenching pity he felt seeing a hopeful mother gently calling to her unconscious son, "Connor, sweetheart, you've got a friend here to see you."
"You see?" A muted female voice came from the figure curled cat-like into her chair. Her face was pressed against her knees and hidden by her long hair, but Evan could imagine precisely the displeased, exasperated expression that would be accompanying that tone of voice - he'd seen it twice, once when he and Zoe Murphy both happened to be studying in the library, and another time when he had glanced into a music practice room and seen her fiddling with the tuning on her guitar. As with every detail he'd ever noticed about Zoe, he had committed it to memory. He always found his gaze drifting to her if ever they were in relative proximity, and now he was openly allowed to be so near to her, he couldn't stop looking at her.
"Don't use that tone," her father scolded, but there was no real urgency about his demand. "Your mom's just trying to -"
"To what? Wake him up? Make him feel better? He tried to kill himself, I don't think he'd appreciate your efforts." Her head snapped up as she fired the scathing retort at her mother, but though there was an abundance of anger bubbling up within her, she didn't continue. No, her eyes had fallen upon the boy loitering just beyond her mom's shoulder. She knew the name and the face, she just hadn't actually paired it up to the name at the top of her brother's supposed suicide note, and her surprise at seeing him there made her irritation at Cynthia fade to insignificance. Raising a sceptical eyebrow at the newcomer, she flatly stated, "You've got to be kidding."
"Zoe!" The muttered warning came from Larry, and had no effect.
"No, seriously, you're the one Connor is meant to have written his note to? He never even spoke to you, unless you count yelling - I saw him shove you the other day, remember? You're not his friend, you can't be."
Evan's mouth opened and closed without a word coming out, shifting his weight and digging his fingernails one by one into his thumbs. Fortunately, Mrs Murphy came to his rescue, sternly defending, "You know Zoe, you and Connor haven't been the closest of siblings for the past few years. There must be whole parts of his life you know nothing about, and I'm sure his friendship with Evan is just one of those many things."
Zoe laughed, a bitter, sarcastic, choking kind of sound eerily reminiscent of Connor's chuckle. "Yeah, wow, I wonder why we haven't been getting along. You don't think it could be that he's been completely messed up from doing heroin and whatever other shit he was injecting for years, do you, or maybe that he's threatened to kill me like a million times, or maybe that the only times when he's not being a total ass is when he's too stoned to even know where he is? Take your pick, mom!" She stood up, he chair noisily scraping on the hospital floor, and turned from her mom to her unexpected companion. "Maybe there are things I don't know about Connor, but something I do know is that he's not a nice person. No offense, but I really can't see him ever hanging out with you, Evan Hansen." She grabbed a shirt and jeans from the pile beside her and stormed out of the room, leaving her hurt parents behind her.
Mr Murphy stood stiffly. "I'll go after her, don't worry." He squeezed Evan's tensed shoulder and kissed Cynthia's damp cheek as he passed them, before leaving the room.
The mother took a seat, and gestured for Evan to do the same. He did, making sure not to look at anything but his lap now that he didn't have Zoe to stare at, avoiding seeing a single part of Connor's unnervingly still form. He pressed his hands together as hard as he could just to keep himself from fidgeting violently.
"Zoe, she's... had a really hard time of it with everything Connor's been through. She loves him, he's her big brother, but..." Cynthia shrugged apologetically. "I'm sure she didn't mean a thing. She's just emotional - we all are." Evan nodded, and Cynthia sighed. "Maybe I should go after her too. Give the two of you a minute alone?"
Her gaze was hopeful again, as if the moment she left the room, she expected to look back and see Evan dive onto her son's unconscious form and start begging him to wake up, or something equally cliche. In fact, in the second it took for him to respond, he had decided that she didn't even want to follow Zoe, she only wanted an excuse to witness the two teenagers alone together. Palms increasingly sweaty at the very notion of being watched, he tried to avoid her exit, "I, um, no, you really don't have to..."
"But I should." He heard a kissing sound, presumably as she pecked Connor's hand or head, and then she stood. "Please don't be afraid to speak to him, alright? Just as you normally would."
He made no reply as she passed him and left the room, abandoning him alone with the corpse-like Connor Murphy. The immersive sensation of solitude was something Evan hadn't ever experienced when in the company of another person, and the knowledge that he might as well be completely alone despite the living, breathing boy before him made the total stillness of the room seem eerie.
He unclasped his sweaty hands, and noticed that they were shaking. Being so near to the unconscious teenager who just days ago had been so full of rage and energy was frightening him a bit. The boy had wanted to die, but he hadn't, yet in his current state he couldn't exactly be considered alive either. It seemed like he was suspended halfway between life and death, not all there but not quite gone, an unsolvable enigma.
Curiosity burning, Evan stole a glance at the body, and immediately his breath caught in his throat.
Connor had always been pale, but when Evan looked at his hand his skin seemed to be just about the same colour as the white bedsheets, and almost translucent, ghostly; a needle attached to some kind of drip pierced the top of his hand, but Evan could follow the shadow of the vivid purple vein up past Connor's elbow, to where it disappeared into the hospital robe. His eyes skimmed up over the robe to Connor's face, and he was struck simultaneously with strong feelings of sickness and pity: the ghostly pallour was even more unnerving when it caused the hollows of the teenager's cheeks and eyes to appear grey; he looked almost skeletal. His eyes were closed, but his pale, chapped lips were parted to allow a thin tube inside. Another tube entered his nose, kept in place by tape, and Evan realized that it must be a breathing aid. His curly brown locks looked wet, whether from old grease or fresh sweat he couldn't tell, splayed out against the pillow, framing his face with a darkness that threw his unnaturally pale state into sharper relief.
More than anything, Connor looked small.
It was odd, since he'd towered over Evan when he'd shoved him, and his fear of the boy had transformed him into a great threatening beast in his mind, but actually looking at Connor, passed out and trapped in a coma after having tried to kill himself, he looked so fragile, shorter and skinnier than Evan. Often, his sharp features and overwhelming cynicism made him seem older, but lying in that hospital bed, he didn't even look like his seventeen years.
Pity and nausea battled for dominance, but neither seemed able to win, resulting in Evan feeling sick, guilty and sympathetic at once. He was surprised to feel the burn of unshed tears building in his throat, a burn he didn't know how to ease in any way but giving in. He sobbed just once, feeling stupid for crying over a person he didn't even know, and tried to console himself, remember, this isn't real, he's not really your friend, it's all just a lie. He doesn't matter to you just like you don't matter to him. He doesn't want you to cry over him.
He was slowly calming himself down, just as he felt a familiar itch at the back of his neck - usually a tell-tale sign that someone was staring at him - not at Connor, at him. Probably one of the Murphys, but instead of focusing on their son, they were looking at him. Again he felt a stab of guilt, immediately hating that he'd become object of such keen observation at a time when they should be thinking solely about Connor.
What have I done?
He tried to draw a breath, but it broke into another heavy sob, quickly followed by more. There was no logic about it that could possibly help him to explain why, but he couldn't help but cry, noisy, convulsive sobs shaking his whole body as he wept onto the blankets covering a stranger.
Watching through the window, Cynthia and Larry Murphy completely forgot their daughter's argument: all they saw was a boy struck deeply with grief over Connor. There was no doubt in either mind that, somehow, The small, underwhelming teen had been their son's best friend.
A/N: Chapter 2 = through!
I gave Larry some *shock horror* emotional depth here, and will continue to do so because I believe he isn't an inherently bad character, he just struggles to be a good father. That doesn't change how much I love him and all of these problematic characters, they are only human, there's good and bad in everyone and I will be exploring that as this goes on.
That got deep. Aaaanyway.
Basically: I'm not here to hate on any characters, I really appreciate you taking the time to read this, please stay safe and happy and know that you are loved, maybe let me know what you think if you have the time, and the next chapter will be up soon!
Byee!