Dear evan hansen the nov.., p.2
Dear Evan Hansen--The Novel, page 2
This sounds like a horoscope. “You don’t have to add ‘today.’ ‘Seize the day’ already means ‘seize today.’”
“Whatever. You’re the wordsmith. I’m just saying, go get ’em, eh?”
Without meeting her eyes, I sigh and take the Sharpie. “Eh.”
She heads for the door, and just when I think I’m in the clear, she turns with an uneasy smile. “I’m proud of you already.”
“Oh. Good.”
Her smile sags a bit, and she walks off.
What am I supposed to say? She tells me she’s proud, but her eyes tell a different story. She ponders me like I’m a stain on the tub she can’t wipe clean no matter what product she uses. Proud of me? I don’t see how that’s possible. So, let’s just keep lying to each other.
It’s not like I totally mind the sessions with Dr. Sherman. Sure, our conversations are scheduled, inorganic, and typically one-sided, but there’s some comfort in sitting down and talking with another human being. You know, besides my mom, who’s so busy with work and classes that she’s hardly ever around and who never quite hears what I’m saying even when she’s listening (and is also my mom). I call my dad every once in a while, on the few occasions where I have news worth sharing. But he’s pretty busy. The problem with talking to Dr. Sherman, though, is I’m bad at it. I sit there, struggling to squeeze out even the simplest monosyllabic answers. I assume that’s why he suggested I write these letters to myself. He told me it might be a better way of extracting my feelings and could also help me learn to be a little easier on myself, but I’m pretty sure it makes things easier for him, too.
I open my computer and read what I’ve written so far.
Dear Evan Hansen,
Sometimes these letters do the opposite of what they’re intended to do. They’re supposed to keep my glass half full, but they also remind me that I’m not like everyone else. No one else at my school has an assignment from their therapist. No one else even has a therapist, probably. They don’t snack on Ativan. They don’t shift and fidget when people come too close to them, or talk to them, or even look at them. And they definitely don’t make their mother’s eyes well up with tears when they’re just sitting there not doing anything.
I don’t need reminding. I know I’m not right. Believe me, I know.
Today is going to be an amazing day.
Maybe—if I just stay here in my bedroom, then it might actually come true.
Just be yourself.
Yeah. Sure. Okay.
CHAPTER 2
I’m finished at my locker, but I’m still standing here, pretending to look for something. There’s too much time before the bell rings, and if I shut my locker now, I’ll be forced to hang around. I’m awful at hanging around. Hanging around requires confidence and the right clothing and a bold but casual stance.
Robbie Oxman (aka Rox) is a master hanger-arounder, always whipping his hair out of his face and keeping his legs shoulder-distance apart. He even knows what to do with his hands: four fingers inside his jean pockets and thumbs through his belt loops. Brilliant.
I want to do what Dr. Sherman and my mother keep asking me to do—engage—but it’s not in my DNA. When I walked onto the bus this morning, everyone was either talking to their friends or staring down at their phones. What am I supposed to do? Fact: I once did a search for “how to make friends” and I clicked on one of the videos that came up and I swear I didn’t realize until the very end that I was watching a car commercial.
That’s why I prefer to keep my back to everything. Unfortunately, I have to head to class now.
I shut my locker and command my body to rotate exactly 180 degrees. I keep my head low enough to avoid eye contact but high enough to see where I’m going. Kayla Mitchell is showing off her Invisalign to Freddie Lin. (I could ask one of them to sign my cast, but no offense, I don’t need signatures from kids who register as low as I do on the relevance meter.) I pass by The Twins (not actually related; they just dress alike) and the Russian Spy. (At least I don’t have a nickname—that I know of.) Vanessa Wilton is talking on the phone, probably to her agent. (She’s been in local commercials.) Up ahead, two jocks are literally wrestling on the ground. And there’s Rox outside Mr. Bailey’s class. He’s got one thumb in his belt loop and the other hand on Kristen Caballero’s waist. Last I heard, Kristen was with Mike Miller, but he graduated last year. On to the next, I see. They’re making out now. It’s very wet. Don’t stare.
I make a pit stop at the water fountain. I’ve already forgotten the plan: Let people see you. How am I supposed to do that? Carry around sparklers? Hand out free condoms? I’m just not the seize-the-day type.
Over the running water, I hear a voice. I think the voice could possibly be talking to me. I stop drinking. There is indeed a person standing next to me. Her name is Alana Beck.
“How was your summer?” she says.
Alana sat in front of me in precalc last year, but we never spoke. Are we speaking now? I’m not convinced. “My summer?”
“Mine was productive,” Alana says. “I did three internships and ninety hours of community service. I know, wow.”
“Yeah. That’s, wow. That’s—”
“Even though I was so busy, I still made some great friends. Or, well, acquaintances, more like. There was this girl named Clarissa, or Ca-rissa—I couldn’t hear her that well. And then Bryan with a y. And my adviser at National Black Women’s Leadership Training Council, Miss P. And also…”
The only time I heard Alana’s voice last year was when she was asking or answering questions, which she’d do incessantly. Mr. Swathchild would ignore her hand at first until he realized it was the only hand up and he had no choice but to call on her—again. She’s got a bravado I’ll never have, not to mention a very committed smile, but in another way Alana Beck and I have a lot in common. Even with her class participation and her gigantic backpack always slamming into people, she goes around this school the same way I do: unnoticed.
Seize the day, Mom says. Fine, here goes. I lift my cast up. “Do you maybe want to—”
“Oh my god,” Alana says. “What happened to your arm?”
I unzip my backpack and dig around for my Sharpie. “I broke it. I was—”
“Oh, really? My grandma broke her hip getting into the bathtub in July. That was the beginning of the end, the doctors said. Because then she died.”
“Oh… that’s terrible.”
“I know, right?” she says, her smile never wavering. “Happy first day!”
She turns and her backpack knocks the Sharpie out of my hand. I bend down to pick it up, and when I’m upright again, Alana is gone and Jared Kleinman is in her place.
“Is it weird to be the first person in history to break their arm from jerking off too much, or do you consider that an honor?” Jared says much too loudly. “Paint me the picture. You’re in your bedroom. Lights off. Smooth jazz in the background. You’ve got Zoe Murphy’s Instagram up on your weird, off-brand phone.”
Jared and I have a history. His mother sells real estate. She’s the one who found my mom and me a new place to live after my dad left. For a few years there, the Kleinmans would have us at their swim club in the summertime, and we’d go to their house for dinner, once for Rosh Hashanah. I even went to Jared’s bar mitzvah. “Do you want to know what really happened?” I ask.
“Not really,” Jared says.
Something’s driving me to say it, to share it with someone, maybe just to set the record straight. No, I was not stalking Zoe Murphy’s Instagram. Not on this particular occasion. “What happened is, I was climbing a tree and I fell.”
“You fell out of a tree? What are you, like, an acorn?”
“You know how I was working as an apprentice park ranger this summer?”
“No. Why would I know that?”
“Well, anyway, I’m sort of a tree expert now. Not to brag. But I saw this incredible forty-foot-tall oak tree and I started climbing it and then I just…”
“Fell?” Jared says.
“Yeah, except it’s a funny story, because there was this solid ten minutes after I fell when I was just lying there on the ground, waiting for someone to come get me. ‘Any second now,’ I kept saying to myself. ‘Any second now, here they come.’”
“Did they?”
“No. Nobody came. That’s what’s so funny.”
“Jesus Christ.”
He looks embarrassed for me. But hey, I’m in on the joke. I know how pathetic it sounds that I waited there on the ground for someone to come and help me. I’m trying to have a laugh at my own inadequacy, but as usual, my delivery is way off. There’s a lot going on in my head right now. Grandmothers are passing away and I’ve got dark spots on my shirt from the fountain spraying everywhere, and I still haven’t made it to first period, where I’ll have to answer to “Mark” for at least forty-five minutes.
This is what I get for trying to have a conversation with Jared Kleinman, who once laughed during a lesson on the Holocaust. He swore he was laughing at something unrelated to the horrific black-and-white photos that the rest of us were gasping at, and I believe him, I guess, but still, I’m pretty sure the guy doesn’t have a conscience.
Jared hasn’t walked away yet, so I ask a question that I stole straight from Alana Beck’s mouth. “How was your summer?”
“Well, my bunk dominated in capture the flag and I got to second-base-below-the-bra with this girl from Israel who’s going to, like, be in the army. So, yeah, does that answer your question?”
“Actually.” The Sharpie is still in my hand. I don’t know why I’m even bothering with this cast-signing thing, but here I go anyway. “Do you want to sign my cast?”
He laughs. He laughs right in my face. “Why are you asking me?”
“I don’t know. Because we’re friends?”
“We’re family friends,” Jared says. “That’s a whole different thing and you know it.”
Is it? I’ve played video games on Jared’s basement couch. I even changed out of my bathing suit in front of him. He’s the one who informed me that it’s not normal to wear your underwear under your bathing suit. Fine, we don’t hang out like that anymore, and we only ever spent time together with our families around, but those memories still count for something, right? A family friend is still a friend, technically.
“Tell your mom to tell my mom I was nice to you or else my parents won’t pay for my car insurance,” Jared says, and walks away.
Jared is a dick, but he’s my dick—I mean, no, that’s not what I mean, not like that. I just mean that he’s not the worst ever. He acts like he’s the shit, but he’s not totally convincing. His tortoiseshell glasses and beach-bum shirts don’t quite fit him right, and the oversize headphones he keeps around his neck aren’t even plugged in. That being said, his whole look is far better than I could pull off.
I make it to class just as the bell rings and find a seat. (I prefer to be in the row closest to the door at the back of the room, out of sight and near the exit.) As I’m getting situated, I feel a slight sense of accomplishment. No names yet on my cast, but I’ve already interacted with more people than I did the entire first month of school last year. How’s that for seizing the day?
Who knows? Maybe this will be an amazing day after all.
CHAPTER 3
Nope. Not amazing.
First period was fine, meaning nothing terrible happened. Same for my next few classes. All name corrections from Mark to Evan were successful. I was feeling decent, even positive.
But then, lunch.
I’ve never loved lunch. There’s not enough structure. Everyone’s free to go where they please, and where they please is nowhere near me. I tend to claim a spot at a forgotten corner table with the other randoms, force-feeding myself the SunButter and jelly sandwich I’ve packed in my bag every day for a decade. (What I eat is the only thing about lunch I can control.) But sitting in the corner now feels like hiding, and I promised myself I wouldn’t hide. Not today.
I spot Jared carrying his tray through the food line. He usually sits by himself and codes on his laptop. I wait for him at the cash register. He’s thrilled to see me.
“You again?” Jared says.
My instinct is to let him walk away, but for once I tell my instinct to fuck off. “I was thinking maybe I could sit with you today?”
Jared looks about ready to vomit. Before he can officially deny me, he disappears behind a dark shroud. Passing between us is the mysterious creature known as Connor Murphy. Connor cuts through our conversation, head low, unaware of his surroundings. Jared and I watch him go.
“Love the new hair length,” Jared mumbles to me. “Very school-shooter chic.”
I cringe.
Connor halts, his heavy boots landing with a thud. His eyes—what little I can see of them through his overgrown hair—are two steely blue death rays. He definitely heard Jared. I guess he’s not as oblivious as he seems.
Connor isn’t moving, isn’t speaking, just staring. Everything about this kid makes me shiver. He’s permafrost. Maybe that’s why he’s wearing all those thick layers even though it’s still technically summer.
Jared may be brazen but he’s not stupid. “I was kidding,” he tells Connor. “It was a joke.”
“Yeah, no, it was funny,” Connor says. “I’m laughing. Can’t you tell?”
Jared isn’t looking so cocky anymore.
“Am I not laughing hard enough for you?” Connor says.
Jared begins to laugh nervously, which makes me laugh nervously. I can’t help it.
“You’re such a freak,” Jared says to Connor, darting away. I should be following Jared, but I can’t move my legs.
Connor steps to me. “What the fuck are you laughing at?”
I don’t know. I do stupid things when I’m nervous, which means I’m constantly doing stupid things.
“Stop fucking laughing at me,” Connor says.
“I’m not,” I say, which is true. I’m no longer laughing. I’m officially petrified.
“You think I’m a freak?”
“No. I don’t—”
“I’m not the freak.”
“I didn’t—”
“You’re the fucking freak.”
A bomb blast.
I’m on the ground. Connor is standing above.
Not a real bomb. Connor’s two arms, weighed down by all those black bracelets, slammed my chest and knocked me off my feet.
Before he storms off, I see that he looks as shaken as I feel.
I sit up and lift my hands off the floor, the dust from so many sneakers clinging to my moist palms.
People walk by, stepping around me, some offering unhelpful commentary, but it doesn’t matter. I can’t hear them. I can’t move, either. I don’t want to. Why should I? It’s like when I fell from that tree in Ellison Park. I just lay there. I should have stayed under that tree forever. Just like I should have stayed home today. What’s wrong with hiding? At least it’s safe. Why do I keep doing this to myself?
“Are you all right?”
I look up. Shock. Double shock. One shock because it’s the second girl who’s spoken to me today. Two shocks because it’s Zoe Murphy. Yes, the one and only.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“I’m sorry about my brother,” she says. “He’s a psychopath.”
“Yeah. No. We were just messing around.”
She nods the way my mother might when she’s dealing with a delusional patient (i.e., me). “So,” Zoe says, “is it comfortable down there on the floor or…?”
Oh yeah, I’m on the floor. Why am I still on the floor? I stand up and wipe my hands on my pants.
“Evan, right?” Zoe says.
“Evan?”
“That’s your name?”
“Oh. Yeah. Evan. It’s Evan. Sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” Zoe says.
“Well, just because you said Evan, and then I repeated it. Which is so annoying when people do that.”
“Oh.” She puts out her hand. “Well, I’m Zoe.”
I wave my hand, instead of shaking hers, because of all the dust stuck to my sweaty palm, and I immediately regret doing it. I’ve somehow made this exchange even more awkward than it already was. “No, I know.”
“You know?” Zoe says.
“No, I mean, I know you. I know who you are. I’ve seen you play guitar in jazz band. I love jazz band. I love jazz. Not all jazz. But definitely jazz band jazz. That’s so weird. I’m sorry.”
“You apologize a lot.”
“I’m sorry.”
Damn.
She lets out a laugh.
I don’t know why I’m so nervous, other than the fact that I’m always nervous and I just got thrown to the ground by a burnout who happens to be related to Zoe by blood. But why does Zoe in particular do this to me? It’s not like she’s this gorgeous, popular girl or anything. She’s just normal. Not normal as in boring. Normal as in real.
I guess it’s because I’ve waited for this moment, the chance to talk to her, for so long. It goes back to the first time I ever saw her perform. I knew she was a year below me. I had seen her around school plenty of times. But I didn’t really see her until that one concert. If you asked anyone else who was in the audience that day—and there weren’t many of us—what they thought of the guitarist’s performance, they probably would have said, “Who?” The horn players were the stars, followed by the super tall bass player and the look-at-me drummer. Zoe, meanwhile, was way off to the side. She didn’t have a solo or anything. She didn’t stand out in any overt way. Maybe it’s because she was in the background that I connected so strongly to her. To me, there was no one else onstage, just this one spotlight shining down on her. I can’t explain why it happened that way, but it did.
I’ve watched her perform many times since. I’ve studied her. I know her guitar is eggshell blue. Her strap has lightning bolts on it and the cuffs of her jeans are covered in stars scribbled in pen. She taps her right foot when she plays and keeps her eyes shut tight, and this sort of half smile forms on her face.
