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Jared scoffed and rolled his eyes. “His parents think you were lovers, you realize that, right?”
On the other side of the phone, Evan’s voice emerged. “What? Why, Why would they think that?”
“Um, you were best friends but he wouldn’t let you talk to him at school, and when you did, he kicked your ass. That’s like,” He let out a small laugh. “The exact formula for secret gay highschool lovers.”
“Oh my god.” Evan stopped pacing around his room and went to sit down on his bed.
“This is what I told you! What did I tell you? You just nod and confirm.” Jared’s eyebrows furrowed. Why was he upset over this? It wasn’t that big a deal. Hansen just got himself in deep shit again, he does that all the time.
“Well I tried to you just, you don’t understand! I got nervous and then I just started talking.” He spit the word out as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. “And then,”
“You couldn’t stop.”
Evan paused for a second, thinking over it. “Well, they didn’t want me to stop.”
“So, what else did you completely fuck up?” Jared rocked back and forth on his heels as he walked from wall to wall of his room. It seemed like when you picked up a call you had to just...walk.
“Nothing, seriously.”
Jared didn’t say a word. He’d learned that by saying nothing, you’re creating an awkward silence that the other person feels like they need to fill. It makes them ramble on and say things without meaning to. Jared Kleinman: Master of Manipulation.
“Well, I told them we wrote emails.”
That piqued his interest. With a mocking tone, he spit out “Emails?” He cocked his head and was moderately animated, even though Evan couldn’t see him. He didn’t know why he did it. He had always liked talking to him in person more than over the phone. In person, he could see actually how much he flustered Hansen. Over the phone, all he had was some loose stutters and a crack in his voice here and there.
“Yeah, I-I told them that Connor and I, er, um,” Evan tripped on his words, gulping. “That Connor had a secret email account-”
“Oh, right! One of those secret email accounts!” He made sure to make his tone as sarcastic as possible. He knew that Hansen had a hard time differentiating sincerity from sarcasm and wanted to make sure he got the message. “Sure! For sending pictures of your penises to each other!” He laughed and crossed his arms in front of his chest.
The idea of Hansen actually showing someone pictures of himself like that made Jared feel...weird. That’s a problem for another day though.
He picked back up where he left off, as if Jared had never said a word. “Yeah, so I told them he had this secret email account, and we would send emails to each other.”
“I mean, honestly, can you be any worse at this?”
Evan shot up from his bed and started fidgeting around. The toe of his sneakers tapped against the floor and his heartbeat picked up speed. “They want to see our emails!”
“You think?” Jared had a particular feeling that he was going to have to be Hansen’s knight in shining armor yet again. An image of Jared in a full suit of armor, wielding a sword and shield popped into his mind. Maybe he would like that too.
“What do I do?”
Hansen as a damsel in distress, just waiting for Jared to come rescue him.
Nonchalantly, Jared explained, “I can do emails.”
A tiny voice at the back of his brain started yelling at him. His heart started beating faster and he could feel everything amplify. Oh, no.
Evan’s eyebrows furrowed. He stopped moving around and listened to Jared’s voice. “Wh-how?”
Jared made sure to keep his voice calm and level. Of course, internally he was a mess. “You make an account, backdate the emails, there’s a reason I was the only CIT with key card access to the computer cluster this summer.”
C’mon, gotta make it more chill than that. Those are all technical terms, it sounds like he’s reading it straight out of a book.“I have skills, son.”
Just wonderful.
“You would do that?” Evan’s voice sounded more hopeful than ever. Jared liked hearing him like that.
“For two grand.”
“Two thousand dollars?” All of the previous hope was crushed. Abandoned. Not a trace of it was left.
“How about fifty?”
“I can give you twenty.”
“Fine, but you’re a dick!”
He pressed the red button at the bottom of the screen to end the call. Jared was truly talented at talking out of his ass. Backdating emails? Is that even a thing? Can people actually do that? He sighed. Now the real work begins.
He opened up his laptop and started typing.
An hour and a half later, his search history of pornhub was replaced by “how to backdate emails fake gmail windows 10.” The poetic combination of keywords lead him to multiple sites, with each saying the exact same thing as the last.
Apparently, backdating emails is a lot harder than it sounds. If you try to just change the date on your computer, the email will sense it and...not do it? That part confused Jared. He’ll just trust the Internet People though, they sound like they know what they’re talking about. According to Mr. I Went To College For Liberal Arts But Got A Solid Job At Some Tech Insider Company, Jared would have to code the email server to say a different date.
He turned his head and looked at his bedroom wall, pretending that he was on The Office and was staring straight at the camera.
He’s genuinely going to figure out how to code, just to keep Hansen’s ass out of hot water.
It took him a few minutes to find an online coding course that was free. He scanned over the “move at your own pace” curriculum. 90 lessons. With a sigh, he clicked on lesson one.
--
Five hours later, his fingers hurt from typing and his eyes were heavy. Well, at least he knew how to backdate emails. And make a website from scratch. It’s fine, at least he won’t look like a complete moron in front of Evan later.
He shut the laptop and slid it against the side of his bed. Taking off his glasses, he could practically feel the weariness melting away from him. His head hit the pillow with a thump. He wiggled around a little to get comfortable and closed his eyes. Finally, some rest.
Then his phone rang.
Jared sighed and got ready to yell at Hansen for disturbing his beauty sleep, but soon realized it was his morning alarm. Seven o’clock, really? He’s actually spent all night trying to impress him. Well no, not impress him, per se. Hansen would like him no matter what. The more Jared thought about it, maybe that was just wishful thinking. Whatever, he’s spent way too much time worrying about what Hansen thinks of him and he knows that if he thinks about it any more, it’ll just drive him crazy.
He kicked his legs over the edge of the bed and stretched his arms out. Hopefully this day would be over soon.
--
Dear Evan Hansen,
Things have been crazy and it sucks that we don’t talk that much. But I should tell you that I think of you each night
Jared’s fingers had a mind of their own, going away from Evan’s guidelines for the email.
I rub my nipples and start moaning with delight.
Evan shot up from his spot resting against Jared’s gaming chair. “Why would you write that?” His voice could only be described as borderline screeching. Jared only cackled in response. He hit the spacebar and backspace button intermittently, just as something to do with his hands.
“Pshhh, I’m only trying to tell the truth!”
Evan sighed and walked behind Jared to the other side of the chair. “Y’know, if you’re not going to take this seriously then just-”
Hansen was working himself up way more than need be. “Okay, you need to calm yourself.”
“Look this has to be perfect, these emails have to prove that we were actually friends, they have to be completely realistic a-”
Jared pushed up from the weirdly angular-patterned gaming chair with the laptop in his hands. He looked at Hansen and gestured towards the computer. “There’s nothing unrealistic about the love that one man feels for another!”
Why was he pushing this so hard? The reason was unclear; even to Jared. He wasn’t exactly out yet, although even if he was, he wouldn’t have a hard on for Hansen.
“Just-let’s go back.”
Jared smirked a bit, realizing Hansen’s state. He was rosy-cheeked, hopefully from Jared’s antics. He kept fiddling with his lower lip and his eyes were cast anywhere besides Jared.
He smirked, going on with no remorse.
“It’s something quite beautiful…”
“Let’s go back, Jared!”
Evan quickly snatched the laptop out of Jared’s grip and sat down in his chair. Jared only stood there in shock. Was this the Hansen he’d known for the past twelve years? If it was, he definitely liked this new side to him. The aggravated-yet-extremely-attractive-kinda-pissed-off look was good on Hansen.
Jared stepped behind the chair and peered over Evan’s shoulder at the computer screen. He held down the backspace button before typing more of the email himself.
I gotta tell you, life without you has been hard.
Jared scoffed, questioning Evan’s word choice. “Hard?”
Evan sighed and backspaced, rewriting the sentence.
Has been bad.
This time, Jared nearly laughed right in Evan’s face. “Bad?”
With a bite of his lip to keep whatever frustration he had inside him, Evan backspaced again.
Has been rough.
“Kinky!”
That was it. Why did Jared keep doing that? He always did that. It was all just too much. Evan pushed the computer off of his lap and shot up from his seat. He whipped around and opened his mouth. Just great.
“Fuck, Jared, why? You keep doing this and you always do this and you’re not being cool or whatever, you’re just being mean! And for no reason, I’ve never done anything to you but you just-you’re like-it’s…” Evan’s mind was going too fast for his mouth and he tripped up on his words. He couldn’t get the thoughts into words and now Jared was going to make fun of him, like always. The too-loud thumpthump of his heart scared him beyond belief.
Jared’s heart sunk. He was only playing, he didn’t realize that Hansen actually felt like this. He wasn’t trying to be mean. He put his hand on Hansen’s shoulder, making sure to touch the fabric of his shirt, not his skin.
“Listen, I’m sorry. I just-” He looked up at Evan, noticing the tears in his eyes. Jared used the side of his foot to kick the chair out from between them. With a blink, the tears culminating in Hansen’s eyes spilled over and raced down his cheeks.
Jared stepped forward and took his hand off Hansen’s shoulder. He hesitated, not knowing if this was the right decision. Caution to the wind, right? The pad of his thumb brushed against Hansen’s cheek, right under his eye. Both of their hearts thumpthumped in unison.
“I really like you, Evan.” Screwing his eyes shut, Jared let out a shaky breath. “I love you. I love you so so so much and I just couldn’t let you know and I couldn’t be nice to you because what if you thought I liked you and told people and you thought I was weird for being gay and that-”
Evan leaned forward and smushed his lips against Jared’s. He brought his hands up to Jared’s cheeks and held them softly in his hands. This is how people kissed on TV, right? Well, they normally slide their tongues into each others’ mouths, but that was not happening.
Both boys pulled back out of breath, chests heaving. It was quiet.
“I love you too, Jared. Very a lot.”
A small smile made its way onto Jared’s face. Not a smirk or anything cocky. A genuine smile that spread into a full-on grin.
“Very a lot.”