Chapter Text
Connor Murphy sits at the top of the hill in the park with a blunt in his hand and his phone laying beside him in the dirt.
He’s thought a lot about this moment — how it would feel to know that these were his last moments on Earth. What he would do, what he would think about. If not leaving a note or an explanation as to why he did this or what led him to finally get to this point was the right move. If Evan would miss him, or if he’d just move on like Connor thought he could and probably would.
It’s not that this is an impulse decision, in fact it’s far from it. Connor’s thought about killing himself since he was 14, but mostly didn’t because his mom was one of those hovering moms — never really letting him out of her sight — but also because he was too scared. Scared that it would hurt, scared that maybe it wouldn’t work.
He spent hours on his laptop into the early hours of the morning when everyone thought he was sleeping. On incognito mode on the internet, searching of painless ways to kill yourself. None gave him a definitive answer, but in the end he decided pills. Which. He didn’t think was painless, but he was hoping if he took enough all at once he’d pass out before the real pain started.
The buzz is starting to sink in halfway through the blunt, his eyes bloodshot and mind weary. He’s decided that this moment isn’t the time that he’s going to kill himself, but it’s definitely not because he’s scared. He just… he thinks he wants one more family meal, maybe one more fight with his dad, another moment of his sister calling him a freak because he mumbles something under his breath when he shows up to dinner high.
Maybe a chance to say goodbye to Evan.
And maybe that’s the only thing that scares him. Leaving Evan. Because he can’t remember a time when Evan wasn’t in his life. Where he wasn’t just a phone call or a text message away if he needed him.
He’d heard the story thousands of times before from both of their mothers. Evan had been playing on the playground with Jared Kleinman on the first day of kindergarten, Connor had been playing with his friends, but they ended up playing a game together.
And then they became best friends when they realized they were in the same class.
In the last few years of their friendship, Connor felt like his feelings for Evan were changing. He ignored it for a while, told himself that it was just a phase and he definitely didn’t have feelings for his best friend.
And they did go away for a while. But that happened at the same time Connor started slipping away. And things started changing. Which meant that Connor was pushing everyone out of his life, especially Evan, in fear that he would hurt them.
But Evan never left. It wasn’t from lack of trying, because Connor had done everything to push him away. Told him that he could find new friends, that all he was going to do was hurt him in the long run and he’d rather just get it over with now rather than later when it was Evan leaving because Connor hurt him or something.
Evan always insisted that he wasn’t leaving. That even if everyone else did, even if Connor had turned awful, Evan would stay. He’d be his friend through everything, just like he promised when they had just turned 6.
Connor thinks it might’ve been a lot easier then.
When the blunt he had been savoring is gone and his high feels sufficient enough, Connor decides it’s probably time to go home. He looks back at the place he had been sitting for the last two hours, reminding himself that he could be back there in a few hours, and those would be his last moments. That it’s not much longer. He’s going to be free soon. Just a few hours.
He doesn’t live far from the park, but when you’re buzzed and your arms are itching for more of a release it feels like hours. Connor wonders halfway through if he walked the wrong way or if he like, passed his house, but. Then he recognizes the houses he’s walking past and he’s walking in his front door, bracing himself for his parents to be like, sitting there waiting.
“I was wondering when you were coming home,” His mom says. Her back is turned to him. “Were you with Evan?”
“No,” Connor mumbles. Clears his throat. And then makes eye contact with his dad.
Larry looked up from where he had been sitting at the kitchen counter on his laptop. His face had been mostly even, but then he stares at Connor and Connor stares back. And Larry narrows his eyes.
“Are you high right now?” He asks. Connor realizes he probably shouldn’t have laughed at that question. Larry sighs, turns to looking at his wife. “Our son wasn’t with Evan because he was out getting high again, Cynthia.”
Larry slams his hand against the granite. Connor actually flinches. “We’ve told you a million times that getting high isn’t something that’s acceptable in this house! We’ve sent you to rehab, we’ll do it again, Connor.”
“It’s just weed,” Connor says. Maybe a little too confidently. “Besides, I wouldn’t get high all the time if this family wasn’t so fucking annoying.”
“Connor —“ Cynthia begins. And then she’s cut off.
“That’s enough, Connor!” Larry says, standing up from his spot at the island. “We have this argument every single time you come home high! Is it time we just lock you in this house, don’t give you any freedom?”
“Okay,” Connor mumbles. And rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”
He turns on his heels and walks towards the steps while his dad yells for him, but. He’s not turning around. He’s not going back there and getting yelled at anymore, especially when he knows anything his dad says just. Isn’t going to matter tomorrow.
He won’t have to worry about locking Connor in their house because Connor won’t be there. He’ll be dead. Like everyone has wanted.
The steps feel like he’s climbing Mount Everest, his mouth dry and the buzz beginning to wear off as he tries not to stumble. He doesn’t even hear Zoe come out of her room, but he notices her feet an then hears her scoff when he reaches the top step.
“Will you ever stop being such a dick? Maybe like, I don’t know, check in with Mom and not come home fucking high like you do every other time? It’s really not that hard to not get in trouble, Connor.”
Connor laughs bitterly. “Fuck off, Zoe. You don’t understand.”
“What, Connor? What don’t I understand?” Zoe asks. And she’s yelling. And Connor feels like he’s spinning. “Do I not understand that you’re a psycho?! That you’ve ruined my life because you’re so fucked up and you’re on drugs all the time?”
Connor bites his tongue. Thinks about saying something. Things about running after her. Threatening to kill her. And then he stops. Takes a deep breath, shakes his head.
And walks into his room without another word.
His arms are aching, begging for a release or something. Because when he thought about coming home and having one last meal, seeing his family one more time, he didn’t think it’d be this bad. He… he knew that maybe it wouldn’t be good. He and Larry would fight. Zoe would probably call him a freak.
But this… this felt worse. Like maybe it was some sort of out of body experience and it was so much worse than he thought it was going to be. He was high, he knew that. And maybe that’s why it felt worse, because he left the park not long after finishing the blunt and he didn’t even give himself a chance to calm down. But. He couldn’t take it anymore, he needed to drag something across his arms, make it through dinner. And leave.
He waits until he thinks the hall is quiet, stumbling across his room and dragging himself down the hall to the bathroom. He waits a minute, makes sure no one heard him and they don’t come up to yell at him some more since he’s out of his room. And then turns the shower on.
The room fills up with steam fairly quickly, making it a little easier to breathe and a little less impossible for him to like, choke on his own saliva. His hand shakes as he shuffles through the medicine cabinet, finding his razor hid in the back, popping off the blade.
This isn’t a new habit. When he rolls up the sleeve of his jacket there’s faint scars lining his arms, ones that had been there for years. He started when he was 14, mostly out of curiosity. One of the books he had been reading talked about self-harming, and while Connor had tried to skim through it, get to a part of the book that was less uncomfortable for him to read, he began wondering.
Wondering if the pain that character felt melted away when they self-harmed. If it really did help, if it did solve anything. He shook himself out of those thoughts a few times. Told himself that he couldn’t try, that he couldn’t know what it felt like because someone would notice and then he’d get in trouble.
And then Colin Harris made fun of him at school because he had to wear his glasses since he scratched his eye trying to put his contacts in, and he spent the rest of the day wondering if he could find anything sharp enough to try cutting his arms to take the pain away.
The first time wasn’t all that bad, Connor didn’t think. He used his sister’s razor, popping out one of the blades and dragging it across his skin. He hissed from the pain. Watched the blood drip down his arms. And then immediately began washing them off. He barely bled, which. He guesses was a good thing, but not really what he was intending.
He told himself it was a one-time thing. He wasn’t going to keep doing this, he wasn’t going to take his pain away with a razor every single time someone made fun of him or he fought with his parents or had a bad day.
But then he kept doing it. And it became a habit. One he did when he had a bad day, which ended up being more often than not. When his arms stung or he was afraid someone would notice he moved to his thighs, and then. Just kept going from there. Almost making it a part of his routine.
The pain didn’t help, at least not in the long run. His adrenaline rushed for minutes after he did it, but he’d come off the high and feel low again, except now with cuts on his skin and blood dripping, and. He just wished he hadn’t done it.
But he hadn’t stopped. And now he sits on the floor in the bathroom with the steam filling the air, a razor in his hand and his sweatshirt sleeve rolled up and the scars staring back at him, and he presses down again.
He doesn’t flinch anymore, which he doesn’t really think it was a good thing. He just. He’s used to it. He’s used to it hurting and he’s used to watching the blood drip down his arms, and he… he doesn’t know what else to do.
He watches the blood for a moment, waiting until the first few drops hit the tile floor before he makes any moves to grab the toilet paper, wiping up the blood. It takes longer for the bleeding to stop now, and Conor waits, pulling the toilet paper away when the bleeding finally does slow down. And then pulls his jacket back over the cuts.
He shuts the water off before someone comes and yells that it’s been too long, and then he just. Opens the door and goes back to his room.
It’s not really that he’s expecting dinner to go well, especially not after he had gotten in a fight with both his dad and his sister, but he didn’t expect everyone to be silent.
He’s still feeling the effects of the weed, still running through his mind and affecting everything. It’s definitely not the first dinner he’s been high for, but it is the last.
Because he spends the whole dinner thinking about how when he’s done he’s going to go back upstairs and get the pills he’s been hiding in his bedside drawer, and then he’s going to go to the park and end his life.
It’s morbid, he knows. But he doesn’t say anything out loud about it and so his mom doesn’t have time to get even more concerned than she already is.
“Connor, you’ve barely touched your food. Don’t you want to eat?” Cynthia asks.
Connor looks up. Starts to say something about how he’s not hungry but he’ll eat some. And then is promptly cut off by his father.
“Cynthia just leave it. He’s still high, he’s not going to listen to anything you have to say,” He says. Venom laced through his words.
Connor’s fork falls to his plate, and he just. Looks at all of his family. “Sorry I’m such a fucking disappointment,” Connor mumbles. And then turns to his mom. “I’m not hungry, sorry.”
And then he stands up before they say anything else. He grabs his plate, throws out the food he didn’t eat, and then walks upstairs without another word. He might have slammed his door a little harder than intended, but. He thinks they deserve it after everything that’s happened over the last few years.
He walks over to his nightstand, shuffling through the drawer and pulling out a bottle of pills he had stashed in the back. He bought them a few weeks ago off Andrew, the same guy who sells him weed, who told him not to take too many at a time. They were just meant for a trip, a way to get higher than weed would’ve allowed.
Connor nodded. Thanked him as he shoved the money into his hands. And then turned around and walked with his hand in his pocket holding the pills still, praying they weren’t making any noise so no one would hear them.
His phone was laying in the middle of his bed, void of notifications like it always was. He and Evan had been texting earlier but Evan had therapy that afternoon and Heidi said they were going out for dinner after, so. He’d text Connor back when he was home.
Connor thinks about waiting for that text before he leaves. But then he thinks about how Evan probably forgot or he lied about texting him because he feels like this is the perfect opportunity to like, stop being friends with Connor, and. Connor just doesn’t want to think about that.
So after stashing the pills in his sweatshirt pocket Connor reaches over and grabs his phone, typing out a text to Evan.
Hey I know you said you’d text me but I’m going out now and I know I won’t answer but I just wanted to thank you for being such a good friend to me throughout our whole lives. You could’ve left a million times and you probably should’ve left a million times but you never did and I really can’t thank you enough for that because most of the time you were the only friend I ever had and I know that wasn’t easy for you because I know people were probably mean. And I’m sorry that I’m doing this and I know I should’ve explained or apologized to you and I’m sorry that you’re going to have to go through this but I love you and I know this is for the best for me and you.
He doesn’t read over the text before he hits send, shoving his phone into his pocket, grabbing the pills and taking one. He hopes it’ll at least calm him down by the time he gets to the park. Make him not want to chicken out.
He takes one more look around his room, trying to remember everything about it. His bed is unmade. The stack of books he meant to put away lay untouched on his nightstand. He left his nightstand drawer open, his journal the only thing in there after he had finished the weed earlier that afternoon.
He looks at his bedroom door. Unlocked, so that when they inevitably come up to yell at him some more they won’t have to worry about waiting for him to answer. He thinks that’s nice of him. At least he isn’t making them walk around finding a key to break into his room.
Sneaking out isn’t something Connor is unfamiliar with. He’s done it hundreds of time before. Never while his parents were still down in the kitchen, but he figures there’s a first for everything.
So, he carefully climbs out onto his roof after opening the window, sliding down on to the roof of the screen porch. And then jumps off and into the grass from there. It’s not a long fall, but one that makes him sit for a moment and catch his breath, turning back to make sure that no one saw him.
He leaves his backyard and turns back to look at his house once more, and then begins walking down the road. The same path he took home hours before, back to the park where he had spent so much time growing up.
He doesn’t know what he was expecting to feel while he was dying. Maybe pain, judging by all the thing he read online. He figures it’ll probably take a little time to sink in, his death won’t be instant. He doesn’t really know what he’s going to do. Besides sit there, look down at the park below him as he sits underneath the tree at the top of the hill. And think about his life.
He hopes he doesn’t suffer or like, get caught by anyone. He’s thought this out, figures that no one will be at the park now that it’s almost dark and around dinner. He’s not expecting his family to know that he’s missing for at least an hour, and then they’d have to start looking for him, which. Connor hopes is enough time for him to be dead. Or at least too far gone to be saved.
He reaches the park faster than he thought he would. He’s right, no one is there, but. Now he’s scared.
“You’re doing the right thing,” He mumbles to himself. Takes a deep breath, and climbs to the top of the hill. “No one will care that you’re dead. This is the right thing to do.” He continues talking to himself, continues to tell himself that he can’t chicken out, that this is exactly what he needs to do to make everyone’s lives easier.
He sits down, leaning back against the trunk and taking a deep breath. His hand that had been firmly grasping the pills the whole walk there pulls them out, and he watches his hand shake as he unscrews the lid and opens the bottle, pouring all the pills out into his hand.
He takes a deep breath. Looks around, makes sure no one is coming. And then takes the pills, swallowing them with a bottle of water he carried in his other hand.
He thinks he feels his phone go off in his pocket a few times, but the haze is starting to set in and he thinks maybe he feels high again, and so he just leaves it. His eyes begin to droop as he watches the park in front of him get blurrier, and although he really just feels high, he knows it’s working.
He knows it’s not long until his family is free of him. Until everyone is happier now that he’s gone.