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Evan looks up from the paper in his hand and rubs his eyes. Had he inspected it enough? Was all of it spelled correctly? Was any of the grammar wrong? Did it make sense compared to the storyline? Was the tone off? He was only at the fourth email, and he was already tired. Why was he doing this again? To lie to a dead kid's parents just because he couldn't open his mouth right off the bat? He shakes his head, dispelling the unwelcome thoughts. Then he looks back down at the paper in his hands. He still needed to check it over one more time for inconsistencies before he could put it in a folder with the rest of the emails.
Dear Evan Hansen,
He looks over at his best friend, hoping that he isn't having just as hard a time. And it didn't look like he was. Jared was bent over a laptop that was carefully balanced on his legs. Evan wasn't sure that it was particularly comfortable to sit that way for however long he had. He also noticed how Jared had his tongue sticking out slightly as he typed and how dark the bags under his eyes were, as if he hadn't slept in days. How long had they been working again? Writing fake emails and backdating them?
"Around eight hours." Evan jumps as Jared's voice cuts through the silence and dismisses whatever thoughts he had at that moment. Then Jared's looking at him again in the same way he did that morning; annoyed and ready to ditch him at any moment. Then again, it appeared as if Jared had been looking at him like that a lot in the past few years.
"I just didn't-" Jared cuts him off with a glare that was probably meant to be harsh, but it fell flat due to how tired he looked. had he always been this hostile? Or was it just because of him? Either way, Evan decided he wasn't brave enough to say anything else in fear of his family friend dropping out of the project and endangering Evan's pretty much well-kept secret. Or, at least, only the two of them knew the truth.
It turns out, this wasn't an amazing day after all
"He loved talking about the orchard," Evan says, his eyes briefly drifting to the right. It was almost as if he blinked and suddenly appeared in the Murphy's dining room, sitting between Zoe and Con- Zoe's parents. The three of them just sit there, listening to his endless lies with blank faces, as if they knew he was lying. "And-and about some of the things he'd like to do after, uh, graduating." He looks up again to see Zoe with a face of disbelief, clear as day. He tries to avoid looking at her after that, terrified that she'd pick up on his lies.
"I remember we, uh. went to the orchard once." Evan regrets the words as soon as he says them. Except, now it's too late to take those words back like he so desperately wants to. Both Zoe and her father look surprised, while Cynthia goes silent, looking off to the side.
"Didn't it close down?" Zoe asks, and Evan can hardly breathe, the tension in the air and the tightness in his chest sparing him no mercy as he tries to form an acceptable sentence. Was she just asking to get him in trouble? Was she going to call the police after heleft and tell them everything?
"Well..." He trails off, rubbing the back of his neck and willing his cheeks to heat up to make it more believable. "We might have, uh, broken in?"
I wish that everything was different
"And that's the truth."Evan avoids his mother's eyes, unsure of how he feels about the situation. On one hand, his mother knew almost everything; Connor, the note, the project, and the emails, but on the other hand, he was still keeping the biggest secret of all: the tree.
Heidi gives him a supportive smile that makes him feel a little better, but he concludes that nothing can actually get rid of the sinking feeling in his stomach except for coming clean. "Thanks for telling me, Evan." Then she moves to get up, to do something else, but the words are sliding off his tongue before he can stop them.
"There's something else." Heidi turns to look back at him again, waiting patiently as Evan tries to pull his thoughts together to form at least one cohesive sentence.
"I-" his anxiety spikes as he realizes exactly what he's about to do. He's actually admitting what he's done instead of repressing that certain event, something that Connor had pushed him to do right before the project had been created. Then the truth comes out.
"I didn't fall out of that tree, Mom. I let go."
His mother seems both horrified and relieved at the new information. Evan still isn't sure how he's supposed to feel, but he does know he feels better saying the truth.
The truth was he was done lying about Connor, he was done with the emails, and most important of all: he wanted, needed, to cut ties with the project.
And that's exactly what he's going to do.