Chapter Text
Evan Hansen knew that this was going to be a bad day, why wouldn’t it be?
It was the first day of senior year, the first day of the end of highschool, and Evan had to be there. He would need to be around the hundreds of people in the halls, which was insane because how many people could live in a small town in northern New York? Their town wasn’t even that big but somehow there were hundreds of teens in this school and they were always walking in the halls because everyone needed to get to their class after all.
But there was the question of if Evan was walking too fast or not fast enough, did people look at him weird because he was walking too fast or were they annoyed because he was taking up their precious time in the hallways as they tried to get to their next class.
Evan shut his locker, hearing the bell ring out. Alright, five minutes to get to class. He pulled his phone from his pocket, staring intently at the schedule that he had screenshotted. His first class was English, which wasn’t a bad class, but he would have rather have some easier class because then he wouldn’t have to feel perfectly awake at eight in the morning. Even though today that didn’t matter because it was the first day and every teacher would just be going over the syllabus after all.
“Who do we have here? Oh look, a broken arm, wonder how you got that one.”
Evan jumped back at the sudden noise, “Jared!”
“Calm yourself Hansen, no need to get all jumpy - it’s way too early to deal with that shit.”
Jared was such a calm guy, for the most part. He had been one of the only people to talk to Evan throughout highschool - because who would want to be friends with the spastic, anxiety riddled kid who couldn’t even give a presentation. Jared had everything together, that was what he showed off. He didn’t care what other people thought of him at all.
Evan swallowed hard; his hands were already getting sweaty. “H-how was your summer?”
“Better than yours,” Jared looked down at his cast, “Obviously. I got to second base with this guy from Brazil at summer camp. Best day of my life.”
He cringed, “Great.” Jared was also one of those kinds of people to share the details about his life that people didn’t really want to hear - he didn’t care about that though. He could say whatever he wanted, Evan wished that he could have that kind of confidence.
They continued with their conversation: Evan stuttered through his words and Jared insulted him midway through. The two continued to talk until another person walked up to them.
Connor Murphy.
He was at his locker, it was down the hall from Evan’s, on the other side of the hallway. Connor wasn’t the most well liked guy at school - if anything many people hated him - which was ironic when Evan really thought about it because he didn’t think anyone ever talked to Connor anyway so how could they even know what kind of person he was?
Everyone knew the story of the printer in second grade, and the way that he would go off at teachers he didn’t like, sometimes yelling and other times storming out of the classroom. “Liking the new hair Connor, very troubled teen chic.” Jared laughed, he always laughed at whatever joke he said. He was one of those guys. “Come on, it was a joke.” He scoffed at Connor’s lack of reaction.
Connor turned, shutting his locker after pulling out a book, “No, it was funny, can’t you see I’m laughing?” Jared took a step back, and Evan was trapped between the two of them, “Am I not laughing hard enough for you?”
Jared rolled his eyes, ready to step away, “Fucking freak.” He left.
Evan was stranded all alone; he couldn’t help himself from letting out an anxious chuckle. “What are you laughing at?”
His face lit up in a blush, sweat pooling in his palms, “No, I’m, I - I’m not laughing, not-” “You think I’m a freak? You’re the fucking freak!” Evan felt himself slam against the lockers, locks digging into his back. He squeezed his eyes tightly, trying to block out the clanging of metal and the embarrassment that was rising in his stomach. That was such a stupid move, if he hadn’t laughed then Connor wouldn’t have gone off, and then he wouldn’t have been slammed into the lockers.
The two minute bell wrang.
Evan picked up his back from the ground and staggered off towards English.
*****
He hadn’t finished his letter that morning at home, and really it was a complete lie, whatever he had written was just wrong just like everything else Evan wrote in his therapy letters. His mind was still stuck on Zoe, especially since she had come up to him during lunch to apologize for what Connor had done to him during the morning. It was awkward and terrible and all different kinds of horrible.
Evan couldn’t believe that he was crushing on her still, that he believed that he could ever have a chance with her. She was leagues above him - perfect child, star student, everything that Evan wasn’t.
He typed away, trying to hold back tears as he did so. Maybe he should just skip his appointment today, pretend like this letter didn’t exist and he could come up with something better when he was at home. But his appointments were expensive and he didn’t want to waste his mother’s money like that. Evan printed off the letter, grabbed it from the printer before anyone else could, and shoved it into his backpack. He still had a while before his mom would come to pick him up since she needed to stay later. That fine, he could just walk around the library or something like that - make it seem like he had work to do when really there was no homework in his backpack at all.
Evan zipped up his bag, ready to walk away, when he was stopped. “Hey.” Connor, the second time he was seeing the other boy today. That never happened, “Hi.”
Connor scratched the back of his neck, “I’m here to, to apologize for earlier, it was a dick move.”
His hands shook. “Oh, uh, it’s alright.” Connor Murphy was talking to him: Connor Murphy was apologizing to him. That made no sense at all, from how much people talked about him they always said that he was insane, that he didn’t care about anyone at all.
“It’s really not.” They went quiet.
“How’d you break your arm?” Connor gestured to his arm.
Evan brought the heavy cast to his chest, “This summer I was a junior park ranger at Ellison State Park and I-” Oh God he was talking too much. “I fell out of a tree.”
Connor laughed, “That’s the saddest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Yeah,” Evan cringed. As if it wasn’t enough for Jared to make fun of him, Connor had to go along and do it too. Jared making fun of him was normal, it happened all the time, but having someone who was also mocked and scorned poking fun at him hurt just a little more.
“Nobody signed your cast.” “I guess not. Not really the most popular.”
“I’ll sign it, do you have a sharpie?”
His hands were getting sweaty again, his heartbeat was racing faster now, “You don’t have to, I mean it’s not that important and its not like we-”
Connor repeated himself more forcefully, “Do you have a sharpie?” Evan fished the marker his mother had given him that morning from his pocket, handing it off to Connor. The other grabbed his arm - causing Evan’s arm to flash in pain slightly. With big, chunky letters Connor spelled out his name. It spanned the entire cast. “Oh, great.”
Connor smirked at him,"Now we can both pretend that we have friends."
Evan looked into his eyes; he had never realized that the other had heterochromia. It was in his left eye, a part of his iris was a very different shade of brown from the rest of the blue around it. He gulped, "Maybe we don't have to pretend." Evan rushed his words. He looked up at Connor with a hopeful expression. His heart sank; he shouldn’t have said that. It was a stupid idea - all those things that his mom had said to him must have finally gone to his head. Evan had gone and tried to ask the school’s most hated student if he wanted to be friends.
Great going Evan.
"You're kidding." Neither of them spoke; Evan scratched at his cast, blush rising, "Oh shit you're not kidding."
“Yeah, um, why not you know?” Connor continued to look at him with a skeptical expression. It was obvious that the other just wanted to push him away, and it would have been easier to do that - and probably the smarter idea.
“You know what,” Connor dug through his messenger bag, taking out a piece of paper and a cracked pen. He scribbled away, “Why not.” He handed the slip of paper to Evan. There were ten numbers on it; Evan’s hands shook even more. “See you later tree boy.”
Connor stepped away, leaving Evan to wonder what he was getting himself into.
*****
Connor Murphy wasn’t supposed to go to school the next day, hell Connor didn’t even want to go to school today, but he picked himself out of bed and did the impossible.
The first day was to get his mom to stop harassing him, the second was because of Evan. The other had yet to text him, which was stupid on Connor’s part because of course Evan wouldn’t have wanted to start a conversation, but he had only given the other his number and hadn’t asked for Evan’s. So now, he just had to wait.
Connor had to know what the other would say of course, he couldn’t just leave that up in the air. Instead of walking into the bathroom late at night, he walked back into his room, plugging in his phone and tossing off his jacket. If he was going to go to school tomorrow, he may as well get some sleep so he wouldn’t be exhausted when he had to sit through class.