Pen Pals - Dear Evan Hansen

Chapter 8

TW: suicide

Connor's POV

My eyes are growing heavy, and I know I should be leaving before I get too tired to drive, but I'm so comfortable in my spot on the couch.

I look over and see Evan's eyes locked on the tv. We had talked for a while, getting to know each other through simple questions. The simple turned into deeper conversations. After a while, he, after much deliberation, put on some baking show, and his eyes haven't left the screen since. Part of me thinks he forgot I'm even here.

I decide to step outside to have a smoke before convincing myself that it's time to leave.

I stand up, and he turns to look at me.

"You're leaving?" he asks. He almost sounds disappointed.

"I'm just gonna go smoke real quick," I say. "I didn't wanna do it in your house, so I'll just be on the porch."

"Oh, okay," he said with a small smile. I can tell he's tired. It has to be close to 11, meaning we've spent the past nine or so hours together. I can't believe how time flies.

I step out onto the porch and pull out my pack of marlboros. After lighting one and taking a drag, I see headlights about to pass the house, except, they don't pass. The car turns into the driveway and comes to a stop.

Shit.

I put out my cigarette quickly and toss it in the yard. Yeah, littering is bad, but what else am I supposed to do?

A woman, I guess Evan's mom, steps out of the driver's side door and starts towards the house.

"Who are yo-" she cuts herself of mid question. "Connor Murphy?" she asks in a strange tone

"Uh, yeah," I say back, slightly in shock that she knows my name. Has Evan already told her about me?

"What do you think you're doing here? I told my son to stay away from you. I don't need your bad influences rubbing off on him," she states aggressively as she heads up the porch steps towards me.

How do I even respond to this? I mean, I know everyone who knows about me doesn't know about me for good reasons, but for her to just come at me like that for doing literally nothing is pissing me off.

Before I can shoot back a snarky response, Evan, who I guess overheard his mom's rant, came out the door behind me.

"Mom," he says with a shocked expression on his face, "what's going on?"

He's asking the real questions.

"You know what's going on," she snaps at him. "I told you not to hang around this boy, and look who I see when I pull into my driveway smoking a cigarette on my front porch."

"First of all," I start, taking a step in her direction, but Evan grabs my wrist before I can continue. I turn around to see a pleading look on his face begging me to not make things worse.

"You know what, fine," I say storming back into the house to grab my things despite his mother's protests. "I'll just go. See you around, Evan."

"No, you will not be seeing him around," she raises her voice as I walk towards my car. "Not on my watch!"

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Evan's POV

I can't stop shaking. I'm so mad at my mom for causing such a scene. I was making progress with Connor, and now he's gonna hate me and never talk to me again.

I lock myself in my room, ignoring my mom's lecture about how I need to respect her and do as she says. Instead, I plug in my headphones and turn on my "Liked Songs" playlist before messaging cancer.sticks.

life-is-meh: i. hate. my. mom.

cancer.sticks: that's valid i guess

life-is-meh: please tell me your day was better than mine

cancer.sticks: it started out okay

cancer.sticks: actually it was good until it wasn't

cancer.sticks: lol but it's whatever dw

life-is-meh: tell me what happened

cancer.sticks: it's fine seriously dw

life-is-meh: please talk to me

cancer.sticks: dude i said i don't wanna talk about it so just fuck off already

Tears started streaming down my face, and I'm not even sure why. It's just that so much happened today. Connor told me about his suicidal thoughts and will probably never talk to me again now, my mom hates my new possible friend, and now cancer.sticks hates me for I don't even know what. How did so much go wrong in one day? Today was supposed to be a good day.

I look down at my cast, music blaring in my ears. What's stopping me from trying again? The only person who actually cares about me is cancer.sticks, but even now that's a maybe. He's just some stupid online friend anyway. He doesn't need me, and he obviously doesn't want me.

I quietly sob so my mom can't hear me. All these thoughts are racing through my head telling me to do it, and a really big part of me wants to. So, I come up with a plan.

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Evan's POV

Now that my mom finally fell asleep, I sneak out of the back door of our house with only my phone. I know a really pretty bridge nearby. It should be tall enough, too, so that's a plus.

Thoughts about Connor and my mom and cancer.sticks pop into my head, but I push them aside. I'm doing this, and I'm gonna get it right this time.

After about half an hour or so, I finally reach my destination. I look out over this beautiful bridge with a creek flowing underneath. Cars rarely cross this street because it just leads to nowhere now, but that works out in my favor.

I sit with my back up against the concrete railing and pull out my phone. The least I can do is tell cancer.sticks goodbye. It's not like he can stop me anyway. I rub my cheeks with the back of my hand to wipe away the tears that won't stop falling.

life-is-meh: i'm sorry for upsetting you

life-is-meh: thank you for everything

Before he has a chance to reply, I set my phone down beside me, stand up, and climb the rail.