For Forever (Evan X Connor)

Chapter 7

"Well... I don't feel any different. Maybe I'm immune to it?" I say and stare at the ceiling.

"Evan! It's been 2 minutes! It takes a while to kick in still" Connor laughs at me and gets back up to show me more of his art. After showing me all the ones he has pulled out it's been about 40 minutes and my head starts to feel cloudy.

"How you doing Ev?" I start giggling "Ev." I laugh " cause 2 syllables is wayyy too hard right Con" I laugh nervously and play at my shirt.

"Ladies and gentleman, I successfully made Evan Hansen, high."
I stare wide-eyed at the ceiling. "Good thing I'm staying over right. My mom would nottttt be happy" I laughed.

This is so unlike me. I've never once drank before, and the thought of pot scared me before I met Connor. Now the thought of it makes me want to seem cooler and better for him.

"Am I cool yet?" I question and grab a leather jacket off the end off the bed and model it. It's way too long on me because he is so much taller than me so I probably look even worse than I am trying to but I don't even care.

"The absolute coolest." He hands me a pair of sunglasses he has next to his bed to add to my look. I walk around the room and strut for him, modeling. What am I doing? I'm not even thinking about what I'm doing before I do it. This is awesome.

"CONNOR YOU'VE JUST CURED MY ANXIETY WITH THE DEVILS LETTUCE!" I laugh loudly, but not loud enough for his parents to hear us. He gets up and hugs me tight, which is weird. I don't question it but I'm not someone who is used to a lot of physical contact like that.

"What do you want to do now?" Connor asked me while still holding me in a hug. I slowly got out of it and looked around the room. "Do you have any board games??" He looked puzzled. "Board games? I think I have Pictionary somewhere?"

An hour or so passes with us playing games and talking about life when I get a phone call from my mom.

"Oh no." I stare at it with my eyes super wide. "Oh no oh no oh no oh no" I can feel my breath get shorter and my vision begins to blur.

"Connor I can't breathe," I say in between breaths. He sits next to me and rubs my back and tries to get me to calm down.

"My moms calling I can't answer her. She's going to know!"  I start to cry until the phone stops ringing and it goes to voicemail. I set my phone down and start pacing.

"She's going to kill me. I know that she is going to be so disappointed in me. Oh god why did I do this." I start to cry but my head is still so cloudy from still being high. It's making everything worse right now.

"Evan it's okay. She isn't going to kill you. You're a teenager. It's what teenagers do. You don't ever have to tell her and you don't ever have to do it again." I can see Connors growing concern and frustration. I can't tell if he is frustrated with me for panicking or at himself for not knowing what to do.

" Well, my dad doesn't give a shit about me anymore. That vanished in a second. It can happen with my mom that way too. Why did I ever do this." I'm still trying to breathe properly and I can see Connor clench his fists.

" I'm so stupid!" He screamed through his teeth. "I knew you had anxiety and I thought this would help but there are bad trips. Clearly like right now. Fuck! I can't even fucking help you I'm so fucking worthless." His anger just makes me cry more.

I feel so vulnerable like this. Connor is angry and Connor used to harass me when he was angry so it's just reminding me of that. "P-please try and calm down Connor it isn't your fault," I whisper out.

"Not my fault? So your anxiety attack isn't my fault? I pressured you into trying it. If I wasn't such a fucking ass hole we wouldn't be in this mess! I need to go on a walk!" He grabbed his bag and stormed out the door without closing his bedroom door behind him.

I sat there crying on his bed. We were both awful at helping each other. I never want that to happen again.

I hear some footsteps that just stop and I think Connor might have changed his mind, but instead, I look up and see a concerned Zoe Murphy at the doorway.

"Things get pretty heated in here?" She asks and brings me a box of tissues. "Thanks" I cry and grab a couple tissues.

"What's wrong, Evan? Did he hit you at all??" She asks with a stern quality to her tone. "No! He-- he wouldn't do that.. right?" I ask, suddenly even more paranoid.

"I was just checking. What happened? Do you want to talk about it?" I nod my head as fast as possible and try to tell her what happened as best as I can, still embarrassed I was crying in front of her.

"Come on, let's go downstairs and get you some water and food. Okay? I'm glad he didn't lash out at you and went walking instead. He must really care about you." She says with some pain in her voice.

She sits with me for a while until she is almost falling asleep on the counter. It is about 12:30 am and I guess she pulled an all-nighter the day before. By now the high was running off which I was really thankful for. I don't think I'll do that again for a very long time, if ever.

"Its been about 40 minutes. Do you think he's coming back?" I ask her before she is all the way up the stairs.
" He will be. Don't worry, Ev. He has done this once or twice. It'll be okay. " she smiles reassuringly at me before heading to her room.

I sit on the couch in the living room sipping on water, waiting for Connor to come back in. I didn't want to be pushy so I never text him to ask when he was coming back. I didn't want to trigger him.

Around 1 am Connor walks in quietly and locks the door. He obviously gets scared when he sees me on the couch. I stand up and run to him, hugging him as tight as possible.

"I was so worried," I mumble into his chest. I can hear his heartbeat get faster and I hug him tighter.

" I'm so sorry Evan. I get it if you don't want to be my friend anymore." He says and starts to let go of me.

Instead, I hug him again. This is so foreign to me. I don't know if this is an odd amount of time for 2 friends to be hugging but I feel safe like this. "No way, José" I whisper.

He starts to pull away from the hug again but stops and he still has hold of me. That's when it happens.

It happened so fast but it felt like slow motion. Connor leaned down and kissed me.