You Will Be Found || dear evan hansen (connor x evan)

chapter nineteen

     Evan arrived at an all too familiar tree an hour later. The branches swayed in the breeze the same way they did before, except now there were no more leaves. All but one let go and it was only a matter of time before it too was unhinged. He climbed, careful not to slip, to the very branch where he had jumped so long before. He sat on it, resting his feet on the branch below, dry, cracked and tampered with. He outstretched his hands until he could no further, carefully standing and sliding to the edge. He looked at the sky, at the grass on the ground and the dirt path that circled the tree, wanting to cry because of how absolutely and utterly terrified he was. 

     But Evan wanted to be where Connor was; and this was the only way to get there. And so he felt the breeze press around every inch of his body, up his back and through his blue tattered shirt, worn and dirty, through the soles of his shoes and through the roots of his hair. He felt the branch above him and wrapped his shaking hands around it, carefully inching up until he was one branch higher than before. He looked across the horizon at the sunset, warm and red and beautiful and then he looked at his feet. His heels were on wood and his toes, his toes were on nothing. He closed his eyes for the last time, choking back a sob, and he fell. 

     For minutes, there was nothing. No one came down the dirt path, eyes glowing like flashlights, reaching for him, breathing for him, holding him, touching him, needing him; his phone was silent and it seemed as though the entire forest had stopped. The wind had ceased, birds in their nests, branches still and eery, with water slowly and silently trickling down the mossy rocks. 

     Across the path, on the other side of the tree, was Connor. Alive and breathing and just there; and then there was a hand, it was Evan's, and together they walked and walked until their feet could carry them no more. 

     In the distance, a siren rang through the trunks of the quiet trees in a quiet forest and a text appeared on a nearly-shattered phone as the final leaf fell.

THE END.