..But Not Because We're Gay - A Tree Bros Fanfic (Dear Evan Hansen)

Chapter XX

Not okay

***Mild drug use ahead, suicide mention***

***Read until the next set of stars to skip that stuff***

"Jared, what do you mean?" Connor was bewildered as to why Jared would ask about Connor and his well-being. Jared hated Connor's guts.

"I hate your guts, but I mean Evan isn't talking to me. What did you do to him?" Jared's ((y'all happy?)) voice went lower, more serious. Since chapter one, Jared has really grown to like Evan, which is a good character development thing, thought the author.

Jared asked Connor again. However, this time it was more sympathetic. It sounded as if Jared wasn't as upset anymore. He wasn't, really.

Connor didn't budge at all. "Listen, Kleinman, you randomly called me, by yourself, on a Saturday, to ask if the person you despise for some reason is okay. I just want to know why," Connor retorted.

Jared stood against the wall in his bedroom. He paused, searching for something to say. "Listen, Murphy," he mocked, "I'm just wondering. People change. I mean, if you died or something I'd care, Evan would care and I'd care about him. I don't despise you."

Connor decided not to question it.

Jared told him to go to Evan's house and apologize, fix things, and make everything just peachy. Connor groaned and reluctantly went through.

~

About twenty minutes later, Connor showed up and parked on the corner, in his black car. He was right behind Jared's PT Cruiser. (gOd he's sUCh a lOser!)

The two boys noticed that all of the lights in the house were off, except one. Evan's bedroom light. They could see his room from the front of the house.

Jared used the spare key Heidi would leave on the back porch for Evan. "His spare key is in the fake cactus plant," Jared said matter-of-factly.

They walked into the house and went right up to Evan's room at the front of the house. As they walked through rooms and hallways, Connor slowed a bit to admire the pictures on the walls and sitting in frames.

He noticed a school picture from when Evan was in seventh grade. He saw a picture of him and his mother at the California Redwood forest, Evan's smile beaming out of the frame. Then he saw a more recent picture: Evan outside the school on the first day of his senior year. There in the background was a blurry, barely visible Connor Murphy. He wasn't sure why, but he felt instantly nauseous and gloomy after seeing the picture.

"Con, come on," Jared said, snapping Connor out of it.

Jared knocked on the door. No answer. "Huh. Evan?" He knocked again. "It's Jared."

He decided to open the door. He entered first, Connor following closely. Jared investigated the bed, the closet, even behind the dressers and below the desk. Evan wasn't there.

Connor pointed to a paper sitting on the desk. "Wonder what that is."

Jared came up from squatting to see under the furniture, then snatched the note off of the desk.

"Is it one of those sex letters again?" Jared scanned the paper. Connor's face showed amusement, horror, and confusion from that question.

Jared read the letter aloud. "Dear Evan Hansen, turns out this wasn't an amazing day after all. This isn't going to be an amazing week or an amazing year, because why would it be? I know, because there's Connor, and all my hope is pinned on Connor, who I don't even know, and doesn't know me. Maybe if I could just talk to him. Maybe nothing would be different at all. I wish everything was different. I wish I was part of something. I wish that anything I said mattered to anyone. I mean face it, would anyone notice if I just disappeared tomorrow? Sincerely, your most best, and dearest friend, Me."

Jared stared at the freshly printed paper in his hand. Connor reread, searching and scanning for answers in every line, for some kind of sign.

Connor jumped to a reasonable conclusion right away. He told Jared, "Wait. Ev isn't here and he left some kind of letter to himself about how terrible life is. All of his hope was pinned on me? I mean what does that even mean?"

Jared could hear the distress in the other boy's voice. Jared couldn't believe it. He didn't really know how, when, where, or why, but Evan had killed himself.

Both of them knew how fragile Evan was, how easily he could break. Just like his arm.

Connor took the paper from Jared's sweating hand. He folded it and stuffed it into his pocket. He turned around, banged his head and fists on the wall, as he emitted a painstaking shout. He rushed out of the bedroom, out of the house, out and away from the memory of Evan. He just walked and walked.

He crushed the paper in his pocket, smoothed it, then crushed it again.

He stopped walking when he got to the orchard. The Autumn Smile Apple Orchard that closed a few years back. He and Evan used to- no.

Connor sat on a cold bench in the shadows. As the sun began to set, he read the note once more before reaching his hand in his pocket. His eyes filling with tears, he pulled out a small orange bottle.

*****T/W ahead*****

Connor had been depressed. Connor had understood pain and tried to numb it with being drunk or high. Connor had had enough. One of the last sentences of Evan's letter stuck in his mind: I mean face it, would anyone notice if I just disappeared tomorrow?

"I get it," he muttered to the ground.

He pushed and turned on the bottle cap. He shook out one, two, four, six, then all of the pills. He had never tried ending it this way before.

Gulp.

*****T/W stuff ended*****

He just felt tired. He watched the golden ball descend as the darkness fell over his head.

~~~

1003 words

Nice

Hey sorry that was like really angsty and sad and rushed and like holy sHiT

I promise I'll have some kind of clarification in the next chapter

I have a new account and y'all should follow! I'll be more active there. I'm going to be writing again!!
khellohellohello83

-Leia💕