lost | dear evan hansen & be more chill

seven

The moment Evan shut the door he slid down to the floor and hugged his knees.

"Evan? Are you okay?" Michael asked softly. He sat next to Evan, growing concerned.

"Huh? Oh...y-yeah I am." Evan looked up and wiped his eyes quickly, trying to put on a fake smile but failing.

"What's wrong? Why'd you close the door on him?" Jeremy asked.

"Uh, cause..."

"Cause?"

"Cause-"

There was a knock at the door and Evan flinched, but stood up. He took a deep breath and opened it.

"What do you want?" he murmured through gritted teeth.

Jared looked like he had no idea what was going, "Well I was in town and I wanted to come see you...because it's been forever and we kinda didn't stay in touch..."

"Well Jared, that's not my fault."

"I didn't say-"

"You know what? It's great that you wanted to see me, but I don't want to see you right now. So please go away."

Evan crossed his arms defiantly, but he was shaking a little. Michael and Jeremy stood behind him, very confused.

Evan began to close the door again but Jared stopped it with his foot. "Wait, what did I do?"

Evan laughed harshly, "What did you do? What did you do?"

"Yeah that's what I asked-"

"First of all, you didn't even tell me you were moving! Second, before you left you were a total bully to me. So I'm sorry if I'm not thrilled to see you but you kind of made my life cruddy. Now I'm going to say this one more time. GO AWAY!"

With that Evan slammed the door.

"What...just happened?" Jeremy asked to no one in particular.

"I...can't breathe." Evan began to sob as his whole body was shaking now.

"Hey, hey it's okay." Michael ran over to hug him. Evan sobbed harder and held on to Michael tightly.

"How could he j-just come waltzing in here a-after everything he did?"

"It's okay Evan, deep breaths."

Evan tried his best but his breathing was fast and he couldn't control it.

"Evan, hey do them with me okay?" Michael demonstrated some deep breathing and Evan copied the best he could until he calmed down a little.

All three boys sat on the floor quietly.

"I'm sorry." Evan mumbled.

"Why are you apologizing?" Jeremy asked.

"Cause you guys shouldn't have to deal with this and I'm sure you probably won't want to come over anymore after this..."

"Of course we're gonna come over again! Don't worry Evan it's okay." Michael smiled.

"Really?"

"No he's lying, we secretly hate you and we're never coming back." Jeremy said sarcastically.

"Oh..." Evan looked down at his hands, sadly.

"Evan he's kidding." Michael laughed.

"Oh right." Evan gave a forced laugh. He had calmed his breathing and stopped crying but he was still shaking.

"Um, c-can I have another hug?" he asked quietly.

"Sure!" Michael laughed and Evan hugged him again, tightly.

"Hey do you want to talk about it? You might feel better." Jeremy offered, sounding genuinely caring for the first time this afternoon.

Evan sat up again, barely shaking anymore. "Maybe..."

"Jeremy's right, you'll probably feel better. We don't want to pressure you into talking though."

"No it's okay, I probably should." Evan bit his lip nervously.

"Whenever you're ready." Michael smiled softly, even though Evan was looking at the floor.

"Okay well, when my brother died the police came to our house and explained what had happened. I guess he had been killed...but they never found who did it. For some reason Jared was mad at me later when I went back to school. We had gotten into a fight before I left school. So he decided to spread this rumor that I had killed my brother because I was crazy.

Of course after that no one wanted to even go near me, everyone was either scared of me or they bullied me. We made up for a little while but then he started hanging out with some older kids and he was really mean to me all of the sudden. They used to beat me up behind the school and they said that I couldn't tell anyone.

I tried apologizing for whatever I did to make him start being mean but it just kept happening. Then for like a week he was nice to me and I thought everything was okay, but he moved. He didn't even tell me either. I was friends with him since we were little and he didn't even tell me."

Evan hugged himself and tried not cry again.

"Man, what a jerk." Jeremy said, clearly  angry.

"It's okay Evan. If he comes back here we'll take care of it okay?" Michael reassured.

"Thanks. Uh hey guys?"

"Yeah?" The two boys asked in unison.

"Thanks for being nice to me. No one's ever nice to me anymore..."

Michael instantly hugged him again, feeling sorry for this poor kid. He didn't deserve to be treated the way he was and it made Michael mad. He made a mental note to kick the crap out of Jared if he showed up at Evan's house again.

"Hey Evan?"

"Yeah Jeremy?"

"You wanna go name those plants now?"

Evan smiled brightly and nodded.