Connor Murphy: Case Reopened

Prologue

He looked down at the bottle of pills, a look half of immense despair, half uncontrollable desire. His hands shook as two of the tablets fell into his palm. Was he really doing this? He'd been doing so well, at least he had thought. Fewer panic attacks, fewer doses, fewer of those darn letters...

But today of all days he just couldn't do it. He didn't know what he was so nervous about, it wasn't like he was topping himself. But he just felt so bad about "taking steps backwards", especially as he wasted enough of the poor doctor's time already. Time that he wasn't worth. He finally popped the pills he wasn't supposed to take for another fortnight into his mouth and swallowed. He just couldn't handle today, it was the first of them, but he'd suspected for weeks that his anxiety would be heightened today. And not just that it seemed. Feelings of guilt and self-loathing also dominated his train of thought. How could they not?

For this was the day that reminded him of the worst of him. How he had caused the death of an innocent boy with his idiotic actions. How a year ago today, said boy had fled from his sight, perhaps even then determined to meet his sad, lonely death, whilst he looked on and did nothing. Of course this guilt didn't come right away, for his emotions were far to focused on the terrible lie he told afterwards to ponder his own role in the reality of the boy's death. It was only after he fled away from the boy's family, heartbroken anew, that he finally realised that all of this was his fault. Never mind his lie, however cruel it was, he had caused the death of the poor boy in the first place. The boy, who, as far as he could now tell, was lonely like him, and trying to find a real human companionship for the both of them, died thinking the only person he had ever reached out to only desired to mock him. All thanks to him and his stupid letters.

Of course, no one on the outside who decided to look in would see this. To the rest of the world, he was still the best friend who fought and campaigned to prevent the same fate taking anyone else. He was the role model, the inspiration. It almost sickened him. He was grateful for the truth of his deception being kept secret, but he knew that he was worthless, undeserving, and even after all that, still a pathological liar. He lied to the few people still in his life about how low he was. Who would care any way?

Moreover, who was there to care? His mother was still never around, his only "friend" barely spoke to him, and his work colleagues probably found him annoying and burdensome. No one would care. No one ever cared. The only person who ever showed any care was six feet under, all because of him. He tried to push these thoughts aside, but just never could. They had haunted him this last year, which he could say with ease, despite his lonely, friendless life, was the worst year of it. He pulled himself away from the bathroom mirror, not wanting to see himself a second longer, made his way to his room, and sat down upon his bed. Hits only day off, and his mother had left him again, despite her promise to be around more. Even though she had know for a year how low he had become, nothing had changed. And it probably never would.

He reached down for his laptop, and opened the word processor. He might as well do something. He then hesitated, he'd already took his medication early, now he was writing next weeks letter early too? Did he really want to undo all the progress he had made in a single day? He then tried to district himself by scrolling through a dozen or so social media sites. For a while, the barrage of six second clips and mindless rambles distracted him, until one page kept popping up. On all of the sites, the same page.

-goal achieved, reopening soon, in dearest memory of, all thanks to the efforts-

Oh forget it, he'd try something else. Surely a cat video or something would distract him. He closed the social media sites and typed in "YouTube" in the search bar. The site loaded, and before searching for anything, he glanced at the trending list. It took but five seconds for his face to contort into a grimace.

Hero Teen's Heartfelt Memorial for Dead Friend

4.7m likes

He let out an exhalation of frustration, and closed the tab. He couldn't stall any longer. Who cares if he was taking steps back, or falling back onto an emotional crutch, preventing him from mental growth or whatever? No one cared about him, so why should he? He reopened the word processor, and, admittedly with a nerve hand, began to type.

"Dear Ev-"

Once again he stopped typing. No. He'd said it himself, he was worthless. For once, it wouldn't be just him, him, him. Other people had problems. The boy had had problems, if only he'd seen. He then backspaced, today wasn't for him, he thought, as he typed again.

"Dear Connor Murphy,"

A/N: Hello, thanks for reading the prologue of my first story! I fell in love with the musical Dear Evan Hansen just before this Easter, and I've been doing Crime Fiction in English, so I thought to myself, why not write a story about your favourite musical with a detective story flare to it? Silly idea? Maybe, but I hope you enjoy it. Oh, and thanks again for reading! :)