Nowhere Else I'd Rather Be • Tree Bros

Jesus, Jared

Evan Hansen was, and still is, a boy with anxiety. He has a few friends, but that's it. Now, this year, he has come back with a broken left arm, a bit of a realization for his newfound suicidal mindset, and an ex-boyfriend who - even though it was he who broke it off - flirts constantly with Evan. Constantly.

It seems like it couldn't get worse, right? Well, can it?

"You fell out of a tree?" Jared asked, laughing at Evan, a few tears starting to form in his eyes

"Well, yeah, I mean..."

Jared kept laughing at Evan's misfortune. It wasn't a good idea on Evan's part to share and try to confine in Jared. You'd think he'd have learned after dating the guy.

"You sure it was a tree? Like, you didn't have Zoe Murphy's Insta-"

"No, Jared, I did not break my arm trying to unlike a post she made two years ago," Evan explained, blushing a bit at the fact that he knew Jared was talking about masturbation

"Not what I was going for, but whatever you say," Jared rolled his eyes and ran off

Evan stood in the hall alone, before he decided to just start walking, like a normal person. Ignored in the halls, as usual, Evan looked around diligently. A few familiar faces smiled at him as he passed, but he never attempted to strike up a conversation. Same thing as last year.

The only thing that was different was that he felt very disastrous. He might be a 'disaster bi', but this year was starting off to be troublesome. His break up didn't help, it actually might have made his situation worse. The word 'disaster' had started sounding like an understatement.

Evan had one place inside the entire school where he felt calm and safe - the auditorium. Of course, he didn't perform in front of anyone or anything, he just liked to watch. It was fun, actually. He had made a few friends in his time there, just a few, like eight or so.

The auditorium was where he was heading. He didn't know for sure who would be there except one of his friends, the biggest theatre nerd in the whole school.

"Evan, we find each other once again," Jared said, popping up in front of Evan

"You sure you didn't choose to come back to me?" Evan asked

"Ev, I'm the one that broke up with you, remember?"

"That's right, how'd that work out for you?" Evan asked, blushing about the awkwardness of the situation

"Pretty well, obviously."

"Well, then why, if you broke up with me, do you flirt with me?"

Jared froze in his tracks and scoffed. Evan continued to walk, making Jared speed up to get to him.

"I'm not flirting with you."

"Alright."

Jared ran off again when he caught sight of a random few people he hung out with. Evan just kept walking, this was already a daily basis sort of thing. Some things just... don't change.

Evan then caught sight of Zoe Murphy. Holy crap. Evan knew it was way too far fetched to even think that she would like him, but he could still believe, right?

Zoe glanced at Evan and smiled. He panicked slightly and smiled back.

Was I staring? She's gonna think I'm weird, Evan thought to himself as he tried to walk off from this situation.

"Hey."

Oh, sh-

"Heyyyyy," Evan said, turning around to look at her, slowly

"Do you wanna come over to my place? I'm just having a small get together and Jared said to invite you. You're Evan, right?" Zoe asked like it was rehearsed

"Oh, yeah, I can- I can go. My name is, you're right, it's Evan, so you're right."

Zoe laughed awkwardly and smiled. The way Evan worded his sentence wasn't the most ideal for him.

"So, uh, see you there!" Zoe said, already walking off, "Oh, and I- Jared gave me your number, so, yeah... I'll probably text you later to make sure you know where and when, so, yeah!"

"Oh, okay! Uh... See you...," Evan trailed off, shooting finger guns at her retreating back

Evan sighed. That was embarrassing, Evan thought to himself as he started toward the auditorium, again. His speech betrayed him by making his words sound weird together, it wasn't at all ideal for him and his imaginary relationship with Zoe Murphy. Most of his interactions with people were not ideal.

Evan maneuvered his way around the people in the halls. He watched people's movements so he wouldn't bump into anyone. If he did, he might as well have jumped off a bridge; he didn't feel very comfortable with people confronting him, and bumping into someone just gives them a reason to do so.

Confrontation was understandable, but he couldn't stand most interactions; He still had to ask Heidi to answer the doctor's questions.

He started humming to himself, a song he couldn't really remember, but the tune came to him randomly.

He could see the doors to the auditorium already. He walked faster, well, faster than he already. He just needed to reach the auditorium before any other awkward situation could get to him. Evan was like a Pokémon trainer, except instead of other trainers trying to battle him every time he was in their view, it was other teenagers making an awkward situation whenever they saw him.

He walked into the auditorium, a feeling of refreshing, cool air hit him. It felt amazing compared to the rest of the school, which felt like a gross, uncomfortable version of warm. No matter how much time he spent in this room, he always felt a wave of happiness that he hadn't felt before.

Nothing could change his mind about the auditorium. It felt better than his own house, well, a lot of things felt better than his house since he was always alone it. Yet, out of every place that he felt comfort in, the school's auditorium felt the best to him.

Word Count - 1004