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Evan Hansen is doing okay, Jared figures, watching Evan stand in the dimly-lit patio, picking at the hem of his jacket.
So Evan wrote a letter to himself one day and got lucky with some poor dead kid’s rich family, then decided he was too good for his old life and stopped talking to Jared for three months (almost four, now, but who’s counting). Jared tries not to think about it too much; if Evan doesn’t want to be friends with him anymore, so be it. He gets by. (He drinks too much and cries himself to sleep).
But now Evan’s here, standing on Jared’s front porch, awkward and jittery and intact as ever. In spite of everything. He’s okay.
(And Jared would be lying if he said he didn’t resent him for that a little bit).
"Look,” Jared starts, putting his hands in his pockets. “If you're coming to get the jacket you left here, I like it and I'm not giving it back, so -"
"No - I - uh...We need to talk," Evan stutters, pushing past Jared and in through the door. Jared wants to yell, because it’s been months since Evan’s even acknowledged his existence, and now he’s just walking into his house like nothing even happened, like he’s welcome there (he is). But Jared worries that if he starts yelling now, he won’t ever be able to stop, so instead he just closes the door behind him and rolls his eyes.
"Sure, Evan, come on, walk right in, that sounds great," Jared says sarcastically. Evan sits awkwardly on the couch, and Jared suddenly wishes that he had time to clean up a bit; the table is scattered with various empty junk food packages and open bottles of alcohol.
Evan’s attention immediately drifts to the bottles. "Wh - where are your parents?"
"Out of town," Jared answers, sitting on the couch parallel to Evan’s. "Why? If you plan on seducing me, you should at least buy me dinner first.”
"Shut up," Evan mumbles, blushing.
"Hm, feisty.” Jared grabs a half-drunk can of beer from the table and brings it to his lips. Evan is silent. Jared sighs, places the can back on the table. "So, did you just come over to break into my house and chastise me, or...?"
Evan picks at his arm absentmindedly, a habit he picked up when he got his cast and still hasn't managed to grow out of. "Look, I know we haven't talked at all, since..." Evan pauses, and shrugs.
"Since you completely fucked everything up?"
Evan sighs heavily and wrings his hands. "I shouldn't have been so selfish," he starts. "I shouldn't have abandoned Alana, or the Connor Project, or - or you, Jared. And I just wanted to say that I'm...I'm sorry."
Evan Hansen is too kind, Jared thinks, too apologetic for his own good; always the first (and only) person to apologize after their fights. Still, Jared thought that things had really ended between them this time, or at least that Evan would realize how much better he deserved; would move on, find a better best friend, find a girlfriend. (For some reason, that last prospect is especially painful to Jared, but he decides not to think about that too deeply).
"Okay," Jared says nonchalantly.
Evan cocks his head to the side like a lost puppy. "O - okay? What do you mean okay?" he asks.
"I mean, okay. I accept your apology."
Evan sighs. "Well, yeah, I got that. I just thought that maybe, um - maybe you would apologize too?"
And this is when it gets hard. Because as much as Jared wants to say sorry, wants to scream it from the rooftops so that the whole world can know what a piece of shit he is, he knows that if he does, he's admitting that he has something to apologize for, which is just the first step to getting Evan to realize how awful he is and abandon him just like everyone else does. And then what's he left with? So, Jared does what he does best: he lies.
Jared snickers. "Me? What do I have to apologize for?"
Evan scoffs. "You're the one who convinced me to start lying to the Murphy's in the first place,” Evan says. “If - if it wasn't for you this whole mess might have never happened."
"You can't blame me for that!" Jared exclaims. "Besides, with all of your stuttering and crying and shit, you probably would've screwed it up without my help anyway."
"There you go again, with the insults and the - the making fun of me! Don't you think you should apologize for that? I mean, for years you've been going on and on about how we're just 'family friends', about how much I embarrass you and annoy you all the time -”
Jared stands up. "Well, maybe if you tried to be less of a loser, I wouldn't treat you like one!" He immediately feels regret burn in his chest, but he pushes it down. He can (and will) feel bad about it later.
"Y'know, you call me a loser, but how are you any better than me? You always talk about all of your camp friends, how come I never see you with any of them?"
Jared sighs, swallows the lump in his throat. "Fine! Maybe I don't have any other friends!" he says angrily, and it's the truest thing he's said the entire evening (maybe in their entire friendship). "Not everyone can just fall out of a tree and become an insta-celebrity!"
"I didn't fall!" Evan screams. They're both standing now.
"What do you mean you didn't fall? What, were you pushed?" Jared asks, his temper evident in his tone.
"I mean I didn't fall because I let go!"
There's a few moments of silence where neither of them are completely sure what's going on. Evan collapses onto the couch with the weight of his reveal. Jared's face contorts as he continues wondering what Evan could mean. "Why would you let go of a tree?" he asks, his anger giving way to confusion. How tall had Evan said the tree was - forty feet? Why would someone let go of a forty-foot tree? Couldn't that kill you?
(Couldn’t that kill you?)
...
And then the penny drops.
No, Jared says to himself. (No no no no no no no). He didn't. He couldn't have. He wouldn't - he wouldn't do that. Evan could never do that to Jared.
And suddenly his thoughts are racing through his mind at a million miles a second. It all makes sense; Evan's obsession with the Connor project. Evan acting sensitive whenever Jared made fun of his injury. It all adds up.
No, Jared thinks again. He’s just overthinking. Evan’s probably just kidding, or lying, or maybe he said it on accident, or...or...something. But he didn't do that. (He didn’t he didn’t he didn’t).
Evan, meanwhile, sits on the couch quietly, his head in his hands. Jared opens his mouth to speak, but he struggles to get the words out, so he just repeats his question: "Why would you let go of a tree?" This time, however, he says it softly, like he’s looking for an answer he knows he won’t get.
There’s a minute of silence before Jared takes a few steps towards the couch. He puts his hands in his pockets and takes a shaky breath.
"So you were just gonna go, like that?” Jared asks. “Out alone in the middle of some orchard, without even so much as saying goodbye?"
"Why would you have cared? We're just family friends, right?" Evan responds coldly, his face still in his hands. He places a special emphasis on that phrase, “family friends”. (And suddenly every time Jared has ever called Evan his family friend is racing through Jared’s head).
"S-so?" Jared stutters, shell-shocked. "That doesn't give you the right to just bail on me like that! I mean, did you even think about how I would feel?"
"Well not everything is about you, Jared!" Evan snaps, and it’s the scariest he's ever been to Jared, even with the tears drenching his face. Evan chuckles softly. (It's not funny, none of it is). "Besides, I thought you'd be better off anyway," Evan continues. "I mean, no one to annoy you, no one to embarrass you, no one to get in your way..." His voice trails off into silence as Jared stares at him in shock.
"You don't really..." Jared starts softly. He takes a few steps towards the couch, sits next to Evan; puts his hand on Evan's back lightly, as if he was worried he'd break him. "You don't really think that, do you?" He's whispering now, his lips inches away from Evan's ear.
Evan looks at Jared, making direct eye contact for one of the first times that evening; only for a second, though, before staring back down at the ground. "Yeah," Evan says, his voice muffled by tears. He leans back, further into the warmth of Jared's touch. "I mean, sometimes I felt like - feel like...like everyone would be better off, without me. That, or -" His voice hitches, a sob rising in his throat. He chuckles again (it's still not funny). "That or they wouldn't care."
And then he breaks a little bit; the small sob he was trying to hold back escaping from his throat. Jared puts his arm around Evan, pulling him in closer. They sit like this for a few moments, in silence. (And Jared thinks that it would almost be nice, if it wasn’t so fucked up.)
Jared swallows his pride, takes a deep breath. Then he does something selfless. (And it’s not selfless, not really, not conventionally, but when has their friendship been held to conventional standards?)
"I'd care,” he whispers. He feels Evan tense up under him in...shock? Doubt? Something, Jared doesn't know what, but he continues anyway. "I mean, I do care. About you...being alive...and stuff...y'know, being here...with me."
Jared holds his breath, waiting for a response. And there is none; at least, not at first. Not a vocal one.
But then Evan puts his head on Jared's shoulder. (And suddenly, to Jared, they are the only two people in the world that matter).
Jared relaxes under his touch, and suddenly all that Jared can think about is how warm Evan's body is against his; about Evan's honey-colored hair and his crooked smile, the way he fidgets with his jacket when he gets worried, the way his eyes light up when he talks about something he cares about, like trees, or Zoe Murphy, or...or...whatever else he tries to talk about before he turns into a stuttering mess, Jared can't remember right now.
He wonders if Zoe Murphy would remember; if she memorized the sound of his voice like Jared did, if she knows how to make him laugh like Jared did, how to make him tick; if she knew that he got freckles on his shoulders during the summer (which most people didn't know because Evan always wears shirts with sleeves on them and he was too anxious and self-conscious to take his shirt off in front of people, but Jared knew, god he knew). Zoe Murphy probably knew all of that; she probably counted the freckles on his shoulders like they were stars in the sky, running her fingers across them while kissing his neck. Jared wonders what that would be like, to have his face in the crook of Evan's neck, his lips against Evan's skin…
...
(“Oh,” Jared says to himself.)
And in retrospect, he's known that he has feelings for Evan for a while; the thought's always been there, in the back of his mind; he just hadn't put a name to it. It’s unavoidable now, though, the two of them pressed together in Jared's living room, illuminated only by a small lamp on the coffee table.
Still, Jared's stomach churns at the thought of admitting his feelings, to himself or anyone else. No, he couldn't be doing this, couldn't be feeling this; not for Evan.
Not Evan, who has panic attacks when he tries to order food by himself; Evan, who spends his summers memorizing tree facts; Evan, who tried to kill himself - who tried to kill himself partly because of Jared. Evan, who deserves way more than Jared could ever give him.
No, he couldn’t be in love with Evan, because he didn’t deserve to be in love with Evan.
But when he looks down, he sees Evan asleep on his shoulder.
(And he can’t help but wonder, what if?)
Jared closes his eyes and sighs.
“Fuck.”
(Fuck).