Dear Evan Hansen

by Val Emmich

I wish that everything was different. I wish that I was a part of something. I wish that anything I said mattered, to anyone. I mean, let’s face it: would anybody even notice if I disappeared tomorrow?

Why would he do this? I mean, I understand how low a person can get. I also know that when you’re not in the best headspace, the trivial can turn into the insurmountable and all of a sudden you’re heading down a dark path and you can’t find your way back.

I wonder if at any point he regretted it. If there was a moment between deciding and dying when he changed his mind.

(Lady Macbeth is another famous suicide. There’s a line of hers I underlined. Something about how you get no lasting satisfaction from causing destruction. In the end, the only real solution is to destroy yourself.)

“That’s what happens when people leave, I think. When they’re gone, you don’t have to be reminded of all the bad things. They can just stay the way you want them forever. Perfect.”

“That’s the gift that he gave me… to show me that I wasn’t alone. To show me that I matter.” I do. Don’t I? And not just me. “That everybody does. That’s the gift that he gave all of us. I just wish…” It’s the worst part. How unfair it is. “I wish we could have given that to him.”

“Important,” she says, trembling, “because I know what it’s like to feel invisible. Just like Connor. Invisible and alone and like nobody would even notice if I vanished into thin air. I bet you used to know what that felt like, too.”

There’s only one failure here. One colossal failure. Not them. Never them. They don’t deserve this. “You didn’t fail him.” It comes as a whisper. I’d shout it if I had the strength. I only ever wanted to bring them peace. The same peace I found in them. The feeling that I belonged somewhere. That I meant something. They gave that to me. To me.

If the pain is in you, it’s in you. It follows you everywhere. Can’t outrun it. Can’t erase it. Can’t push it away; it only comes back. The way I’ve been thinking, after all that’s happened, maybe there’s only one way to survive it. You have to let it in. Let it hurt you. And don’t wait. It’ll reach you eventually. Might as well be now.

It’s the last instinct we have. And the most difficult. Nearly impossible. But still, it’s our only choice: Own it, I say. I wasn’t able to. You hear me? Evan? That’s what you do. You get up. And you own it.

How can she know me when I don’t even know me? What I say, what I think, I can’t decide which parts are real and which are made-up. I try, over and over, to reach myself. How is that even possible when I’m already here, walking in my own skin? Sometimes I wonder if I’m still lying under that oak tree and I’ve been sleeping this whole time and everything that’s happened is a dream.

It reminds me of that saying: “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” I guess that means we’re just products of whoever made us and we don’t have much control. The thing is, when people use that phrase, they ignore the most critical part: the falling. Within the logic of that saying, the apple falls every single time. Not falling isn’t an option. So, if the apple has to fall, the most important question in my mind is what happens to it upon hitting the ground? Does it touch down with barely a scratch? Or does it smash on impact? Two vastly different fates. When you think about it, who cares about its proximity to the tree or what type of tree spawned it? What really makes all the difference, then, is how we land.

I, too, had survived a wreck, albeit a self-inflicted one. In my case, though, I was thrown right back into society. I left school for the weekend with everything and returned the following week with nothing. I was confused. I literally couldn’t perceive what was reality and what was fantasy. I’d hear someone talking, only to find there was no one else in the room.

It was much easier to be a loner when I was naive, when I didn’t understand what it meant to belong, to love and be loved. Now I knew too much.

Maybe someday everything will feel like a distant memory. Maybe I’ll find a way to carry around the past without it weighing me down. Maybe, one day, I can look in the mirror and see something less ugly.

Maybe, someday, some other kid is going to be standing here, staring out at the trees, feeling alone, wondering if maybe the world might look different from all the way up there. Better. Maybe he’ll start climbing, one branch at a time, and he’ll keep going, even when it seems like he can’t find another foothold. Even when it feels hopeless. Like everything is telling him to let go. Maybe this time he won’t let go. This time he’ll hold on. He’ll keep going.