Dear Evan Hansen

by Val Emmich

Robbie Oxman (aka Rox) is a master hanger-arounder, always whipping his hair out of his face and keeping his legs shoulder-distance apart. He even knows what to do with his hands: four fingers inside his jean pockets and thumbs through his belt loops. Brilliant.

I should have stayed under that tree forever. Just like I should have stayed home today. What’s wrong with hiding? At least it’s safe. Why do I keep doing this to myself?

Which begs the question: Why am I here? To which there is only one answer: I don’t know. The choices always seem to be fight or flight, but I typically end up somewhere in between, doing exactly neither. I stay and I take the beating.

“Death,” I answer. “Life or death.” I don’t know why I say it, or what it means, but it feels true, and not just today, but always.

Who the hell becomes a park ranger anyway? Apprentice park ranger. Even worse.

The silence is begging me to kill it.

talked about other books we’ve both read, like Slaughterhouse-Five. Who knows, maybe we could have actually been friends. So it goes.

The water came for Connor, too. He must have fought for air until he just didn’t feel like fighting anymore. If I can understand anything, I can certainly understand that.

Eh. She’s the one who insisted I be Evan. The name I was born with didn’t meet with her approval. Seventeen years later and she’s still trying to tweak me just a little bit more to her liking.

You hear me? Evan? That’s what you do. You get up. And you own it.

How disgusting and pathetic to want something so badly, so desperately, that I could be willing to do the most heinous things.