Chapter Text
“And that right there was the sweet, sweet sound of our very own Lindsay Mason. Coming up next a classic little jingle by Ron Peters and the Peterettes. You may recognize it from that toothpaste commercial when we were kids. The one with the talking dog. I don’t know about you, but my dentist used to give us a sticker with that dog on it if we didn’t have any cavities. Good times. So, sit back, let your mind rewind, and don’t forget to breathe.”
Alana didn’t have time to breathe. She didn’t have time to duck or move or shield herself from the pen cap that was sailing her way.
It bounced off her forehead and landed on the floor with a soft ping.
Just as Alan had known it would.
He hadn’t actually intended to hurt her; of that she was certain. Her brother was not prone to violent behavior.
Not even when his patience was gone and he was rapidly approaching a ten on the annoyance scale.
“Lanie,” Alan moaned.
Alana attempted to choke back a laugh. She was semi-successful.
Sort of.
She only held it together for a second before the laughter spilled out of her again. She shielded her face with her hands. “I’m sorry, but that voice!”
“It’s my radio voice!”
She lowered her hands when she heard Alan’s smile. “Where does that even come from?”
Alan pointed at the mic. “You think you can do better?”
Alana ignored the question. She dug through her bag until her hand landed on the book she’d brought. “Here. Don’t say I never do anything for you.”
“I would never!” Alan’s mouth dropped open like he’d been offended to his very core. “You’re the backbone of our family, our town, our society as a-”
He jumped off the counter and flew back into his seat, only to spin around and sigh. “False alarm. Some of these pieces are so short I...”
The song ended.
Alan did his thing.
Alana got through it without cracking up.
The next song was jazzier. Alan snapped his fingers and swayed to the beat. “What do you think?”
“Of your voice?” Alana wrinkled her nose. “I thought we’d established that.”
“The show.” Alan puffed himself up. “My show.”
“It’s, uh...” Alana didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know anything about jazz. She didn’t think her brother knew anything about jazz. She didn’t know what he was doing in a booth at the campus radio station when he should be in his room studying.
He was pre-med, for goodness’ sake.
She wondered if he was experiencing a mental break of some kind. Or an early quarterlife crisis.
“You hate it.”
Alana snapped to attention. “I don’t hate it! I just... I know you wanted to do something fun this year, but-”
“This is fun!” Alan gestured around the booth.
Alana tried her hardest not to show how much she wasn’t buying that. The station was dark and dingy and smelled like there was mold growing in all the vents.
She wondered if that explained all this. There were mold spores invading her brother’s brain. Mold spores were making him long to become a DJ for a jazz program with content of a questionable quality that aired in what was basically the middle of the night.
She didn’t bother stifling her yawn.
Alan gave her a look. “It’s after ten.”
“I know,” Alana yawned. It was past her bedtime.
“You want to sleep over?”
“Can’t.” Alana smothered her third yawn. “First day of school.”
Alan’s whole face lit up. He smacked his forehead. “Oh, right! Senior Year! The countdown is on! Look out world, here comes, Alana Beck!”
Alana smiled a smile she didn’t feel. She closed her eyes and tried to hear what her brother was hearing.
The song wasn’t bad. Much better than the previous ones. It was almost catchy.
She snapped her fingers twice before she realized what she was doing.
Alan had the decency not to look smug. “We have a good music program here. There’s a lot of emphasis on composing. I-”
The song ended before Alan could finish that thought. He muttered something into the mic.
Murmured.
Like he was trying to sound sexy.
Alana snorted so loudly she wondered if the audience heard.
Alan gave her a look. An exasperated one that time. “People listen to this station to relax. I have to sound soothing.”
“Is that what that was?” Alana raised an eyebrow.
“And if Melinda Carlisle happens to be listening, well...” Alan did a little dance.
Alana rolled her eyes and smothered another yawn.
“Are you okay to drive?”
Serious Alan had entered the chat, which meant the situation was serious.
Alana did a quick self-check. She was tired, but not to the point where she felt like she was moments away from passing out.
It was a twenty-minute drive. Fifteen if she got all the green lights.
She could be home and in bed by 11:30, asleep by 12. She would only need two cups of coffee to function normally.
Three if one of the twins wet the bed. Again. For the fourth night in a row.
She shook her head and then nodded.
“That was convincing,” Alan snorted. “Let me see if Glen’s around. He can finish the show.”
Alana put up a hand to stop him. “I’m fine, really.”
Alan didn’t look convinced.
Alana put on her perkiest smile. “If you drive me, I’ll have to get a ride with Alicia tomorrow and I’ll-”
“You’ll be late,” Alan finished with her. “Text me when you get in.”
Alana promised she would.
“I mean it. The second you’re in, you-” Alan cleared his throat. “Our next song tonight was part of the Senior Showcase a few years ago. It’s by an artist named...”
Alana didn’t catch the name.
She didn’t hear the song.
She switched the station when she got in her car because there was at least an eighty percent chance whatever her brother was playing would put her right to sleep.
Alana took off her shoes before she entered the house. She crept across the floor, taking extra care to avoid the squeaky floorboard by the couch and the landmine of toys that belonged to the twins or the dog or both.
She listened for the sound of footsteps, for one of her parents to ask where she’d been.
Nothing.
They were asleep. The whole house was asleep.
They probably assumed she was too.
She sighed when she was safely tucked away in the basement.
She sent Alan a quick text. Home.
She received a thumbs up in response.
She threw her bag down and got ready for bed and climbed under the covers in what felt like record time.
It didn’t matter. In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter.
Her brain woke up the second her head hit the pillow.
She grabbed her phone to distract herself. She scrolled through her texts. Her family. Her fellow interns. Gina, that girl she’d gotten stuck with on that one English project who had probably changed her number just to avoid Alana’s wrath.
Tracy.
Alana closed the texts and stared blankly at her home screen.
Tracy was at the bottom of the list. She was next to last. She was one spot above Gina. That was how long it had been since they’d been in touch.
It wasn’t Tracy’s fault. Alana knew that. She was pretty sure it was her turn to respond.
Scratch that.
She was positive it was her turn to respond. Tracy had reached out more than her fair share of times.
It was just that she’d been so busy all summer with the internship and the college classes and Gran that...
She thought about sending Tracy a text.
A quick one.
A simple one.
Her mind went blank.
It was after midnight.
Tracy had been asleep for hours.
And she never remembered to keep her phone on silent.
Alana put down her phone. She stared at the ceiling.
The floor shook above her. Or so it seemed.
The door to the basement flew open. Alana tilted her head back to look at her sister Alice.
“Oh, God, there’s poop this time!” Alice threw a bundle of sheets down the stairs. They only made it halfway. “Do me a favor and throw those in before you leave tomorrow!”
The door slammed shut.
Alana rolled over and turned the radio on.
Alan’s show was over. It had been replaced by something that sounded like a drowning yodeler.
She turned it right off.
She woke up before her alarm.
An hour before her alarm.
That was the absolute worst way it could go. A half hour early made her feel like she had extra time to get ready. Two hours meant she could get more sleep.
There was no point in rolling over when she was an hour early. It would take her twenty minutes to fall back to sleep and then she’d be all groggy when her alarm went off.
Not how she wanted to start her first day. Definitely not how she wanted to start her first day.
She sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.
The house was quiet.
She felt a flash of excitement when she realized how quiet it was.
She decided to savor the calm before the storm.
She got ready as fast as she could and tiptoe-sprinted up the stairs. She only made it halfway. She grabbed the railing and swung around just before her foot landed on the twins’ sheets.
On one of the twins’ sheets. There was only one set in the bundle. She realized that when she did the dutiful thing and threw it in the wash.
That meant one of the twins had made it through the night without having an accident.
That was progress. Alana hadn’t experienced a laundry-free morning since Alice and the kids had moved back in.
It had been a long week.
A long week in a long summer.
A long summer in a long year.
A busy year. More busy than long.
And it was about to get a lot busier.
Alana knew she should enjoy the quiet. She should sit at the counter and play on her phone and make the coffee the way she wanted it made.
Moments like this didn’t come along very often.
She should take the time to relax. To sit back and do nothing. To let her mind...
Her eyes landed on the landmine of toys and that was it.
She got to work.
She left before her family came downstairs.
She left a downstairs that was as neat as she could get it. One that would be destroyed as soon as the twins woke up.
She called up the stairs that she was leaving.
No one responded, not even the dog.
She checked her phone once she was parked.
Three new texts.
Her heart skipped a beat. That was a lot, considering the hour.
Her mother told her to have a good day and made her promise to pose for a first day of school picture when she got home.
Alicia accused her of stealing her pink scarf. Alana told her to check with the twins.
Alice wanted to know if she could babysit after school.
Alana said no, that she had a student council meeting.
She only felt a small twinge of guilt when she said it. It wasn’t a lie. Not completely.
There was a student council meeting after school.
It was just that Alana wasn’t on the student council.
Not officially.
Not yet.
She’d made the excuse knowing that Alice would never call her on it, that Alice was too absorbed in her own life to keep track of things like her sister’s extracurriculars.
Especially since student council sounded like something Alana would be on.
And if Alana had any say in it, she would be.
She just had to have a quick word with Ms. Barnes about the role she’d created and she’d be all set.
She was sure of it.
The senior hallway was so crowded Alana checked the time. And then she checked it again.
She triple-checked it to be sure.
She was early. She wasn’t even close to being late. She had plenty of time to find her locker and unpack before she even had to think about going to homeroom.
She made her way down the hall, smiling and saying hi to as many people as she could. Some of them said hi back.
Most of them didn’t.
She tried not to take it personally.
It was a new day, a new year, a new start.
People were excited to see their friends. She couldn’t blame them. She would’ve felt the same if...
She pushed that thought down. Stomped on it. Buried it as deep as she could.
She redirected her energy towards the classmate on her left.
And away she went.
The morning was a blur of introductions and syllabi and technical difficulties.
Typical first day stuff.
It was comforting in a way.
Falling back into her routine was comforting. Switching her brain onto autopilot was comforting.
Homeroom, English, Calculus, Lunch.
At which point her autopilot clicked off. She needed her wits about her while navigating the halls.
There were people everywhere. She wove through the crowd, swapped out her books, and nearly took out an eye.
She cringed apologetically. “Tracy!”
Tracy smiled like she hadn’t noticed how close she’d come to being blinded by a backpack. “Caught you!”
“Yeah, you did,” Alana chuckled. She shut her locker and cleared her throat.
Nothing came out.
Her mind went blank.
“I stopped by the other day.”
That was news to Alana. “You did?”
Tracy nodded. “I was running an errand for my mom and I had to pee and your house was right there, so...” She shrugged. “Alicia let me in.”
“Oh. I wasn’t there.”
“I noticed.”
“What day was it? If it was Wednesday, I was probably at the senior center. If it was Thursday, I was-”
“I don’t remember.” Tracy bit her lip. “Thursday, I think.”
Alana nodded solemnly. “I was at my internship. The city council one.” She tapped her chin. “Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
“Right,” Tracy muttered. She exhaled so deeply her bangs puffed out. “Alicia told me about the invasion.”
Alana tilted her head.
“Alice and the twins,” Tracy clarified. “Alicia said you’d been exiled to the basement because Alice finally wised up and left her baby daddy.”
Alana wrinkled her nose and not just because those words sounded weird coming out of Tracy’s mouth. “They stole my room.”
Tracy stared at her for a beat. “You gave it to them, didn’t you?”
Alana simply shrugged.
“Did you move your stars yet? Maybe I can come over after school and...” Tracy’s voice trailed off.
Alana turned to see what she was looking at.
John Rickard.
Was he the John Tracy had mentioned in her last text?
The one Alana had been ignoring for weeks.
Her phone found its way into her hand before she realized what was happening.
Tracy snatched it from her and examined the case. She jabbed a finger at the scratch on the left side. “So, you didn’t get a new phone then?”
Alana blinked like she didn’t understand.
“I thought maybe you’d gotten a new phone and your contacts hadn’t transferred and...” Tracy sighed. She waved at someone behind Alana.
John.
Alana didn’t have to look to know she was waving at John.
John sidled up to them and wrapped an arm around Tracy’s shoulders. “Hey.” He nodded at Alana. “Hey. How was your summer?”
“Good,” Alana monotoned. She caught herself and forced a smile. “How was yours?”
“Great.” John pecked at Tracy’s cheek. “We had a great time camp counseling.”
Tracy giggled like he’d said something hilarious.
John nodded at the stairs. “You ready?”
Tracy nodded. She raised her eyebrows at Alana. “You coming?”
It took Alana a second to wrap her mind around that.
Lunch. Tracy was talking about lunch. Lunch with John. Lunch with John and his friends, most likely.
Alana shook her head. “I have to find Ms. Barnes and-”
Tracy snorted. “Alana has had a working lunch every day since we were twelve.”
Alana narrowed her eyes. “I have not.”
“Thirteen, then.” Tracy stuck out her tongue. She glanced at John. “Are they serving nachos today? I’m having a serious nacho craving.”
John stretched his arms like Superman. “Let’s go find this girl some nachos!”
Tracy giggled and did the same.
Alana leaned down to tie her shoe.
She didn’t watch them go.
She caught up with Ms. Barnes outside the teachers’ lounge.
It was a lucky catch. Lucky for her. Ms. Barnes didn’t seem thrilled about the ambush.
Alana pretended not to notice that.
She made her case. She explained how it would be a good idea for the student council to have a historian. A record keeper. Someone who could offer input by putting it in a historical context.
She used her best PowerPoint presentation voice and wondered, not for the first time, if she should’ve included a visual aid.
Ms. Barnes cleared her throat while Alana was in mid-sentence.
Alana swallowed sharply. She knew that look. It had never been directed at her, but she knew what it meant.
If this was a class presentation, she’d be lucky to scrape by with a C.
She scratched the back of her neck. “So, uh, yeah, it’s just a thought. You know. Something we can-”
“We already have a secretary, Alana.”
Ms. Barnes’s tone was gentler than her words.
Which made them worse somehow. Alana took a breath. A sharp breath. It cut through her chest.
She heard a voice in the back of her head. Alicia’s voice.
She closed her eyes and wondered if it would be worth it to take a page from her sister’s book. To point out that Lola Hernandez could barely write her own name, let alone the council minutes.
And everyone knew she’d only won because she was popular. Popular adjacent. People knew her name. She’d been the only recognizable secretarial candidate on the ballot.
Alana hadn’t been on the ballot. She’d thought about it, dreamed about it, come up with all sorts of ideas and plans.
She’d chickened out at the last second.
It was for the best.
She didn’t think she could’ve handled losing the presidency to Nick Nelson, a run-of-the-mill semi-charismatic golden boy who, rumor had it, had convinced Lola to become secretary so they could create a sex scandal, the likes of which their school had never seen.
If she had truly been channeling Alicia, Alana would’ve blurted that out in front of Ms. Barnes, but she wasn’t, so she kept her mouth shut.
She lowered her head and mumbled something that was almost a thank you and went on her way.
She spent the rest of her lunch period in the bathroom, nibbling on a cereal bar and studying her schedule.
She lingered by her locker after the last bell rang.
She wasn’t sure why.
Habit, probably.
She usually had a reason to hang back after the herd had made a run for it.
It was weird having nothing to do. Almost nothing. She had homework. Two assignments that would take her all of thirty minutes.
She almost texted Alice that she could watch the twins after all.
Almost.
She stopped herself just in time.
She weighed her options. Library or home. Home or library.
Or she could really break bad and get a milkshake before dinner.
So many possibilities.
It was a good thing she wasn’t on the student council. She didn’t know where she’d find the time.
A chill ran through her. A sharp, painful, icy chill that made her stomach twist and her head spin.
The library. Definitely the library. Home meant quiet and chaos and the twins.
She scrolled through her phone while she walked. Sibling Chat had exploded during her last class.
Alicia was still looking for her scarf. Alice was still looking for someone to watch the twins. Alan was trying to remember the name of the restaurant with the pirate ship out front.
Ahoy, Mateys Alana replied. She’d barely hit send when her phone started to ring.
“Is that the one with the seaweed burger?”
“Yeah.” Alana wrinkled her nose. “Don’t tell me you’re craving one of those.”
“Some of the guys were talking about going there this weekend and I told them to steer clear. I thought that was the place.” Alan crunched into the phone and hiccup-burped. “Sorry. I’m trying to eat and run. I have class in ten minutes.”
“So, you do still go to class! And here I was starting to think you’d given up on that and embraced being a...” Alana came to a stop. Her eyes followed the sound of laughter.
There was a poster-making session going on in the breezeway. A group of girls were sprawled on the floor painting and tossing glitter in the air.
Tracy was in the middle.
Alana nearly dropped her phone.
She didn’t know which part of that was stranger – the part where Tracy was making spirit posters with a bunch of cheerleaders or the part where Tracy didn’t ask her best friend to join them.
“Lanie?”
Alan’s voice centered her. She put her phone back to her ear. “Yeah?”
There was a pause. Alana could picture the way Alan was frowning at his phone.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” Alana breathed. “Steer clear of Ahoy, Mateys. Dad got food poisoning last time.”
“Yeah,” Alan laughed. “So, I’m hosting an exciting show tonight. You should stop by.”
Alana barely registered the invitation. She knew it was a pity one. An excuse to get out of the house for a bit.
Alan knew what she was up against. They were cut from the same cloth. Two peas in a pod. Her home life had been seriously lacking since he’d started college.
She murmured something that she knew Alan would take as a refusal to commit either way. Which it was.
Her eyes darted back over to the breezeway. There was a giggling, shrieking, glitter/construction paper war happening over there. The combination of sunlight and sparkles made it look almost magical.
Her fingers squeezed her phone. She wondered what would happen if she texted Tracy, if she asked if she still wanted to come over and help her put stars on the basement ceiling. She wondered if Tracy would ignore the text or jump up in embarrassment or tell her to come make posters instead.
She stopped wondering because she’d never know. She wasn’t going to text Tracy. That was a thing that wasn’t happening.
“Lanie?”
“Yeah?”
“Long day?”
Alana yawned into the phone. “Tired.”
“Hey, now. Don’t come down here with that attitude. We’re having a party in the studio tonight!”
Alana pulled her phone back and stared at it.
“I’m not being mind-controlled by aliens.”
“I didn’t say you were!”
“Your face said it.”
“You can’t see my face.”
Alan chuckled. “Maybe not in actuality, but in my mind’s eye...”
“So, when you say party, do you mean like a party-party or an Alan party with two losers playing chess in the corner?”
Alan let his breath out in an indignant huff. “Okay, so not a party, per se. Craig’s been doing some updates around the studio this week and he thinks the phones are working now. I can take requests!”
Alana covered her mouth to muffle her laughter. She didn’t have to see her brother to know his indignation had grown. “So, the two people who listen to your show can tell you what commercial jingle they want to hear next?”
“Exactly. It’s gonna be off the chain!” Alan paused like he’d just heard himself. “I can’t pull that off, can I?”
“Not even a little bit.”
“Still. Offer stands. Swing by if you... Oh, shoot, Lanie, I gotta run.”
Alana didn’t get a chance to say goodbye before the call ended. She glanced at the breezeway one more time before moving on. She lingered a moment to see if Tracy would look up.
She didn’t.
Which was fine.
Alana had enough to do without having to worry about getting glue out of her hair.
Alana didn’t realize how fast she’d been walking until she crashed into something.
Make that someone.
She yelped out an apology. Her eyes went wide when she saw who it was.
Ms. Ross.
She’d run right into her guidance counselor. It was a sitcom moment. Ms. Ross did a weird, vaguely rain dance-esque flail as she tried to regain her balance.
She managed to grab the wall before she fell.
The stack of papers she’d been carrying wasn’t so lucky.
Alana sprang into action. She scooped up as many as she could before she realized it was a lost cause. A semi-lost cause. Half the papers were wet.
Apparently, her sitcom-level clumsiness wasn’t the only culprit. A recently mopped floor was also to blame.
Ms. Ross side-eyed the papers that had landed in that mess.
Alana couldn’t blame her. A wet floor this early in this part of the school could only mean one thing.
Someone had thrown up.
It just wouldn’t be the first day of school without it.
Alana dumped the contaminated papers in the custodian’s trashcan and tried to avoid looking inside.
Ms. Ross checked her watch. “This is what I get for trying to be efficient.” She gave Alana an apologetic smile when she realized she’d said that out loud. “I’m having a weird day. Are you having a weird day?”
Alana nodded.
Ms. Ross’s smile widened. “I have to give a freshman assembly first thing tomorrow and since my piece of crap of a car only feels like starting half the time now, I thought I’d get a jump on setting up before I leave today.”
Alana didn’t bother masking her surprise at Ms. Ross’s use of the word ‘crap.’
Ms. Ross didn’t seem to notice. She was that kind of a teacher.
Which was just one of the reasons Alana had always liked her.
“I can help,” Alana offered. “I can, uh...”
Ms. Ross nodded at the contaminated papers. “Can you run off some more of those?”
Alana nodded eagerly. “Sure.”
“Great,” Ms. Ross beamed. “Two hundred should do it. I’ll be in the auditorium setting up. Let me just...” She jotted something down on a slip of paper and handed it to Alana. “That’s my code for the copier.”
Ms. Ross’s mouth twitched with amusement. “I think I can trust you not to plaster the school with pictures of your butt.”
“Not my butt. Someone else’s, maybe.”
Alana blinked twice when she heard herself. She was discussing butts – other people’s butts – with a teacher. With someone whose input could determine which colleges she got into.
She wished, not for the first time, that her life came with a rewind button.
She took a breath.
The problem was that Ms. Ross always reminded her of her grandmother. A younger version of her grandmother. A much younger version of her grandmother. She felt the need to clarify that in case Ms. Ross could read minds.
It wouldn’t surprise her if that was the case. Ms. Ross always had a knack for getting to the heart of the issue. Alana had been to her office at least a dozen times and Ms. Ross always knew what to say to make her feel better, more organized, like the world wouldn’t end if she didn’t ace her biology final.
Just like her grandmother did. Had. Never would again.
A lump started forming in her throat. Because she’d thought about her grandmother, most likely.
Or because it had been a day.
She willed herself not to cry. She plastered a smile on her face and forced herself to breathe. “That’s not what I... Weird day.”
“Very weird,” Ms. Ross agreed.
And it just kept getting weirder.
Ms. Ross froze in the middle of the hallway. In mid-sentence. Suddenly. For no apparent reason.
It took Alana a second to notice because she’d only been half-listening while Ms. Ross chattered on about how close she’d come to being late for the first day of school and how much trouble she’d be in if her piece of crap of a car decided to act up again.
And then it stopped.
The chatter.
Ms. Ross froze. Her eyes zeroed in on something down the hall.
There was a flash of movement, followed immediately by a bang.
Alana’s heart-brain-everything raced until she realized the bang had been a door slamming, not a gunshot.
Ms. Ross continued to stare.
It was enough to make Alana feel like there was something she’d missed.
Ms. Ross smiled tightly, like someone was forcing her to do it. “Excuse me.”
She took off down the hall.
Alana swallowed the urge to tell her to watch out for mop water.
Because Ms. Ross didn’t need that warning. She wasn’t the one experiencing sitcom-levels of clumsiness.
Alana, on the other hand...
She turned around and walked right into Evan Hansen.
Or he walked into her.
It was hard to tell.
He was probably to blame though, given the speed he’d been moving at. She’d barely managed a step before they collided.
She rebounded backwards into a table. The impact from that was almost as bad as the collision. She let out a strangled cry. “Ow!”
Evan made a sound that got lost in his throat. He took a breath and tried again. “Sorry!”
Alana put one hand on her forehead, the other on her back. She craned her neck to see if he was being chased.
He wasn’t.
She tilted her head.
Evan wasn’t looking at her. He wasn’t looking at anything in particular. His eyes were wild, his arms were swinging, he looked like he was half a second away from taking off again.
She pitied whoever was around the next corner.
“Did you see...”
His mouth snapped shut.
Liftoff was imminent.
Alana massaged her neck. “Are you okay?”
Evan’s eyes focused on her for the first time since they’d collided. “What?”
“Are you okay?”
Evan looked himself over like he wasn’t sure.
Alana pointed at his cast. “Is your arm... Did I hit it when we-“
“No,” Evan interrupted. Sharply. Like he didn’t have time for her or her questions.
Alana pursed her lips. “So, you’re okay then?”
“In general or...”
Alana’s eyes widened.
It was obvious his words had surprised them both.
“No,” Evan huffed.
And that was that.
He took off again.
A bit slower that time.
Alana nodded to herself.
That was fair.
She didn’t need to hear anything else.
Because when you got down to it, was anyone ever really okay?
The copier was impossibly slow.
So slow that Alana wondered if the school should raise money for a new one.
She could do it. A bake sale, maybe. Or a car wash. Or something.
Something better.
She could think of something better than that.
She drummed her fingers on the lid and checked what number it was on.
58.
Almost 150 copies to go.
She watched three more papers fly out.
The copier wasn’t that slow, really.
She was just that bored. And restless. And ready to go home.
There was something about being in an empty computer lab that made it feel later than it really was.
She was suddenly so, so, so, incredibly tired.
She grabbed one of the copies and sat down. She smiled when she read it. It was refreshing in a way. It was good to see some things never changed.
Ms. Ross’s freshman assembly never did.
Choices
It was always about making good choices.
How one choice – good or bad, big or small – could change things. Everything. A life.
The butterfly effect.
Ms. Ross was obsessed.
There would be packs of ninth graders giggling and flapping their wings all afternoon.
Alana had been one of them, once upon a time. She remembered discussing the assembly with Tracy. She remembered wondering how her day would’ve gone if she’d brought grape juice instead of orange.
It had been a joke then.
It didn’t feel like a joke now.
If...
Alana started thinking about the ifs in her life. The many, many ifs.
What if she’d gone straight home after school?
She wouldn’t feel like there was a lump sprouting out of her head.
What if she’d agreed to watch the twins?
She would be even more exhausted than she already was.
What if she’d texted Tracy?
She pushed that thought away.
She pushed the rest of them away too. The hard ones, the serious ones, the ones that had been bouncing around her head for years.
Those thoughts could wait until later, much later, when she was trying to fall asleep.
She sighed and checked the copier.
127.
She leaned back in the chair and spun around twice. Three times. Four.
She gripped the edge of the desk before she made herself sick.
Her hand bumped the mouse and a document popped up.
She didn’t mean to read it.
She didn’t consciously choose to read it.
It just happened.
Dear Evan Hansen...
She chose to hit print.
The house was empty when she got home.
No twins, no Alicia, even Sally was gone.
That one worried her until she remembered her mom saying something about getting Sally groomed.
She dropped her things on the counter and checked the time.
Too early for dinner, too late for a snack.
She had a banana anyway.
Her homework took even less time than she’d expected. She tried to enjoy that, to bask in the last few drops of summer.
She could watch tv or read a book or fall into a Wikipedia spiral.
The possibilities were endless.
She thought about starting dinner, but she wasn’t in the mood.
She thought about making the first day of school picture a first day of school selfie, but the thought of that made her sad.
It wasn’t the same.
It didn’t feel right without her mother fussing over her hair and smoothing her skirt.
She decided to do it anyway.
To get it over with.
Because otherwise it wouldn’t get done.
Her mother had left the felt board out for her.
ALANA – GRADE 12
She held it up and set the timer.
Big smiles, everyone!
She sent it to her family.
The response was instantaneous. It was adorable! Precious! Would be better if she’d worn her hair up!
Her father was going to print it for the wall.
Alana ran her finger along the wall. She studied the pictures all the way from ALICE – PRE-K to ALICIA – GRADE 12 and ALANA – GRADE 11.
There was room for one more.
The twins would have to use another wall.
She stopped in front of the last picture they’d all taken together.
ALICE – GRADE 12
ALAN – GRADE 10
ALICIA – GRADE 8
ALANA – GRADE 7
She looked at their faces. Happy, laughing, big smiles all around.
The first day of school picture had always been an event.
An annoying, embarrassing, why-are-we-doing-this event but an event nonetheless.
Something twisted in her gut.
Maybe she should’ve waited. Maybe there wouldn’t have been chaos before dinner or after or during.
Maybe her smile would’ve been genuine.
Her phone buzzed.
Alan.
I ordered Chinese.
Alana didn’t bother responding.
She just grabbed her things and left.
Alana made a show of sniffing the room when she walked in. She smelled the air. She smelled the couch. She tried to smell Alan until he shooed her away.
She grinned and flopped onto the beanbag chair.
She made a show of sniffing that too.
Alan lowered his headphones when he finished his intro. An annoyingly upbeat song filled the booth. “We cleaned.”
Alana pretended to do a white glove test. “It smells like you doused the place with Lysol.”
Alan nodded like they had. “What do you think?”
“You should’ve gone with the beachy scent.”
Alan shook his head. “The song. It’s my first request!”
Alana paused to listen. Really listen.
It was just as annoying as she’d originally believed.
She wasn’t about to say that out loud. She wasn’t about to comment on the kind of people listening to her brother’s show either.
She helped herself to an egg roll and took a big bite.
Alan didn’t notice. He’d moved on.
She followed his eyes to see what was making him smile like that.
There was a girl standing in the hall. Hovering. Pretending to check her phone. She kept sneaking glances in Alan’s direction.
Alana quirked an eyebrow at her brother.
He swatted her arm as he passed. “Melinda Carlisle.”
She should’ve guessed.
She rolled her eyes to express her abandonment issues.
Alan didn’t notice. There was a real bounce in his step when he stepped into the hall.
Alana watched them through the window until the sight of it made her squirm.
She leaned forward to steal the carton Alan had left behind. She took a bite of something salty and brown and possibly chicken.
She fidgeted with her bag and decided to review her history notes while she waited.
She didn’t get very far. One sentence. A half of a sentence.
She drew a cluster of stars.
She drowned in the silence. The sudden silence.
The song was over.
She leaned backwards to get Alan’s attention.
He was nowhere to be seen.
The air was dead.
The door flew open. A guy ran inside. His eyes were wild. His hands were wilder. His mouth opened and closed several times when he spotted Alana.
He gestured at the microphone and mouthed the words “do something.”
Or “say something.”
Alana wasn’t sure. She didn’t think it mattered. His intentions were clear.
He expected her to take the mic.
He took off again. To find her brother, she hoped.
Alana gave it a minute. A partial minute. It felt like an hour.
She stood up and perched on the edge of Alan’s chair. She put his headphones on and pushed the glowing button.
“Hello?”
Her voice sounded weird. So very weird.
She cleared her throat. “Uh... hi. So, we’re experiencing some technical difficulties over here at...”
Her mind went blank. What was the station called?
She had no idea.
She coughed into the mic. “Our request lines are wide open though, so call us up and...”
She had no idea how to find a song. Or make it play. Or do anything to satisfy Alan’s listeners.
All three of them.
She wondered if there were more than three. She wondered if Melinda Carlisle was a sign that her brother had groupies.
The thought made her sick.
She exhaled deeply. It came out as a sigh or possibly a yawn. “Sorry... I... I’m tired and...”
Did her voice always sound like that?
The echo made it sound weird, but how weird was it really making it? There had to be some truth there.
“What should we talk about while we wait for Alan to return?” She struggled to keep her voice light. She scooped her notebook off the floor. Her eyes landed on the stars.
She had a feeling Alan’s groupies did not want to hear her regurgitate her notes about the separation of powers.
She didn’t know what they wanted.
What would people who tuned in to hear jazz/commercial jingles/her brother’s ridiculous radio voice want from her?
She dropped her notebook. It slipped right out of her hands.
A paper fell out.
Dear Evan Hansen...
She didn’t remember sticking it in there. She barely remembered sticking it in her bag at all.
She didn’t know why she had.
Because it spoke to her. Parts of it spoke to her. Parts of it went straight to her core.
She had a feeling it would speak to the groupies too.
At least she hoped it would.
“I have something here. A note. A, uh, letter. Um.” She cleared her throat and slipped into her best poetry recital voice. “I wish that everything was different. I wish that I was part of something. I wish that anything I said mattered to anyone. I mean, face it, would anybody even notice if I disappeared tomorrow?”
Alana’s breath escaped in a huff. “Well, that’s a mood. Not mine. I mean, the words aren’t mine, but I know what it’s like. And I bet you all do too.”
Her voice was small.
The room was quiet.
And still. So still.
It was like she was whispering into the void.
She closed her eyes. “I’m here. I’m listening. Our lines are open.”
The lines didn’t go crazy.
She hadn’t really expected them to. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting at all.
In a moment of panic, she somehow managed to make the last song Alan had played play again.
It was peppy in a disorienting way the second time around.
A message popped up on Alan’s monitor.
Someone with the username MayDay2311 wanted to know if she was okay.
She didn’t respond. Because she didn’t know how. She didn’t know the answer. And she wasn’t really sure how she’d transmit it if she did.
There were too many buttons and her brain couldn’t process them and talk at the same time.
Because she had to talk. When the song was over, she’d have to say something to reassure her audience.
The messages that kept popping up made that clear.
People were concerned. They thought she was having a breakdown of some kind.
It was heartwarming to see so many strangers express their concerns. And a bit embarrassing.
It was a good thing she hadn’t identified herself.
And that her parents never listened to Alan’s show.
She closed her eyes and took a breath. She looked at the letter again.
Dear Evan Hansen...
It couldn’t be a coincidence. Her collision with Evan couldn’t be a coincidence.
She didn’t know much about Evan. They’d had a few classes together over the years and that was it.
He was quiet. Kept to himself, as far as she could tell. A pretty terrible public speaker.
He wasn’t the type to sprint around their school for no good reason.
It all came down to the letter.
She wondered who had written it.
She was dying to know who had written it.
Jared Kleinman. That was the only name she came up with, the only person she had ever seen Evan talk to outside of class.
She couldn’t picture Jared writing something like that though, not unless he possessed layers she’d never seen.
She had her doubts.
Alan burst back into the booth just as the song was winding down. He squeezed himself onto the chair with Alana.
“Are you okay?”
She stared at him in horror. She wondered if he knew they were live. Her hand hovered above the glowing button next to the mic but she couldn’t bring herself to smash it down.
Alan put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m serious, Lanie. What was that?” He snatched the letter out of her hands. His hands shook as he traced the last few lines. “I wish that anything I said mattered to anyone. I mean, face it, would anybody even notice if I disappeared tomorrow?”
Alan turned to face her straight on.
There was so much concern there it made Alana sick.
“It’s not mine!” She made a feeble attempt at snatching the letter back. “I didn’t write it!”
Alan’s eyes darted up to the top. He was just noticing the greeting.
Alana moved to cover it because that was too much. She didn’t want Alan to blurt out Evan’s name on the air.
Or Zoe’s.
Which Zoe?
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Alana knew that was a clue. There were only a handful of Zoes at her school.
She shook her head. She didn’t have time for that.
She needed to distract her brother before he said something she’d regret.
The phone flashed to indicate they had a call.
That worked.
It took her three tries to answer. Alan looked amused by her ineptitude but did nothing to help.
She stuck her tongue out at him when she finally hit the right sequence of buttons. “Hello! You’re on with-”
“What the fuck?”
Alan dove forward to disconnect the call.
Alana swung the chair around to throw him off balance. “What-”
“What the actual fuck was that?” the caller snapped.
Years of practice made it easy for Alana to defend the phone from her brother. “You mean-”
“Is this a fucking game to you people? You think this shit is funny? You think this is a fucking-”
“Connor? Are you-”
The line went dead.
Alana blinked at the phone.
Alan dove forward again. He cued up a song without saying a word.
He shook his head at her when it started to play. She heard him mumbling something about language and violations and fines.
She didn’t care about any of that.
Connor.
The girl in the background had said the name Connor.
Connor.
Zoe.
Connor Murphy had a sister named Zoe. Or possibly Chloe.
No, she was fairly certain it was Zoe.
There was no way that was a coincidence.
Alan didn’t put up a fight when she grabbed the letter that time.
She read it again. She tried to imagine Connor Murphy writing it.
She couldn’t imagine Connor Murphy writing it. Not the Connor she knew.
Not that she knew him that well.
They’d had a few classes together, worked on a project or two, spent a semester as lab partners.
The Connor she knew was a sarcastic stoner who didn’t seem to spend a lot of time introspecting.
She didn’t think she’d ever seen him so much as look at Evan Hansen.
It was weird. The whole thing was one big, weird mystery.
She couldn’t wait to solve it.