Jump (Dear Evan Hansen)

The Arcade

An open embrace is the first thing that greets me when I arrive at the Murphy house. "I missed you," Connor says into my ear as he hugs me. I giggle, causing him to move back and look at me with a funny smile on his face.

"You just saw me yesterday."

"And that means that I can't miss my boyfriend? Here, let me see if my mom can drive us to the arcade. CynthiAAAAAAA," Connor screeches like a little kid. I hear rushing footsteps above us.

"Oh my goodness what's wrong?!" Mrs. Murphy comes rushing down the stairs, fear and concern filling her voice.

"Can you drive us to the arcade?" Connor sings in almost a whining tone. Mrs. Murphy sighs, partial relief and partial disappointment in her breath.

"Connor, please don't scare me like that again." She sounds tired, defeated, but at the same time she is still trying. "Hello Evan, how are you darling?

"I'm good. It's nice to see you Mrs. Murphy." She smiles lightly at my greeting.

"Where do you need to go?"

"The arcade," Connor says, content with himself.

"The arcade? Go ask your father."

"Why can't you drive us?" I can sense concern rising in Connor's voice.

"Connor I really don't have time for this, please just go and ask-"

"I'm sorry for yelling before. I really am. Will you please drive Evan and I to the arcade? We did all of our homework yesterday. Please, mom."

As Connor says the last word, I see a look in Mrs. Murphy's eyes that I have never seen before. One of longing, and hope. She looks up and Connor, and stays silent for a minute. Connor continues to give her puppy dog eyes, and I just take in the scene in front of me, awkwardly. Why do I alway intrude on these awkward family moments that I really shouldn't be here for?

"Well, I suppose I could drive-"

Before she even finishes her sentence, she is cut off by Connor wrapping her in a hug. Mrs. Murphy freezes, and then slowly hugs back. I hear him thank her while they are intertwined. By the time the bonding is over, I have backed up against the wall and sat down. "Evan. Evan?" Connor starts spinning frantically and darting his eyes.

"Down here."

"Oh. You ready?"

"Um, yeah," I say as I scramble to get up, "I, let me get some money from my bag."

"This one is on me, Ev. Don't worry about it."

"Oh, really? Are you sure? Be-because I can go-"

"Yes, really. Now come on."

The car ride consists of Connor and I whispering, sending each other texts and giggling, causing Mrs. Murphy to continuously look in her rear view mirror at us, which only makes us laugh harder. We thank Mrs. Murphy, hop out of the car, wave to her, and Connor starts running towards the arcade door. I chase after him.

"Wow," I say under my breath as I freeze and take in all of the machines, noises, and lights. Connor looks at me and laughs.

"You've never been in an arcade?"

"Nope," I say, and Connor places his arm around me, and starts walking. "Connor, the machines are that way."

"I know. We have to get tokens first."

"Oh," I say, trying to sound like I totally knew that. "H-how do we do that?"

"Here, watch." I follow Connor's instructions as he pulls his wallet from his pocket, and pulls out some bills. He then places one of them into a machine in front of us. It takes a second before coins start shooting out, which is loud and surprising enough to startle me, and make me fall to the floor. Connor smirks, and reaches out a hand to help me up as the coins finish coming out of the machine. "You're cute," he says as he scoops the coins out of a small bowl which is a few inches below where the dollar insert is.

Connor leads me over to the rows of flashing machines. "Here, try this one," he says as he wraps his arm around my waist and guides me to one of the machines. It is pretty tall, and has a rotating wheel at the bottom with various holes in it reading different numbers. There is a tube at the top left with bouncy balls in it, and a red button that says "drop" in front of us. Connor bends down to insert two tokens into a slot, and then stands back up. "Here," he says calmly and reaches his hands forward, placing them on mine. I feel his chest lean up against my back and his head rest on my shoulder. "Okay... wait for it to come around aaaaand... now," he says as he takes our hands and presses the button. A ball flies out of the shoot and makes me shut my eyes and jump backwards into Connor, he catches me and starts laughing. I open my eyes and a digital number is declining behind the glass of the machine. I glance to my left and right, and notice that Connor is still holding onto me.

"What'd I miss?"

"You got a jackpot," Connor laughs as he swings me from a tilt onto my feet. I turn towards the door when I hear a familiar voice.

"Oh no," I mumble.

"Wha-" Connor says as he starts to turn, until he begins to bust up laughing. "Oh my god." We both watch a group come in, led by one person who is waving their arms through the air. Connor pulls out his phone and starts taking pictures, still laughing.

"Now folks, it appears that, according to my bracket that is, that the pairs are," the leading person says so loud that I'm pretty sure he wants everyone to hear him as he proudly calls off names and his followers pair up. "There just enough machines for each partnership to have one." A small cheer follows his announcement, only from his friends, of course, and then they run over to a clump of machines. One person from each partnership stood to the side while their partner readied themselves at one of the four machines. "May the annual Pac-Man tournament begin!"

Connor busts up laughing, and then switches picture taking to video taking. The round is over faster then expected, and the people switch, Connor still videoing. The head boy hands one of the boys his bracket, and as that boy begins to fill out the winners, the leader turns and sees us. "Hansen? Hansen," he exclaims as he comes over to Connor and I.

"Oh," I say quietly, "h-hey Jared."

"And look, you brought your boyfriend with you, isn't that nice," he coos in the most annoying way possible.

"Hey Kleinman," Connor says obnoxiously, "I was looking at the ticket amounts at the prize booth over there, but I couldn't seem to figure out how many tickets it costed for you to go away."

"Okay, geez," Jared says, surrendering as he backs up.

Two hours later, Connor and I come out of the arcade with various prizes that we received with our tickets. Connor is holding a bag of a bunch of little gadgets he picked out, and I'm cuddling a stuffed animal he won me from a claw machine. It's a plush tree, and he ran over to the machine when he saw it.

"The big question is," Connor says, and stops walking. "Evan Hansen, did you enjoy the arcade?" He pivots towards me, pretending to hold a microphone.

"I loved it. But I love you more." Connor puts his arm around me.

Connor puts his arm around me.