The Return to Summer Camp

Chapter Two: Out of the Way

There he was in the flesh, the elusive Connor Murphy. Jared's breath caught in his throat. The last time Jared had seen him was the day in the parking lot.

"Welcome back!" Evan said, standing up from the bed.

"Thanks dude." Connor stole a glance at Jared them quickly looked away. Jared pretended to be busy staring at his hand. Had he always had a mole there?

"So, um, how's Zoe..." Evan asked.

Connor rolled his eyes, "She's in her cabin unpacking."

"Well I'm just going to drop by..." Evan grabbed his raincoat and umbrella.

"Let me join you!" Jared jumped up quickly, not wanting to be alone in a room with Connor.

    So Jared and Evan trotted over to the girl's cabin.

Inside, they were met with the happy faces of Zoe and Alana.

"Evan!" Zoe said, coming over and throwing her arms around him. They exchanged a quick kiss.

Alana came over as well, "Oh I missed this!" She threw her arms around Evan and Zoe, hugging them both.

Zoe laughed, "Come on, Jared, group hug!"

Jared leaned against the wall, "I dunno, when's the last time you guys showered?"

"Probably sooner than you have, get in here!" Zoe retorted, waving her arm for him to come over. Jared reluctantly joined, getting squeezed hard as they all hugged. After a minute, they broke apart.

"Where's Connor?" Alana asked.

"He's unpacking, he'll probably come over once he's done." Evan told them.

"I hope this rain lets up so we can all do something." Zoe said, looking out the window. "We all need to do something as a gang again."

"You know, actually, I have somewhere to be." Jared said, inching toward the door. "I'll see you guys later."

    The next day the rain had stopped. Lunchtime rolled around and Jared found himself sitting at a lunch table between Alana and Evan, Connor sitting across from him. It had been a day since he arrived and him and Connor hadn't spoken a word to each other.

    Greg stood in the middle of the room and cleared his voice, "Welcome back everyone! This year is going to be a hoot!"

Who says hoot?

"Get ready for a summer full of wonderful friendship and fun!"

Jared wished he had stayed in the cabin this morning.

"This year our theme for our teams is food!" Greg looked at list on his clipboard, "First up is team pizza-"

Jared listened vaguely for his name. Greg went through a list of team pizza, team grilled cheese, team bacon, team ice cream, until finally...

"Next up we have team kale-"

No.

"Jared Kleinman,"

This was actual fucking bullshit, kale?

    "Connor Murphy,"

    Just as Jared thought it couldn't get any worse, it did. Why was the universe against him?

    "Alana Beck, Zoe Murphy, and Evan Hansen." Greg finished. "And that's all the teams! Now gather up, we're going to all have our first activity together!"

    "We're all in the same group!" Alana said excitedly. "That means we'll get to go rafting together and take hikes!"

    "What's our first task going to be?" Connor said in a low voice. Jared nearly jumped when he heard Connor speak.

"Our first activity is going to be trivia!" Greg announced. "It's going to be team versus team! One of the other councilors will be passing out paper for you to write your answers down on. Winner gets a pizza party! And team pizza, don't think you have an advantage!"

    A couple people laughed at the bad joke.

     Jared wasn't one of them.

"The first question for your team is... About how many taste buds does the average human have?"

Alana didn't waste a second, "10,000." She said smugly, sitting back.

"Why do you know that?" Connor asked, scribbling down the number on the paper. Evan took the paper up to Greg.

"It was in my book on dentistry." Alana smiled.

"You want to be a dentist?" Zoe asked curiously.

Alana shook her head, "No."

Jared dared a glance at Connor as the boy watched Greg for the next question. His chest suddenly hurt. Last year it had been easy to be in love, now the very same person he had been so intimate with wouldn't even look at him.

    And so they went back and forth. Jared managed to come in handy a couple times, more specifically on the video game related questions, until finally the winner was to be announced.

    "The winner is... team icecream!" Greg announced.

    "That's bullshit." Connor said. "We got every one of those right."

    "I don't know, I don't think Peru is the capital of Russia." Evan chimed.

    "I'm like 90 percent sure it is." Jared said. "But anyways, they get a good team name and pizza. This is totally unfair."

    Later that day Jared was laying in his bed. Evan, Connor, Zoe, and Alana had gone out to swim and Jared had lied and said he didn't feel well. It was kinda true, in a sense.

    He was enjoying his alone time until he heard the cabin door open. "Oh Ev-" Jared sat up only to see it was not Evan, but Connor.

    All by himself.

    Jared and Connor had not been alone since they broke up.

    "Not Evan." Connor said shortly, going through his drawers.

    Jared cleared his throat awkwardly, "Uh, yeah, sorry."

    There was silence.

    Jared tried again, "Listen, I don't want things to be awkward this summer-"

Connor whirled around, "No, you listen, Kleinman." Jared flinched at the harshness of Connor's voice. "This summer, you're going to stay out of my way."

Jared could feel tears coming to his eyes, "So what, we're just going to pretend like the other doesn't exist? Like the last year didn't happen?"

"Yes." Connor said, not looking at Jared. It killed Jared to see that Connor couldn't even look at him.

"Alright." Jared said in a small voice. "Whatever you say."

He laid back down and squeezed his eyes shut, remembering that day.