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nothingunrealistic · 4 years

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60 and Jared & Alana

60. “You look like you could use a hug.”

Typing on a laptop while standing is a tricky task, if you’re not cheating and using a standing desk like an overpaid cubicle jockey with a word-of-the-day calendar permanently set to “ergonomic.” Either one hand supports the laptop (and not well) while the other hand types pathetically slowly, or one leg is bent and serving as your work surface (again, not well) while you type two-handed and try to balance on your other leg, just knowing that if a flamingo could see you right now, it would be laughing.

It’s difficult, is the point. And Jared’s pretty good at it (tricks of the trade: lean on a wall, stand on a carpeted floor, wear rubber-soled shoes for half-decent traction with both wall and floor), but he’s still only combed through the code on a small fraction of the Connor Project’s website between his arrival at school twenty minutes before homeroom (he’d left the house early, but still late enough that it wasn’t worth turning back when Evan texted him to say Zoe was giving him a ride, actually) and the arrival of Alana directly in front of him thirteen minutes later.

“Hey,” Alana says, with a perkiness that would be scary on anyone else at 7:33 A.M. She makes it work, though, it’s admirable. “You have a YouTube channel, right?”

Uh. “I do.”

“Evan mentioned it to me, and I watched a few of your videos.” Oh, God, did she watch the one Evan was in? Is she gearing up to ask some extremely personal questions? “I thought it would be a great platform for expanding our fundraising campaign. You know, reaching a new audience.”

Jared shuts his laptop and wedges it into his backpack while mentally rewinding the past ten seconds. “You want to do a video for the Connor Project on my channel?”

“Yes, if you’re interested. It’d be a great way for you to stay involved.”

So she’s noticed him pulling away — not surprising. “Full disclosure, I don’t have that many subscribers. The cliché of the unrecognized genius. You might get better results if you stand in the senior parking lot and yell.”

“Every little bit helps,” Alana says, and it would be so easy to turn her down, but…

“Tell me when you want the video done and what you want to say,” Jared says, “and I’ll tell you if it’s doable. Also, what tech you’re bringing to inspect. Gotta stay true to the spirit of the channel.”

“Well, I already have a script prepared for the fundraising part of the video.” Alana pulls out a stack of index cards, covered in neat pen writing, from her pocket and presses it into his palm. “And I have some Betamax tapes that we could look at. My parents have been cleaning out my grandma’s house for the past few weeks, because she died this summer. We’d like to sell her house, but there’s a lot of old stuff in it that would make it unattractive to prospective buyers.” Did she get that from a real estate brochure? “She had some old movies on Betamax. I figured since most people don’t have Betamax players, I could just take them and no one would mind if we broke them.” A beat. “We used to have dinner with her on her birthday every year. She’d always say she was going to live to be a hundred, but she was only seventy-nine.”

Her smile’s different now, like instead of proclaiming how thrilled she is to be alive, it’s the only thing keeping her whole face from crumpling. Jared glances down at the pile of index cards, flips through and tries to make a show of reading them, but all he picks up is the scribbled phrase tragically passed away earlier this year.

“When did you want the video to go up?” he says, looking at the smudged ink instead of Alana. “I’ll need time to edit.”

“I was thinking Tuesday.”

It’s Friday. If he agrees to this, it’ll eat up his weekend, which is already precious real estate thanks to dealing with the Connor Project’s technical side and his actual homework.

If he says no, he’ll feel like an asshole for letting down Alana, who’s working twice as hard on this as he is and probably deserves to have someone support her for once.

“I can do that if you have time to film it tomorrow. I’ve got the whole setup at my house.”

“Absolutely,” Alana says. “Thank you so much, I know the Kickstarter could really use this kind of promotion.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Jared says, instead of Yeah, and you look like you could use a hug. He should really head to homeroom now, but something drives him to hold out Alana’s index cards to her and add, “I’m sorry about your grandma. That’s gotta be hard.”

Alana’s smile wobbles, and Jared must inadvertently be radiating FREE HUGS energy instead of keeping that thought firmly in his head, because she steps closer and throws her arms around him, planting her head on his shoulder. He wraps his arms around her in return. It’s been a while since he hugged anyone. It’s kind of nice.

Then Alana lets go, smoothing down her sweater. “Thank you,” she says, quieter, and at her normal volume, “I’ll see you tomorrow. Just let me know your address and when you want to meet. Bye!”

“I’ll do that,” Jared calls down the hall as she power-walks away. “Hey, hold on —” He still has her index cards, but she’s gone.

Whatever. He might as well keep them if he’s got a video to plan and a day to do it.

#inbox #cockbiteproductions #dear evan hansen #jared kleinman #alana beck #sometimes i write #this is nearly a thousand words long l m a o... @myself Chill Maybe #also i forgot that copying from google docs to tumblr completely obliterates italicization. great functionality thanks everyone #kleinbeck

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