Zoe Shafiezadeh

“My stomach was a hot puddle of nerves, had been for a week straight. I couldn't take it anymore. But to get rid of it once and for all, i had to do the brave thing. That's where my plan failed. I couldn't do it. I'm not brave. I'm extremely not brave.”
― Val Emmich, Dear Evan Hansen

“I'm left with a loneliness so overpowering it threatens to seep from my eyes. I have no one. Unfortunately, that's not fantasy. That's all-natural, 100 percent organic, unprocessed, reality.”
― Val Emmich, Dear Evan Hansen

“I hold my breath, try to freeze time, thinking if I can just keep the air inside my lungs forever, maybe I'll never have to face what comes next. But I breathe, because I'm weak and I must, and when I open my eyes, and everyone is looking at me, and I know it's only begun: the end of everything. But there's no way out now.”
― Val Emmich, Dear Evan Hansen

“Burning is the right way to paint it. You feel yourself getting so hot, day after day. Hotter and hotter. It gets to be too much. Even for stars. At some point they fizzle out or explode. Cease to be. But if you're looking up at the sky, you don't see it that way. You think those stars are still there. Some aren't. Some are already gone. Long gone. I guess, now, so am I.”
― Val Emmich, Dear Evan Hansen