Thirteen Reasons Why(24)

Okay, but how will I know which one it is? This is the block, I know that, and it’s this side of the block, but Hannah gave no address.

If his bedroom light’s on, maybe I’ll see the bamboo shutters.

With each house I walk by, trying not to stare too long, I look for those shutters.

Maybe I’ll get lucky. Maybe there will be a sign posted in his yard. PEEPING TOM—COME INSIDE.

I can’t stifle a laugh at my own lame joke.

With Hannah’s words ready at the push of a button, it feels wrong to smile like this. But it also feels nice. It feels like the first time I’ve smiled in months, though it’s only been hours.

Then, two houses away, I see it.

I stop smiling.

The bedroom light is on and the bamboo shutters are down. A spiderweb of silver duct tape holds the fractured window together.

Was it a rock? Did someone throw a rock at Tyler’s window?

Was it someone who knew? Someone from the list?

As I get closer I can almost picture her, Hannah, standing beside his window whispering into a recorder. Words too soft for me to hear at this distance. But in the end, the words reach me.

A square hedge divides Tyler’s front yard from the next. I walk toward it to shield myself from view. Because he has to be watching. Looking out. Waiting for someone to bust his window wide open.

“You want to throw something?”

The icy chill comes slicing back. I spin around, ready to hit someone and run.

“Hold it! It’s me.”

Marcus Cooley, from school.

I lean forward, resting my hands on my knees. Exhausted. “What are you doing here?” I ask.

Marcus holds a fist-sized rock just below my eyes. “Take it,” he says.

I look up at him. “Why?”

“You’ll feel better, Clay. Honest.”

I look over at the window. At the duct tape. Then I look down and close my eyes, shaking my head. “Let me guess, Marcus. You’re on the tapes.”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. When I look up, the corners of his eyes struggle to hold back a smile. And in that struggle, I can tell he’s not ashamed.

I nod to Tyler’s window. “Did you do that?”

He pushes the rock into my hand. “You’d be the first to say no, Clay.”

My heart starts racing. Not from Marcus standing here, or Tyler standing somewhere inside, or the heavy rock in my hand, but from what he just told me.

“You’re the third to come out here,” he says. “Plus me.”

I try to picture anyone other than Marcus, someone else on the list, throwing a rock at Tyler’s window. But I can’t. It doesn’t make sense.

We’re all on the list. All of us. We’re all guilty of something. Why is Tyler any different than the rest of us?

I stare down at the rock in my hand. “Why are you doing this?” I ask.

He nods over his shoulder, down the block. “That’s my house down there. With the light on. I’ve been watching Tyler’s house to see who comes around.”

I can’t imagine what Tyler told his parents. Did he plead with them not to replace the window because more might be coming? And what did they say? Did they ask how he knew? Did they ask why?

“The first was Alex,” Marcus says. He doesn’t sound the least bit ashamed to be telling me this. “We were hanging out at my house when, out of nowhere, he wanted me to point out Tyler’s house. I didn’t know why, it’s not like they were friends, but he really wanted to know.”

“So, what, you just gave him a rock to throw at his window?”

“No. It was his idea. I didn’t even know the tapes existed yet.”

I toss the rock up a few inches then catch its weight in my other hand. Even before the previous rocks weakened it, the window would stand no chance against this. So why did Marcus choose this rock for me? He’s heard the rest of the tapes, but he wants me to be the one to finish off the window. Why?

I toss the rock back to my other hand. Beyond his shoulder I can see the porch light at Marcus’s house. I should make him tell me which window is his. I should tell him this rock is going through one of his house’s windows, and he might as well tell me which one is his so I don’t scare the hell out of his little sister.

I grip the rock hard. Harder. But there’s no way to keep my voice from shaking. “You’re a dick, Marcus.”

“What?”

“You’re on the tapes, too,” I say. “Right?”

“So are you, Clay.”

My voice shakes from both rage and an attempt to hold back tears. “What makes us so different from him?”

“He’s a Peeping Tom,” Marcus says. “He’s a freak. He looked in Hannah’s window, so why not break his?”

“And you?” I ask. “What did you do?”

For a moment, his eyes stare through me. Then he blinks.

“Nothing. It’s ridiculous,” he says. “I don’t belong on those tapes. Hannah just wanted an excuse to kill herself.”

I let the rock drop onto the sidewalk. It was either that or smash it in his face right there.

“Get the hell away from me,” I tell him.

“It’s my street, Clay.”

My fingers close and tighten into a fist. I look down at the rock, aching to pick it back up.