Thirteen Reasons Why(46)

And the old man, by the time he got home to his wife, he knew it.

Hopefully, no one will hear these tapes except for those of you on this list, leaving any changes they bring to your lives completely up to you.

Of course, if the tapes do get out, you’ll have to deal with consequences completely out of your control. So I sincerely hope you’re passing them on.

I glance at Tony. Would he really do that? Could he? Would he give the tapes to someone not on the list?

Who?

For some of you, those consequences may be minimal. Maybe shame. Or embarrassment. But for others, it’s hard to say. A lost job? Jail time?

Let’s keep this between us, shall we?

So Clay, I wasn’t even supposed to be at that party. I was invited, but I wasn’t supposed to be there. My grades were slipping pretty fast. My parents asked for progress reports every week from my teachers. And when none of them came back with improvements, I was grounded.

For me, grounded meant that I had one hour to get home from school. One hour being my only free time until I brought those grades up.

We’re at a stoplight. And still, Tony keeps his eyes straight ahead. Does he want to avoid seeing me cry? Because he doesn’t have to worry, I’m not. Not right now.

During one of my Clay Jensen gossip moments, I found out that you were going to be at the party.

What? Clay Jensen at a party? Unheard of.

I study on the weekends. In most of my classes, we’re tested every Monday. It’s not my fault.

Not only was that my first thought, that’s what the people around me were talking about, too. No one could figure out why they never saw you at parties. Of course, they had all sorts of theories. But guess what? That’s right. None of them were bad.

Give me a break.

As you know, since Tyler’s not tall enough to peep through a second-story window, sneaking out of my bedroom wasn’t hard to do. And that night, I just had to do it. But don’t jump to conclusions. I’ve snuck out of my house, before that night, only twice.

Okay, three times. Maybe four. Tops.

For those of you who don’t know which party I’m talking about, there’s a red star on your map. A big, fat, red star completely filled in. C-6. Five-twelve Cottonwood.

Is that where we’re going?

Aaaah…so now you know. Now some of you know exactly where you fit in. But you’ll have to wait until your name pops up to hear what I’m going to tell. To hear how much I tell.

That night, I decided that walking to the party would be nice. Relaxing. We had a lot of rain that week, and I remember the clouds were still hanging low and thick. The air was warm for that time of night, too. My absolute favorite type of weather.

Mine, too.

Pure magic.

It’s funny. Walking by the houses on my way to the party, it felt like life held so many possibilities. Limitless possibilities. And for the first time in a long time, I felt hope.

So did I. I forced myself out of the house and to that party. I was ready for something new to happen. Something exciting.

Hope? Well, I guess I misread things a bit.

And now? Knowing what happened between Hannah and me, would I still have gone? Even if nothing changed?

It was simply the calm before the storm.

I would. Yes. Even if the outcome stayed the same.

I wore a black skirt with a matching hooded pullover. And on my way there, I took a three-block detour to my old house—the one I lived in when we first moved to town. The first red star from the first side of the first tape. The porch light was on and, in the garage, a car’s engine was running.

But the garage door was shut.

Am I the only one who knows this? Does anyone else know that’s where he lived? The man from the accident. The man who’s car killed a student from our school.

I stopped walking and, for what seemed like several minutes, just watched from the sidewalk. Mesmerized. Another family in my house. I had no idea who they were or what they were like—what their lives were like.

The garage door began to lift and, in the glow of the red taillights, the silhouette of a man pushed the heavy door all the way up. He got in the car, backed it down the driveway, and drove off.

Why he didn’t stop, why he didn’t ask why I was standing there staring at his house, I don’t know. Maybe he thought I was waiting for him to back out of the driveway before continuing on my merry way.

But whatever the reason, it felt surreal. Two people—me and him—one house. Yet he drove away with no idea of his link to me, the girl on the sidewalk. And for some reason, at that moment, the air felt heavy. Filled with loneliness. And that loneliness stayed with me through the rest of the night.

Even the best moments of the night were affected by that one incident—by that nonincident—in front of my old house. His lack of interest in me was a reminder. Even though I had a history in that house, it didn’t matter. You can’t go back to how things were. How you thought they were.

All you really have…is now.

Those of us on the tapes, we can’t go back, either. We can never not find a package on our doorstep. Or in our mailbox. From that moment on, we’re different.

Which explains my overreaction, Clay. And that’s why you’ll get these tapes. To explain. To say I’m sorry.

Does she remember? Does she remember that I apologized to her that night? Is that why she’s apologizing to me?