I splashed some water on my face, attempting to wake myself up despite not having slept a minute all night. I was exhausted in every sense of the word. I stared at the dead eyes in the reflection, the dark bags prominent against my pale skin. I spend more time than is necessary in the shower, like I do every morning – and most nights, trying in vain to scrub away a lifetime of regrets and broken promises, only to find that I can never really get clean enough.

I dress in the suit and tie that is expected, and that I've worn every day for the past two years, but it never feels right, never sits comfortably. It feels awkward. Nothing ever feels right anyway, might as well just accept it and get on with the day. I run a hand through my hair, slightly longer than I usually wear it but I have absolutely zero motivation to go and get it cut. I style it with some gel – long gone are my 'helmet' hair days. I cringe inwardly at the term 'helmet,' and the memories, the painful reminders, that flood my mind.

I pop open the pill bottle that sits in the mirrored cabinet, tipping two into my hand before downing them with black coffee that is strong enough to keep me conscious until I crawl into bed again that night – and don't sleep a wink once again despite being so tired that I can feel it deep in my bones.

The pills are to cure the 'insomnia', the 'depression', the 'anxiety' that I've suffered from for the past 9 years. Two pills in the morning to keep me a functioning member of society – yeah, right. If only it was that easy. What they refer to as my 'mental illness', I refer to as 'too many unanswered questions' or 'too many loose ends', or – my personal favourite – 'so many regrets that I'm not sure I even want to exist on this planet anymore'. Instead, I get up and I take my damn pills and I keep on living a life that feels like a half-life. An existence that I don't want but that I don't have the guts to take away. Not like someone I used to know.

Hannah Baker.

The girl who broke my heart when she took it with her to her grave. A grave that I never saw, a grave that no one knew the location of. All I knew was that my heart was buried alongside her in the cold ground.

I guess I've never really got over the loss of Hannah. I've been single for most of the nine years that she's been gone. Wow, nine years. Sure, I've dated here and there, I've had one night stands, but they've always ended. Usually because the girl suspects there's 'someone else'. They're right – there is. But what they don't know is that the 'someone else' has been dead for almost a decade, probably unrecognisable in her grave by now. No longer the flawless girl I pined after for the last two years of her life, too gutless to make a move. A mistake that inevitably cost her life, and my one chance at a happily ever after.

I still remember the day I first heard the rumours. I was standing at my locker, actually glancing over at Hannah's locker, when I heard sobbing. Then hushed voices. Slowly but surely the words trickled in my direction 'Hannah Baker', 'ambulance', 'suicide'. A couple of days later you were apparently buried in your old town, but no one ever found out for sure. In fact, we never saw your parents again. Within a fortnight your house was packed up by movers, your parents shop was sold – any trace of you just vanished without a trace. That is, until the tapes made the rounds. Oh Hannah, I am so sorry. I'm so sorry that I was weak. I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you.

I've been taking the pills ever since exactly a fortnight after her death, I had a mental break in the gymnasium. Everyone says I was hallucinating but she was right there, right in front of me, bleeding out all over the floor. The only problem was that no one else saw her. They called me crazy, crazy with grief, and said that the pills would keep the hallucinations at bay.

The next time I saw Hannah, I knew to keep it to myself. And the time after that. I feel as though she's never really left me. I see her often, although it is growing less and less as times goes by. Sometimes her hair will be long, the way I like to remember her, and other times it's short, like it was at the end. Sometimes she's smiling, laughing. Sometimes she's screaming as she bleeds from her wrists onto whatever surface we're standing on, screaming for me to help her – it takes me days to recover from seeing her like that. Sometimes she speaks, but not very often, and when she does it's not her voice. I don't remember her voice very well anymore. For the first year after her death, I would call her cell phone repeatedly just to hear the recorded message click over in her voice, 'Hey, it's Hannah, leave a message.'

After a year her cell phone number was reassigned and the man, Barry, kindly asked me to stop calling him.

And I can't listen to the tapes anymore. I never want to hear them again. So I haven't heard her voice in eight years, and it's a very vague memory that I have of it. Like a photo that's been handled so many times that it's fading in certain places, the image distorting ever so slightly.

When I graduated from Liberty High, I cut contact with everyone except for Tony. I had absolutely no direction for my life, and no motivation to find it either, so I decided to follow someone else's dreams. I moved to New York and went to Law School. Okay, so maybe Hannah didn't want to be a lawyer. I actually don't know what she wanted to be when she grew up. I guess I figured I'd eventually find out – I never for one second thought she wouldn't grow up. All I know is that she'd wanted to move to New York, and my mom was pushing for another lawyer in the family. What's that old saying? Two birds, one stone.

There's a lot I never got to learn about Hannah. I don't know what her middle name was. I don't know what her favourite colour was, or her favourite song. I don't know so many things, because I should have had forever to find them out.

I shake my head, clearing away the cobwebs. Enough dwelling. Enough.

Another coffee, triple shot. Car keys.

Put on a smile. Always smile. People ask less questions when you look like you're enjoying life.

One foot in front of the other. Keep moving.