Part Two

Hannah Baker

Hello, girls and boys. It's been a while. Almost a month, to be specific. I've gone to record something a hundred times in the interim, but every time I thought about spilling my darkest secrets, unravelling the knots in my mind—well, I just couldn't bring myself to. It may seem silly, but I felt I needed to make some sort of sacrifice, offer some sort of penance for the damage I'd inflicted on others.

I've still been going to therapy, of course, and working on recovering, just in different ways. And I think I'm making progress.

But all of this leaves the obvious question—why have I picked it up again, now? And the answer is, I think I've made everyone—including myself—suffer enough. And strangely, because I want to remember this moment in time, because I'm scared… terrified… it's going to slip away.

Something good has happened. Something impossible and… perfect.

And it all started my first afternoon back at Liberty High, when I found out that my pain had reached so far beyond me.

To be perfectly honest, I don't even remember that night. It's all blurred out, after I returned home from school. Grief has a funny way of absorbing everything, devouring it. When you're inside, you can't imagine ever getting out. But once it's over, it's hard to even articulate what it was like.

The next few weeks I spent on autopilot, avoiding pretty much everyone. It wasn't difficult to do. They were all more than happy to talk about me without talking to me. And when it got especially difficult, I remembered some hokey line I'd read in a self-help meditation book my therapist had recommended, for when people were cruel, or selfish, or disappointing: I know they suffer.

It sounds stupid, meaningless. But when Courtney Crimson whispered something to Marcus about me being held back in the hallway, and they both laughed, instead of letting it get to me, I thought those words.

I thought, I know Courtney Crimson suffers. I thought about the way I used to catch her longing staring at lesbian couples. About the time she cried over a single B in the girl's bathroom and hadn't been able to stop for a half an hour.

And Marcus. I know Marcus suffers. I've seen his parents. They're elderly, and he's their only son. What a terrible burden, to be so young and already find yourself staring at your own mortality across the dinner table every night.

Maybe I'm wrong. There's always that possibility. But the thing is, you never really know. And if I'd done that sooner—if I'd done that with Alex…

I spent the next few weeks on autopilot. Avoiding everyone, but never forgetting Tony's words. Never forgetting how certain he was that Alex would want to hear from me. I talked to my therapist about it. Picked apart the pros and the cons of the situation. Eventually, perhaps inevitably, decided to call him.

You never know until you try, right?

And yes, I decided to call him. On the phone. Like this was the nineteen nineties. I couldn't stand the idea of waiting for him to respond to a text. I couldn't stand the idea of anything getting lost in translation.

He picked up. That surprised me. I'd expected a voicemail.

"Hello?" he said, and the sound of his voice—exactly as it had been the last time I'd overheard it in the cafeteria—lifted a weight from my chest I hadn't even realized was there.

"It's me," I said. "Hannah Baker."

"Is this some kind of joke?" he asked.

"If it is, the universe hasn't let me in on it yet."

I heard something shift, as if he was sitting up straighter. "It's… fuck. It's really good to hear your voice."

I bit my lip, uncomfortable with the slightest betrayal of emotion in his voice, for reasons I couldn't quite place. "How are you, Alex?"

"How are you, Hannah?" he asked. I suddenly remembered something I'd long forgotten about Alex—the way everything on his tongue sounded sarcastic, even when there was a good chance he was being sincere.

"Well, my record just went platinum and I bought an island in Scandinavia," I said. "So—"

"It's been a boring week."

"Terribly."

A moment of silence. There were so many questions within it, on both sides. Questions I didn't want to ask or have to answer.

"Should we… talk about it?" I said, eventually, because I felt I had to.

"I mean, that's what we'd do if we were two well adjusted people, but…"

"We're not."

"Not even close."

"So what's your Scandinavian island like?"

I can't really remember what we talked about, after that. All I know is that we kept talking. And when I hung up and looked at the call duration, we'd been on the phone for four hours.