When Hannah recorded her tapes, where was she? In her bedroom? Did
her parents ever ask what she was doing? Did she say it was a school project?
Or did she record in the garage so no one could hear . . . so no one could
help?
***
Mom wasn't looking at me or the tape player or the six cassettes I was
gathering into a pile. She was looking around the workbench for something
else, reaching over me to push things around. And for the first time, I could
picture her in high school. I could picture her my age. Hannah Baker's age.
Why? I've seen her high school yearbooks many times. But the pictures in
those yearbooks never grew up to be my mom. That girl and my mom had
never been the same.
But they were. And for the very first time, I saw that.
Hannah Baker and my mom could have been friends. From the stories my
mom told, she and Hannah could have been best friends.
***
I stare, hypnotized, at the spindles. By watching them turn, I watch Hannah
speak. But they turn so slow compared to the sound of her voice.
I'd like them to slow even more. To push back the inevitable. To push back
what Hannah does when the tapes are over.
But the inevitable, it's already happened.