People at Liberty talked all the time.
Whenever something happened, you knew it would spread around the school in a matter of seconds like wildfire.
Jeff's death had been one of those events.
Ariel had barely gotten back home from the station that night when she received about a dozen messages offering their condolences.
All she remembered thinking was why people were saying that they were sorry for her loss.
At the time, in Ariel's head, none of that night's events had occurred.
She went to sleep convincing herself that she would wake up to a 'good morning, beautiful' text from Jeff.
She convinced herself that he would come and pick her up and they would go out and see that movie they had been planning on watching. Ariel went to sleep that night thinking everything would be okay the next morning.
So it was no surprise when she actually woke up to an article on her boyfriend's death and she found herself not able to move an inch.
Dr Ellman would later tell her she must have still been in shock and denial. It happened sometimes apparently.
That's how Ariel felt this morning when she woke up and still saw the text message she had received the day before.
'I know what really happened to Jeff Atkins.'
Ariel had been ready to convince herself that it hadn't been real. Especially after Justin told her to ignore it and said some 'sick f*ck' must have sent the text message.
That had been yesterday. She had almost felt better about it. By the time Zach had dropped her off at home, she had almost convinced herself that it really had been nothing.
But that's until she received another message this morning from the same number. It had been a voice message.
Ariel hadn't known what to expect. But she definitely didn't know she would be hearing Hannah Baker's voice.
'Ariel, you di-'
At first, Ariel had been so scared, she immediately paused the voice message and dropped her phone. She looked around the room in panic trying to figure out if she was hallucinating again or if this was real.
She pinched herself, ran a hand down her face and even got up to rush to the bathroom she shared with Sherri and sprinkled cold water on her face.
When she got back to her room, she stared at her phone suspiciously.
She was going crazy, right?
She should call someone, Sherri? Dr Ellman? Her dad?
Ariel shook her head. She wasn't going crazy. Justin had seen the message as well yesterday.
And that voice had been real.
Ariel walked towards her bed and picked up the phone.
She sucked in a deep breath and pressed play.
'Ariel, you didn't receive a tape. But maybe you should have.'
That was it.
Ariel knew that was Hannah's voice she had just heard. But why had she received a voice message with Hannah's voice telling her about a tape.
Hannah was dead. And what tape was she talking about? They had never spoken about any tapes before. Who even listened to tapes anymore?
And why had the person told her that they knew what had really happened to Jeff?
