13 Reasons Why

Chapter 3

(Katie) My phone vibrates and I check it. It's a number I don't know, but the message scares me. "Go to your bedroom window". I freeze. Should I? What if it's a murderer... who am I kidding? I'm not that lucky. I force myself up and towards the window. Reaching down I grab a small shoebox left outside it. What's this? I close the window and bring the box to my bed. I carefully open the lid, and inside are a set of... tapes? And then my eye catches the inside of the lid. It's Annie's handwriting. I blink back tears and read "Listen to know what happened." Without a second thought I ran out of my room. I need a tape player. "Katie?" My dad says when I reach the kitchen, "I'm happy to see you." "Dad! Do you have something that I could listen to tapes on?" I ask. He looks surprised, "Um, yeah... in the garage on my work table." "Thanks," I turn on my heal to leave and her grabs my wrist. "Katie, are you okay?" I nod. "No, really. Katie, I'm worried about you." He raises his eyebrows in that concerned-dad way. "I'm okay." I say again, "Promise." "You're not going to do what Annie did?" He bites his lip. "No, dad." I tug free of him and head towards the garage. I was lying. I'm not okay. And... we'll I'm not sure yet if I'll be doing what Annie did. Right now it doesn't seem like that bad of an option. I open the garage door and spot the tape player on my dad's work table. I snatch it and run back to my bedroom. With shaky hands I put in the first tape and pull the set of headphones on. "Hey it's Annie, Annie Leblanc." Her voice fills my ears and, yet again, I have to quickly shut my eyes before the tears come. "Don't adjust your whatever device you're hearing this on. It's me, and yes, I am dead. I decided the only way to stop feeling bad things, was to stop feeling anything at all. I'm sorry to the millions of people I hurt...but this is for the best. There are many reasons I did what I did, but 13 main ones. Actually, all my reasons are people. And guess what? If you're listening to these tapes right now... you're one of them." I hit pause quickly. What?! There has to be some kind of mistake. I was Annie's best friend... and a reason why she killed herself?!