13 Reasons Why

Chapter 12

(Katie) I watch the digital clock in my room, the colon between 11 and 59 flash 60 times. Then, through the dark abyss the demonic green numbers read 12:00. It's my birthday. June 25th. This exact moment, midnight on this day, was one of been dreading all week. For the past three years, Annie would FaceTime me at exactly this moment and shower me with birthday wishes. We'd stay up until dawn giggling, and we had done so on her birthday. But now, when I glance at my phone screen, it's black. No incoming call from my best friend. No birthday texts. Just me, my reflection in the phone screen. And then, out of no where, it's buzzes and lights up. For half of a millisecond every fiber in my body tingles with a warm, strange feeling... some kind of giddy sensation came over me. That feeling was such a foreign concept. That was happiness. Happiness is a trick concept to understand, and, quite frankly, I understand it pretty well. And not because it's something I have, but something I wish I did. I've obsessed over the constant of happiness numerous times since Annie took her life, and not once have I been able to obtain it. Happiness isn't a destination, it's a journey. It's not a result. You can't work your way towards happiness, it's a surprise from the gods and a pure gift. You don't walk to happiness, happiness is the walk. Your life isn't meant to lead up to being happy, but being happy is the way of life. Not my way of life, at least not recently. I've learned that happiness is not a decision. It's like a coma, hardly self induced. I wonder if Annie understood this. I bet she did, and I bet she lacked the feeling of happiness. That's when people kill themselves, when happiness isn't in the journey. When they're not reaching the destination. From what these tapes have told me, Annie's journey was like walking on a bed of nails. Each of those nails causing her to bleed. Until she caused herself to bleed. She took two blades and split her wrists in the bathtub in the middle of the night. Annie bled to death in her own home. Not happiness. And I check my phone after that brief moment of happiness faded. It was Brennan. Not Annie. Never Annie.