13 Reasons Why

Chapter 31

(Katie) Mia and I are both in tears by the time Mia's tape clicks. Mia has her head in her hands, and I've never seen anybody in my whole life cry this heavily. "Mia?" I whisper. She doesn't reply, and her sons fill the room. "You didn't know you were hurting Annie, just calm down. It's okay." Mia snaps her head back, "Okay?! Katie, this is far from okay. Annie is... dead. That's not okay!" I sigh, "I know. I was just trying to help." "I loved her so much. But I guess I did ignore her sometimes... I'm stupid. I'm worthless, and I didn't deserve Annie." Mia says in a matter-of-fact tone, as if this was a deceleration. "Don't say that..." I plea, but Mia shakes her head. "I just want to go see her. I can do that, she went to go see Caleb, I'll go and visit Annie." That's exactly what I want, though. To leave everything and go visit my best friend. To stay there forever with her. "I'm scared." I whisper, "for my tape." Mia wipes her eyes, "Whatever. It's not as bad as mine." I'm guilty of peeking up a little at Mia's words. "Really?" She shrugs, "I don't know. Maybe not." My hope deflates and I reach my hand out before the tape player. Then I freeze. My arm won't move, it refuses to remove Mia's tape. "Come on, Kate. Just think, after we finish up all these stupid tapes, we can go see Annie again. Only two more." Mia whispers in my ear. She's right. Two more and I can die knowing what happened. I can know everything that went down. And then I can talk to Annie about it. "Don't you want to see Annie?" Mia repeats. I nod. But still, I'm unable to remove Mia's tape. "Katie, do it." Impatience decorates Mia's words now. She moves my arm out of the way and takes out her tape, throwing it on the hardwood ground. She grabs the box of tapes. 12. Mia takes number 12 and slides it into the tape recorder. "Ready?" She raises her eyebrows. I pull back my arm slowly, almost as if I were stalling. I've been dying to hear this, I've waited so, so long. But now that the time has come... in not ready. I don't know if I can do this. But Mia's keeps pushing me. "Katie, I'm going to play it." Her finger hover over the PLAY button. Then her finger collides with it.