Just Give Me A Reason || 13 Reasons Why

15

Jade Adams

Today is Zach's court day and I'm going with him.

"Big day." Jeff says from the corner of my room.

"I know. Are you coming?" he shakes his head.

"After your testimony, I don't need to set foot in another courtroom for the rest of my... death." There's a knock on my bedroom door.

"Enter." The door opens and it's Deran.

"I'm heading out and Zach is here."

"Alright thanks."

"Good luck today. Try not to threaten her again."

"No promises." I smirk. He leaves and Zach comes in. "Well don't you look dapper?"

"Thanks."

"You ready for this?" He shrugs.

"Not really but I don't have a choice."

"Before we go into this courtroom, I need to ask you something." I say.

"What's up?"

"These lawyers... they're fucking snakes and they will rip anyone to pieces. So I need to know right now before I walk into the fire: is there anything I should know about you and Hannah? Did anything happen between you two that you didn't tell me before?"

"No. There's nothing else." I take a deep breath.

"Fine. Alright. Let's do this."

<>

Everything is going fine. He's answering the questions the right way... and it's all going great. Until that bitch Sonya steps up.

"But isn't it true that you did reach out to her off campus?" My head tilts slightly. He didn't tell me that... "The summer after sophomore year? Did you have contact with her?"

"Yes."

"And isn't it true that you saw her more than once that summer?"

"Um yeah, last summer was slow. A lot of people were out of town." And he damn sure didn't tell me that. "I went to a lot of movies. I guess I saw movies I didn't want to see."

"And did her parents ever find out about your encounters?"

"No. To my knowledge her parents never found out."

"So you're saying that no one else knew about the time you spend with Hannah, correct?"

"Yes."

"It's true that you were ashamed of anyone finding out?"

"No, I just..." he looks at his mother and me. "That was the summer my dad died. I was out of my mind and I needed someone to talk to."

"But didn't you send each other hundreds of text messages?"

"I—Hundreds? Yeah we texted but I don't know how many times. We just... we had things in common. There were even things we didn't have to talk about. We just knew it about each other." I chuckle lightly to myself.

"It must have been so exhausting, keeping that secret."

"I guess I wanted to keep the friendship ours."

"And in all that time you spend with each other and texting, you and Hannah never became more than friends? You never bragged about her to your teammates?"

"No. I would never."

"Because there was nothing to brag about or because you're not the type to do that?"