Thirteen Reasons Why Chapter 13 Summary

Cassette 6: Side A

  • Tony starts to explain: he says that Hannah came to visit him one day.
  • He should have realized she was suicidal. After all, she was at Tony's to give him her blue bike, the one she always rode to school.
  • Clay remembers that "[g]iving away possessions" (13.19) was one of the suicide warning signs they learned about at school. The signs were all there.
  • Tony told Hannah he wouldn't take her bike unless he could give her something in return. At that point, Hannah started to cry, looking him in the eyes.
  • She wanted to know if he had a portable cassette tape recorder. Tony didn't ask her why; he just gave it to her.
  • Several days later, Tony's set of tapes arrived at his house.
  • He listened to them, but was confused – he'd seen Hannah at school that day.
  • When he got through the tapes, he realized that he wasn't on the list. He knew he had the set of tapes that was meant to be released to the public if the people on the list didn't follow Hannah's rules.
  • Right away, he called Hannah's parents and told them he was worried about her.
  • He couldn't bring himself to tell them that he thought she was planning on killing herself.
  • When he learned that Hannah was dead, Tony couldn't go to school for a few days. Then he decided to honor Hannah's wishes and make sure the people on the tapes did as she asked.
  • At this point, Clay calls home and tells his mom he might be staying at Tony's tonight. He even has Tony talk to her so she'll believe him and won't worry.
  • Tony says he needs to go home. He offers Clay a ride home, but Clay says he'll walk.
  • Then he starts this tape. We're still at the party.
  • After Hannah saw Justin, she decided to leave. Her head was spinning and she felt drunk and crazy.
  • She says this tape is for Jenny Kurtz, the cheerleader who offered to drive her home after the party.
  • At first things were really nice. Jenny gently helped Hannah to her car and started driving. It was comfortable in Jenny's car and raining lightly, so Hannah dozed off.
  • Suddenly, Jenny smacked into a stop sign, knocking it down.
  • Clay realizes that the accident is the same place where the old man hit a kid from their school – that same night.
  • As he listens to the tape, he walks away from the party house and sees that corner in the distance. There's a shiny new stop sign in place of the one Jenny knocked down.
  • Hannah tried to get Jenny to stop driving and call the police to report fallen stop sign, but Jenny refused. She made Hannah get out of the car and drove away.
  • Clay gets to the stop sign, remembering the accident that night, when the man hit the kid from school.
  • Hannah talks about that accident now: she feels responsible for it. By the time she got to the nearest gas station and called the police, the man had already hit the boy with his car. All because of a fallen stop sign.
  • If only she had gone back to the party and used the phone, or found a way to get Jenny's phone from her, maybe she could have saved that boy.
  • At this point, Clay crumbles up Hannah's map and throws it into a bush.
  • Hannah continues her story: after she heard about the accident, she walked around in the mist for hours, unable to go home.
  • That's how Clay feels right now, too. He gets it.
  • He turns the tape over, almost at the end of Hannah's terrible story.