Sometimes we have thoughts that even we don’t understand. Thoughts that aren’t even true-that aren’t really how we feel-but they’re running through our heads anyway because they’re interesting to think about.
I adjust the napkin holder in front of me till Tony’s booth is reflected in the polished silver. He leans back and wipes his hands on a napkin.
If you could hear other people’s thoughts, you’d overhear things that are true as well as things that are completely random. And you wouldn’t know one from the other. It’d drive you insane. What’s true? What’s not? A million ideas, but what do they mean?
I have no idea what Tony’s thinking. And he has no idea about me. He has no idea that the voice in my head, the voice coming through his Walkman, belongs to Hannah Baker.
That’s what I love about poetry. The more abstract, the better. The stuff where you’re not sure what the poet’s talking about. You may have an idea, but you can’t be sure. Not a hundred percent. Each word, specifically chosen, could have a million different meanings. Is it a stand-in-a symbol-for another idea? Does it fit into a larger, more hidden, metaphor?
This is the eighth person, Hannah. If it’s about poetry, then it’s not about me. And there are only five names to go.
I hated poetry until someone showed me how to appreciate it. He told me to see poetry as a puzzle. It’s up to the reader to decipher the code, or the words, based on everything they know about life and emotions.
Did the poet use red to symbolize blood? Anger? Lust? Or is the wheelbarrow simply red because red sounded better than black?
I remember that one. From English. There was a big discussion on the meaning of red. I have no idea what we decided in the end.
The same person who taught me to appreciate poetry also taught me the value in writing it. And honestly, there is no better way to explore your emotions than with poetry.
Or audiotapes.
If you’re angry, you don’t have to write a poem dealing with the cause of your anger. But it needs to be an angry poem. So go ahead…write one. I know you’re at least a little bit angry with me.
And when you’re done with your poem, decipher it as if you’d just found it printed in a textbook and knew absolutely nothing about its author. The results can be amazing…and scary. But it’s always cheaper than a therapist.
I did that for a while. Poetry, not a therapist.
Maybe a therapist would have helped, Hannah.
I bought a spiral notebook to keep all of my poems in one place. A couple days a week, after school, I’d go to Monet’s and write a poem or two.
My first few attempts were a bit sad. Not much depth or subtlety. Pretty straightforward. But still, some came out fairly well. At least, I think they did.
Then, without even trying, I memorized the very first poem in that notebook. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to shake it from my head even today. So here it is, for your appreciation…or amusement.
If my love were an ocean, there would be no more land.
If my love were a desert, you would see only sand.
If my love were a star-late at night, only light.
And if my love could grow wings,
I’d be soaring in flight.
Go ahead. Laugh. But you know you’d buy it if you saw it on a greeting card.
There’s a sudden ache deep inside my chest.
Just knowing I’d be going to Monet’s to write poetry made the days more bearable. Something funny, shocking, or hurtful might happen and I’d think, This is going to make for one fascinating poem.
Over my shoulder, I see Tony walking out the front door. Which seems weird.
Why didn’t he stop to say good-bye?
To me, I suppose, these tapes are a form of poetic therapy.
Through the front window, I watch Tony get in his car.
As I tell you these stories, I’m discovering certain things. Things about myself, yes, but also about you. All of you.
He flips on the headlights.
And the closer we get to the end, the more connections I’m discovering. Deep connections. Some that I’ve told you about, linking one story to the next. While others, I haven’t told you about at all.
The Mustang shudders as Tony revs the engine. Then slowly, his car backs up.
Maybe you’ve even discovered some connections that I haven’t. Maybe you’re one step ahead of the poet.
No, Hannah. I’m barely keeping up.
And when I say my final words…well, probably not my final words, but the last words on these tapes…it’s going to be one tight, well-connected, emotional ball of words.
In other words, a poem.
Watching Tony’s car through the window is like watching a movie, the Mustang backing slowly offscreen. But the headlights don’t gradually fade away, which they should if he kept backing up or turned away. Instead, they just stop.
As if turned off.
Looking back, I stopped writing in my notebook when I stopped wanting to know myself anymore.
Is he out there, sitting in his car, waiting? Why?
If you hear a song that makes you cry and you don’t want to cry anymore, you don’t listen to that song anymore.
But you can’t get away from yourself. You can’t decide not to see yourself anymore. You can’t decide to turn off the noise in your head.
With Tony’s headlights turned off, the windows of the diner are just a stretch of black glass. Every so often, at the far end of the parking lot, a car drives down the road and a sliver of light glides from one end of the glass to the other.
But the only steady source of illumination, though distant, appears in the upper right-hand corner. A blurry pink-and-blue light. The tip of the Crestmont’s neon sign peeking over the rooftops of every business around it.
God. What I wouldn’t give to relive that summer.
When we were alone, it was so easy to talk to Hannah. It was so easy to laugh with her. But whenever people came around, I got shy. I backed off. I didn’t know how to act anymore.
In that tiny fishbowl box office, my only connection to my coworkers in the lobby was a red phone. No buttons to punch, just a receiver. But whenever I picked it up and Hannah answered on the other end, I got nervous. As if I wasn’t calling from thirty feet away, but calling her at home.
“I need change,” I would say.
“Again?” she’d respond. But always with a smile in her voice. And every time, I felt my face grow warm with embarrassment. Because the truth was, I asked for change a lot more when she was working than when she wasn’t.
A couple of minutes later, there’d be a knock on the door and I’d straighten my shirt and let her in. With a tiny cash box in hand, she’d squeeze by me, agonizingly close, to change some of my bills. And sometimes, on slow nights, she would sit in my chair and tell me to close the door.
Whenever she said that, I struggled to keep my imagination in check. Because even though windows kept us exposed on three sides, like attractions in a carnival show, and even though she only said it because we weren’t supposed to leave the door open, anything could happen within that cramped space.
Or so I wished.
Those moments, however brief and rare, made me feel so special. Hannah Baker chose to spend her free moments with me. And because we were at work, no one would think anything of it. No one could read into it.
