by Jay Asher
And then someone called my name.
“What do you want, Tyler?”
He told me I was right about the party. “The party does suck.”
“No, Tyler. It doesn’t,” I said. Then I asked why he was following me.
His eyes dropped to his camera and he fiddled with the lens. He needed a ride home, he said.
At that, I really started laughing. Not specifically at what he said, but at the absurdity of the whole night. Did he really have no clue that I knew about his night prowling—about his nocturnal missions? Or did he sincerely hope I didn’t know? Because as long as I didn’t know, we could be friends, right?
“Fine,” I said. “But we’re not stopping anywhere.”
A few times on the ride home he tried talking to me. But each time I cut him off. I did not want to act like everything was okay, because it wasn’t.
And after I dropped him off, I took the longest possible route home.
I have a feeling I’ll be doing the same.
I explored alleys and hidden roads I never knew existed. I discovered neighborhoods entirely new to me. And finally…I discovered I was sick of this town and everything in it.
I’m starting to get there, too, Hannah.
Next side.
CASSETTE 3: SIDE B
How many of you remember the Oh My Dollar Valentines?
How many of us would rather forget?
Those were fun, weren’t they? You fill out a survey, a computer analyzes your answers, then it cross-references with the other surveys. For just a buck, you get the name and number of your one true soul mate. For five bucks, you get your top five. And hey! All proceeds go to a worthy cause.
Cheer Camp.
Cheer Camp.
Each morning over the loudspeaker came the cheery announcements. “Don’t forget, there’s only four more days to turn in your surveys. Only four more lonely days until your true love is revealed.”
And every morning, a new peppy cheerleader continued the countdown. “Only three more days…. Only two more days…. Just one more day…. Today’s the day!”
For every foot of sidewalk I put between Tyler’s house, Marcus, and me, the muscles in my shoulders relax a little more.
Then the whole squad of cheerleaders sang, “Oh my dollar, Oh my dollar, Oh my dol-lar Valentine!”
This, of course, was followed by whoops and hollers and cheers. I always imagined them doing kicks and splits and tossing their pom-poms around the attendance office.
I walked by the attendance office once, on an errand for a teacher, and that’s exactly what they were doing.
And yes, I did fill out my survey. I’ve been a sucker for surveys my whole life. If you ever caught me reading one of those teen magazines, I swear, it wasn’t for the makeup tips. It was for the surveys.
Because you never wore makeup, Hannah. You didn’t need it.
Fine, some of the hair and makeup tips were helpful.
You wore makeup?
But I only picked the magazines up for the surveys. The tips were a bonus.
Do you remember those career surveys we had to fill out freshman year, the ones that were supposed to help us choose electives? According to my survey, I’d make a wonderful lumberjack. And if that career didn’t work out, I could use my fallback career as an astronaut.
An astronaut or a lumberjack? Seriously? Thanks for the help.
I don’t remember my fallback career, but I got the lumberjack, too. I tried figuring out why the test saw that as my best career path. True, I marked down that I liked the outdoors, but who doesn’t? It doesn’t mean I like cutting down trees.
The Valentine survey was a two-parter. First, you described yourself. Hair color. Eye color. Height. Body type. Favorite type of music and movie. Then you put a check beside your top three things to do on weekends. Which is funny, because whoever designed the list forgot to mention drinking and sex—which would’ve been the most accurate response for most of our student body.
In all, there were about twenty questions. And I know, based on who appeared on my list, that not everyone answered honestly.
In the middle of the sidewalk, beneath a streetlamp, is a dark green metal bench. At one time, maybe this was a bus stop. But now, it’s just a bench to relax on. For old people, or anyone, too tired to walk.
For me.
For part two of the survey, it was your turn to describe what you were looking for in a soul mate. Their height. Their body type. If they’re athletic or not. Shy or outgoing.
I sit on the cold metal and lean forward, dropping my head into my hands. Only a handful of blocks from home, and I don’t know where to go.
As I filled mine out, I found myself describing a certain someone at our school.
I should’ve answered my survey seriously.
You’d think that if my answers all described one person, that person would’ve at least appeared in my top five. But that person must have been immune to the cheerleaders and their cheers because he didn’t end up on my list anywhere.
And no, I’m not telling you his name…yet.
For fun, I filled mine out as Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye, that semester’s required reading and the first person to come to mind.
Holden. What a horrible first date that depressed loner would make.
The moment the surveys were distributed, in third-period history, I bubbled in my answers.
There sure were some weird names on my list. Exactly the sort of people I’d expect to fall for a Holden Caulfield.
It was your typical day in Coach Patrick’s history class. Decipher a bunch of notes scribbled on the board probably five minutes before class started, then copy them down in your notebook. If you finish before the end of class, read pages eight through one ninety-four in your textbook…and don’t fall asleep.
And no talking.
How was I to know every single one of those girls would call me? I assumed everyone at school saw the survey as a joke. Just a fund-raiser for Cheer Camp.
After class, I walked straight to the student body office. At the end of the counter, closest to the door, was the drop-off box—a large shoebox with a slit cut in the top and decorated with cutout pink and red hearts. The red hearts had OH MY DOLLAR VALENTINE! written on them. The pink ones had green dollar signs.
I folded my survey in half, slipped it into the box, then turned around to leave. But Ms. Benson, smiley as usual, was standing right there.
“Hannah Baker?” she said. “I didn’t know you and Courtney Crimsen were friends.”
The look on my face must have expressed exactly what I was thinking, because right away, she backpedaled. “At least, that’s what I figured. That’s what it looked like. I mean, you are friends, aren’t you?”
That lady is beyond nosy.
My first thought was of Tyler standing outside my window…and I was furious! Was he actually showing off those Peeping Tom photos? To Ms. Benson?
No. Ms. Benson told me she had delivered some checks to the yearbook room that morning. Taped to the walls were sample shots that might appear in the yearbook. One particular photo was of Courtney and me.
You guessed it. The one from the party, with my arm around her waist, looking like I was having the time of my life.
Quite an actress, Hannah.
I told her, “No, we’re just acquaintances.”
“Well, it’s a really fun picture,” Ms. Benson said. And this, these next words, I remember exactly: “The wonderful thing about a yearbook photo is that everyone shares the moment with you…forever.”
It sounded like something she’d said a million times before. And before, I probably would have agreed. But not with that photo. Anyone looking at that photo would definitely not be sharing our moment. They could not come close to imagining my thoughts in that picture. Or Courtney’s. Or Tyler’s.
Everything about it was false.
Right then, in that office, with the realization that no one knew the truth a
bout my life, my thoughts about the world were shaken.
Like driving along a bumpy road and losing control of the steering wheel, tossing you—just a tad—off the road. The wheels kick up some dirt, but you’re able to pull it back. Yet no matter how tightly you grip the wheel, no matter how hard you try to drive straight, something keeps jerking you to the side. You have so little control over anything anymore. And at some point, the struggle becomes too much—too tiring—and you consider letting go. Allowing tragedy…or whatever…to happen.
Pressing my fingertips hard against my hairline, my thumbs against my temples, I squeeze.
In that picture, I’m sure Courtney was wearing a beautiful smile. Fake, but beautiful.
She wasn’t. But you couldn’t know that.
See, Courtney thought she could jerk me around wherever she wanted. But I didn’t let that happen. I jerked myself back on the road just long enough to push her off…if only for a moment.
But now? The survey. For Valentine’s Day. Was this just another chance to get thrown off the road? Was this survey, for the guys who found my name on their list, going to be the excuse they needed to ask me out?
And would they be extra excited about doing that because of the rumors they’d heard?
I looked at the slit in the top of the shoebox, too thin to squeeze my fingers through. But I could lift off the top and take out my survey. It’d be so easy. Ms. Benson would ask why and I could pretend I was embarrassed about filling out a love survey. She’d understand.
Or…I could wait and see.
If I had been smart, if I had been honest with my survey, I would have described Hannah. And maybe we would have talked. Seriously talked. Not just joking around like last summer at the movie theater.
But I didn’t do that. I wasn’t thinking that way.
Would most students, as I expected, get their list and just have a good laugh, thinking nothing of it? Or would they use it?
If Hannah’s name and number had shown up on my list, would I have called her?
I slouch down into the cold bench, leaning my head back. Far back, like the tip of my spine might burst if I keep going.
Very little, I told myself, could go wrong. The survey was a joke. No one’s going to use it. Calm down, Hannah. You are not setting yourself up.
But if I was right—if I called it correctly—if I willingly gave someone an excuse to test those rumors about me…well…I don’t know. Maybe I’d shrug it off. Maybe I’d get pissed.
Or maybe I would let go and give up.
This time, for the first time, I saw the possibilities in giving up. I even found hope in it.
Ever since Kat’s going-away party, I couldn’t stop thinking about Hannah. How she looked. How she acted. How it never matched up with what I heard. But I was too afraid to find out for sure. Too afraid she might laugh if I asked her out.
Just too afraid.
So what were my options? I could leave the office a pessimist and take my survey with me. Or I could leave it as an optimist and hope for the best. In the end, I walked out of that office with my survey still in the box, unsure of what I was. An optimist? A pessimist?
Neither. A fool.
I close my eyes, concentrating on the cool air floating around me.
When I went into the movie theater last summer for a job application, I pretended to be surprised that Hannah worked there. But she was the whole reason I applied.
“Today’s the day!” the cheerleader said…cheerfully, of course. “Pick up your Oh My Dollar Valentines at the student body office today.”
On my first day at work, they placed me in the concession stand with Hannah. She showed me how to pump “butter” topping into the popcorn.
She said that if someone I had a crush on came in, I shouldn’t put butter in the bottom half of the tub. That way, halfway through the movie, they’d come back out asking for more. And then there wouldn’t be so many people around and we could talk.
But I never did that. Because it was Hannah I was interested in. And the thought that she did that for other guys made me jealous.
I hadn’t decided yet if I wanted to find out who the survey matched me up with. With my luck, it’d be a fellow lumberjack. But when I walked by the office and found no one standing in line, I thought…what the hell.
I went up to the counter and started saying my name, but the cheerleader at the computer cut me off.
“Thanks for supporting the cheerleaders, Hannah.” She tilted her head to one side and smiled. “That sounded dumb, right? But I’m supposed to say it to everyone.”
It was probably the same cheerleader who gave me my survey results.
She typed my name into the computer, hit Enter, then asked how many names I wanted. One, or five? I placed a five-dollar bill on the counter. She hit the number Five key and a printer on my side of the counter spit out my list.
She told me they put the printer on our side so the cheerleaders wouldn’t be tempted to peek at our names. So people wouldn’t feel embarrassed by who they got.
I told her that was a good idea and started looking over my list.
“So,” the cheerleader said, “who’d you get?”
Definitely the cheerleader who helped me.
She was joking, of course.
No she wasn’t.
Half-joking. I placed my list on the counter for her to see.
“Not bad,” she said. “Ooh, I like this one.”
I agreed that it wasn’t a bad list. But not wonderful, either.
She lifted her shoulders and called my list a shrugger. Then she let me in on a little secret. It wasn’t the most scientific of surveys.
Except for people seeking a depressed loner like Holden Caulfield. For that, the survey deserved a Nobel Prize.
We both agreed that two names on the list matched me fairly well. Another name, one that I was pleased with, brought an entirely different reaction out of her.
“No,” she said. Her expression, her posture, lost all its cheeriness. “Trust me…no.”
Is he on one of your tapes, Hannah? Is that who this tape is about? Because I don’t think this tape is about the cheerleader.
“But he’s cute,” I said.
“On the outside,” she told me.
She pulled out a stack of fives from the register, put mine on top, then went through the stack turning each bill the same way.
I didn’t push the subject, but I should have. And in a couple more tapes you’ll know why.
Which reminds me, I haven’t told you who our main man on this tape is. Fortunately, this is the perfect time to introduce him because that’s exactly when he showed up.
Again, not me.
Something started buzzing. A phone? I looked at the cheerleader, but she shook her head. So I swung my backpack onto the counter, fished out my phone, and answered it.
“Hannah Baker,” the caller said. “Good to see you.”
I looked at the cheerleader and shrugged. “Who is this?” I asked.
“Guess how I got your number,” he said.
I told him that I hated guessing games, so he told me. “I paid for it.”
“You paid for my phone number?”
The cheerleader scooped her hand over her mouth and pointed at the printout—the Oh My Dollar Valentines!
No way, I thought. Someone was actually calling because my name was on their list? Kind of exciting, yes. But kind of weird at the same time.
The cheerleader touched the names we both thought were good matches, but I shook my head no. I knew those voices well enough to know it wasn’t either of them. It also wasn’t the one she warned me about.
I read the other two names on my list out loud.
“It looks like you made my list,” the caller said, “but I didn’t make yours.”
Actually, you did make her list. A different list. One I’m sure you don’t like being on.
I asked him where on his list my name popped up.
Again, he told me
to guess, then quickly added that he was joking. “Ready for this?” he asked. “You’re my number one, Hannah.”
I mouthed his answer—number one!—and the cheerleader hopped up and down.
“This is so cool,” she whispered.
The caller then asked what I was doing for Valentine’s Day.
“Depends,” I told him. “Who are you?”
But he didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Because at that moment, I saw him…standing right outside the office window. Marcus Cooley.
Hello, Marcus.
I grit my teeth. Marcus. I should’ve hit him with the rock when I had the chance.
Marcus, as you know, is one of the biggest goof-offs at school. Not a slacker goof-off, but a good goof-off.
Guess again.
He’s actually funny. An endless number of painfully dull classes have been rescued by a perfectly timed Cooley pun. So naturally, I didn’t take his words at face value.
Even though he only stood a few feet away, separated by a window, I kept talking to him through the phone. “You’re lying,” I said. “I am not on your list.”
His normally goofy smirk, at that moment, looked kind of sexy. “What—you don’t think I’m ever serious?” he asked. Then he pressed his list against the window.
Even though I stood too far away to actually read it, I assumed he’d only hold it up to prove that my name did in fact hold his top spot. Still, I thought he must’ve been kidding about getting together for Valentine’s Day. So I thought I’d make him squirm a bit.
“Fine,” I said. “When?”
The cheerleader covered her face with both hands, but through her fingers I watched her skin blush.
I don’t know, without her as an audience egging me on, I doubt I would have agreed to go out with him that fast. But I was playing it up. Giving her something to brag about at cheer practice.
Now it was Marcus’s turn to blush. “Oh…um…Okay…well…How about Rosie’s? You know, for ice cream.”
E-5. I saw that star on the map while riding the bus. I knew roughly where it was, just not which store specifically. But I should’ve guessed. The best ice cream and the greasiest burgers and fries around. Rosie’s Diner.