Thirteen Reasons Why: Cassette 3: Side A Summary & Analysis

Hannah begins the next tape by addressing Courtney Crimsen. She says that Courtney has a pretty name and is a pretty girl; everyone thinks she’s sweet—but they’re wrong. Courtney seems nice, but Hannah thinks it’s all for show. She reveals that Courtney was the one who helped her catch Tyler taking photos of her by setting up a fake, posed situation—and that kind of posing was something Courtney did all the time at school. She tells Courtney that she’s including her on the tapes because Courtney needs to realize how her superficial behavior affects other people.

Hannah says she doesn’t hate Courtney or even dislike her. She thought she and Courtney were becoming friends for a while, before she realized that Courtney only wanted her to think she was a nice person. The day after they caught Tyler together, Hannah and Courtney shared a few sentences in class, but once class was over, Courtney left without saying goodbye. Hannah was surprised: she thought after what they’d experienced together, Courtney would start treating her like a closer friend, but instead Courtney kept her at arm’s length. 

As Clay listens, he pulls out the map and searches for the star on Tyler’s house. He feels like he’s becoming obsessed with Hannah’s story, but he tells himself he’s only doing what she asked—and that means that he’s respectful, not obsessed. Feeling overwhelmed, he takes off the headphones to think. A bus drives past Monet’s 15 minutes later, and Clay runs out the door to catch it. Once on board, he puts the headphones on again.

Courtney only started treating Hannah like a friend again on the day of a big party. (Hannah notes that she’ll discuss a later, more important party in these tapes, but this is the one that involves Courtney.) The day of this party, Courtney finds Hannah at school and suggests that they attend together. Hannah thinks she remembers Courtney tilting her head to the side and batting her eyes. She asks Courtney why they should go together. Hannah’s question surprises Courtney—Courtney’s used to people wanting to be seen with her. Courtney denies ignoring Hannah and says that the party would be a good chance to get to know each other better. Hannah agrees to go with her, to which she says, “Great! Can you drive?”

Looking back, Hannah theorizes that Courtney asked her to the party because she knew she’d hurt Hannah’s feelings by ignoring her, and in order to make sure Hannah thought she was a nice person, she needed to fix things. When Hannah arrives to pick Courtney up that night, she tries to convince herself that Courtney really wants to be friends, but deep down she knows Courtney just wants her to drive her to the party.

On the bus, Clay opens the map and looks for the location of the party—it’s close to Tyler’s house. He’s not following the map because Hannah told him to—he’s following it because he wants to understand her story as fully as he can. He sees that the bus route will stop near Tyler’s house.

Hannah’s story continues. Courtney and Hannah park a couple of blocks away from the party and they hear the music blaring already. At the gate to the party, two footballers start to tell them the admission price before realizing they’re talking to Courtney; when they do, they wave her and Hannah in. As soon as they get through the gate, Courtney tells Hannah they should split up—but that Hannah shouldn’t leave without her, because Hannah is her ride home.

Back on the bus, a girl’s voice shocks Clay by asking whether he missed his stop. He pauses the tape and sees Skye, his eighth-grade crush, smirking at him. Over the last few years, Clay has noticed Skye wearing dull, baggy clothing, as if she’s trying to disappear. She starts to make conversation with him, and he notices she’s saying more than he’s heard her say to anyone in a long time. He wonders why she changed so much since eighth grade—why she seems determined to be an outsider, as she’s demonstrating by staring at him now, trying to make him uncomfortable. He tries to decide between getting off at the next stop and staying to talk to her, but she says, “See you tomorrow,” and he feels relieved to be let out of the conversation.

Clay gets off the bus and starts walking to Tyler’s house. He isn’t sure how to tell which one it is, but as he draws closer, he sees a house with a broken window held together by duct tape. He wonders whether someone threw a rock at Tyler’s window. Out of nowhere, a voice shocks him by asking, “You want to throw something?” He spins around to see Marcus Cooley offering him a rock. Marcus tells Clay he’ll feel better if he throws the rock. Clay knows that Marcus must have listened to the tapes, because he knows that Clay and Tyler are both mentioned in them, too.

Marcus puts the rock in Clay’s hands and tells him he’d be the first to say no to throwing one at Tyler’s window. (Alex was the first to throw one; other people on the tapes must also think Tyler deserves to be attacked.) Clay is confused: everyone on the tapes is guilty of something, so why are they singling Tyler out? Clay says Marcus is a “dick.” Marcus explains that Tyler is a “freak” and that what Marcus did was “nothing” in comparison; he thinks he’s only on the tapes because Hannah “wanted an excuse to kill herself.” Clay drops the rock to stop himself from throwing it at Marcus. Then he walks away, putting the headphones back on.

On the tape, Hannah continues to tell the story of the party. She sees a fistfight for the first time. The image of two boys fighting each other to protect their macho reputations, coupled with the fact that Courtney used her to improve her own reputation, makes Hannah want to vomit to try to exert some kind of control over her situation. The bathroom is occupied, so she goes back outside and tries to leave, but Tyler is standing at the gate with his camera. When he sees her, he looks ashamed and tries to hide the camera. She starts to confront him, but then a boy interrupts her. He says that Courtney sent him—she told him Hannah was good company.

At first, Hannah doesn’t mind the attention—she thinks the boy is cute—but then he reveals that he actually just overheard Courtney saying that Hannah had “a few surprises” in her dresser drawers. (In the present, Clay is shocked: he knows Courtney completely made that up.) Hannah asks the boy what Courtney said was in the drawers, but the boy just smiles. She starts shaking and asks him why he believed Courtney. He tells her to calm down. Hannah decides to get Tyler to take a picture of her and Courtney. Tyler starts to sweat, and when Hannah asks Courtney to be in a picture with her, she says she doesn’t want to. Eventually, though, Tyler takes their picture—the one Clay ended up finding in the scribble book.

After the picture, Hannah tells Courtney she’s leaving and that Courtney should find another ride home. As she walks to her car, Tyler catches up to her to ask for a ride. Hannah starts laughing—does Tyler really not know she knows that he’s been taking pictures of her at home? Even so, she agrees to drive him home, though she refuses to talk to him the whole way there. After Hannah drops Tyler off, she drives home the longest way possible and eventually realizes she’s completely sick of this town. (As Clay, in the present, listens to Hannah’s tape, he realizes he feels the same way.)