Thirteen Reasons Why: Cassette 6: Side A Summary & Analysis

Tony tells Clay that Hannah came over to his house. He describes that moment as his chance to help Hannah. Clay says that he had his own chance, too, and Tony replies that everyone holds a little of the blame for Hannah’s death. He tells Clay about the night Hannah came to his house to give him her bike without explaining why. Tony didn’t realize at the time, but now he knows that giving away possessions is a major warning sign of suicide.

On the night Hannah comes to Tony’s house to give him the bike, he tells her he can’t take it without giving her something in return. She looks into his eyes and starts crying, then she asks him how he made the tapes he plays in his car stereo. He tells her about the tape recorder. When she asks if he has anything that can record voices, he goes and gets the tape recorder for her.

A few days after Tony gives Hannah the tape recorder, he arrives home to a package: a set of the tapes. He listens to them, fast-forwarding to find his own name, and when he doesn’t he realizes Hannah has given him the second set of tapes. He calls Hannah’s house. When no one picks up, he tries calling her parents’ store and tells them they need to find Hannah. The next day, Hannah doesn’t come to school, and Tony goes home early. After a few days, he goes back to school and notices that Justin looks terrible; after that, he notices the same thing about Alex. He decides to make sure everyone on the list hears and passes on the tapes.

Tony tells Clay it was easy to figure out he had the tapes, because Clay stole Tony’s Walkman. With everyone else, once he knew they should’ve received the tapes, he called them over to his car and held up a tape. He could tell by their reaction whether the previous person had passed the tapes on. Tony guesses Hannah gave him the second set of tapes because by giving her the tape recorder, he’d become part of her story. He tells Clay he has to go home; it’s getting late. As Clay says goodbye, he calls Clay’s mom and asks Tony to say hi. He tells his mom he’s still working on the project but will be home before school to pick up his stuff. Clay thanks Tony earnestly: it felt good to have someone next to him who understood what it felt like listening to the tapes.

Clay sits on the curb and presses play on the next tape. Hannah continues the story of the party, which she describes as the central knot of all the listeners’ tangled storylines. After she and Justin stop staring at each other, she wanders back into the party and sits down. She wants to leave but feels too weak to walk home. Someone’s hand touches her shoulder: it’s Jenny Kurtz. Hannah addresses Jenny on the tape, and Clay drops his head as he listens. When Jenny finds Hannah at the party, she asks Hannah if she needs a ride home. Hannah lets Jenny help her up and take her to her car. Jenny doesn’t ask her anything about the party, and Hannah feels grateful.

Jenny buckles Hannah into the passenger seat and drives away from the party. It’s lightly raining, and the rhythm of the windshield wiper blades comforts Hannah. Suddenly, the car jolts. The passenger wheel bumps up onto the curb, and a wooden sign snaps beneath the bumper: Jenny drove into a stop sign. Hannah and Jenny sit in the car silently. Then Jenny gets out and checks the dent at the front of her car. (On the tape, Hannah tells Jenny it could be worse—she could’ve hit a living thing. As Clay listens, he knows from Hannah’s comment that she found out about the fatal car crash that happened later that night in the same spot.)

Hannah resumes her story. Jenny says, “Well, that sucks,” then starts the car again. Hannah stops her from driving off. Jenny insists she’s not drunk, but Hannah tells her to park the car. Jenny tells Hannah not to worry—people don’t even obey stop signs anyway, so by knocking this one down, she just made their actions legal. Hannah insists that Jenny park the car. Jenny tells her to get out. After a long silence, Hannah does so, but she asks to use Jenny’s phone to tell someone about the sign. Jenny refuses, not wanting anyone to trace the call. She tells Hannah to shut the door. When Hannah leaves it open, Jenny reverses the car, grating the underside with the metal stop sign, and speeds away.

On the tape, Hannah addresses Jenny directly, telling her that she got away with more than knocking down a sign. Clay understands now that everyone could’ve tried to stop a part of this story, whether it’s the crash, the rumors, the rape, or Hannah’s death. Hannah tells the listeners that on the night of the party, during the few hours the stop sign was gone, two cars collided, and a senior from their high school died. That student’s death is another thing Hannah feels like she failed to stop. On the day of the senior’s funeral, Hannah remembers, school was quiet. That day in class, Hannah thought about her own funeral for the first time. She could imagine everyone’s lives going on without her, but she couldn’t imagine her funeral: she has no idea what people really think of her.

Clay has been walking to the intersection with the stop sign while listening to the tape. Now he reaches the sign—a new one, recently replaced, with reflective letters that weren’t there before. He touches the cold metal and thinks about how nobody really talked about Hannah after they found out she died. Her parents buried her body in a different town, and there was no funeral, so nobody really got to talk about how they felt. Clay feels like Hannah didn’t share enough of herself with people for them to get a good idea of her. Clay walks away from the stop sign, but he imagines its huge reflective letters telling Hannah, “Stop!” 

Hannah continues her story. After Jenny drives away from Hannah on the night of the party, Hannah walks to a gas station (marked on the map that Hannah included with her tapes). She calls the police from a payphone. When they pick up, she tells them the intersection where Jenny knocked over the stop sign. The person on the line tells her to calm down: the police are already on their way. Hannah thinks Jenny called the police after all, but she later learns that someone else actually called to report a car accident. She walks for hours so she can calm down before sneaking back home. As she walks, the rain turns into mist, and she feels happy imagining herself disappearing into it.