Jay Asher

You need to figure out what you want, Josh. If that means you need to swim against the tide to get it, at least youre aiming for something that could make you very happy.

What if you weren't the person I hoped you were?That, more than anything, would have hurt the most.

I decided to find out how people at school might react if one of the students never came back.

Right then, in that office, with the realization that no one knew the truth about my life, my thoughts about the world were shaken. Like driving along a bumpy road and losing control of the steering wheel, tossing you__ust a tad__ff the road. The wheels kick up some dirt, but you__e 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__oo tiring__nd you consider letting go. Allowing tragedy . . . or whatever . . . to happen.

Suicide. It's something I've been thinking about. Not too seriously, but I have been thinking about it._ That's the note. Word for word. And I know it's word for word because I wrote it dozens of times before delivering it. I'd write it, throw it away, write it, crumple it up, throw it away.But why was I writing it to begin with? I asked myself that question every time I printed the words onto a new sheet of paper. Why was I writing this note? It was a lie. I hadn't been thinking about it. Not really. Not in detail. The thought would come into my head and I'd push it away.But I pushed it away a lot.

A lot of you cared, just not enough.

Everything...affects everything

I needed a break...from myself.

Sometimes we have thoughts that even we don__ understand. Thoughts that aren__ even true__hat aren__ really how we feel__ut they__e running through our heads anyway because they__e interesting to think about.If you could hear other people__ thoughts, you__ overhear things that are true as well as things that are completely random. And you wouldn__ know one from the other. It__ drive you insane. What__ true? What__ not? A million ideas, but what do they mean?

If there's one thing I've still got, it's my memory. Which is too bad. Maybe if I forgot things once in a while, we'd all be a little bit happier.

And it feels strange, almost sad, to walk through ther empty halls. Each step I take sounds so lonely.

After your visits, I twisted my blinds shut every night. I locked out the stars and I never saw lightning again. Each night, I simply turned out the lights and went to bed.

Then come to realize that you're making mountains out of molehills. Realize how petty you've become. Sure, it may feel like you can't get a grip on this town. It may seem that every time someone offers you a hand up, they just let go and you slip further down. But you must stop being so pessimistic, Hannah, and learn to trust those around you. So I do. One more time.

Josh will begin disappearing into a future where the only place he and I remain friends is on the Internet.

Here's a tip. If you touch a girl, even as joke, and she pushes you off, leave... her... alone. Don't touch her. Anywhere! Just stop. Your touch does nothing but sicken her.

But whatever the reason, it felt surreal

But I do know which is the least popular. The truth.

If you hear a song that makes you cry and you don__ want to cry anymore, you don__ listen to that song anymore. But you can__ get away from yourself. You can__ decide not to see yourself anymore. You can__ decide to turn off the noise in you head.