In the end....everything matters.

I want to look back. To look over my shoulder and see the Stop sign with huge reflective letters, pleading with Hannah. Stop!

It's up to the reader to decipher the code, or the words, based on everything they know about life and emotions.

People grow apart, and sometimes, there nothing anyone can do about it.

Stories about sensitive issues like sex, drugs or sexual assault, suicide and teen drinking, are often censored because people just don't want to talk about those things. It's not that these things don't happen, but when they're shared in a fictional setting, for some reason they make some people uncomfortable.

Personally, I never understood the power of having books written about your experience - whatever that experience may be - until I wrote one and started hearing from teens. I just got an email from a reader who said that "Thirteen Reasons Why" was the first time they had felt understood. A book shouldn't be anybody's first time feeling understood and that's where censorship bothers me. These books need to be out there.

Watching those guys pummel each other so no one would suspect them of being weak was too much for me. Their reputations were more important than their faces.