Peter has a new friend

“Every day in Sterling, there was a different funeral”. That’s very sad to think about.
Matt Royston had his memorial service and almost all of Sterling seemed to be there. Josie and her mother were sitting in the back when all of a sudden, something took over Josie and she walked up to Matt's coffin and started crying saying "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

Over the next few days, Patrick makes a visit to the Cormier house to interview Josie and see what she remembers from the shooting. Josie was in the locker room when Peter shot Matt and that's where Patrick found the three. He thought she might have more insight on what happened in the locker room that day but the problem is that she says she doesn't remember anything, not even waking up that morning and that it's like "a blank spot her head skips over". I have a feeling she actually does remember what happened and that she is either afraid to tell the truth or thinking about it is like reliving the awful memories.

In the book, Picoult goes back to Peter's sixth grade days and writes about the middle school years. She wrote that Peter was forced to play soccer by his mom and in the soccer locker room Matt Royston and Drew Girard teased Peter about his physique. Then, Peter met another boy on the soccer team named Derek who was also being benched every game. The two became the benchwarmers and were from then on friends. I was happy to read this because I think that Derek and Josie were Peter's only friends.

*I forgot to mention that the Houghton’s had another son named Joey, but he was hit by a drunk driver and died in a car accident. Lacy and Lewis were devastated, but from what I've read Peter was a little sad, but not that upset. The reason why Peter didn't seem to care is because Joey was a "golden boy" as Peter called him. He was a straight-A student and an all-star athlete. I got the feeling that Lacy and Lewis wanted Peter to be just like Joey and so they forced Peter into doing sports like soccer that he didn't enjoy. Peter's parents thought that he liked Joey a lot, but that's not true. Also, Joey would pick on Peter as well and say some real mean things. Peter's parents loved Joey and Peter thought they wished he would of died in that accident instead of Joey. It turns out that Lewis had actually said that to Lacy after the shooting. He said that none of this would have happened if Peter had died in the car accident.