Part 3 resumes the format of introducing chapters with newspaper articles about the shooting. It opens with a news story about victim Max Hills, revealing that he and Nick had actually been friendly. Max’s mother claims a rift occurred due to a disagreement over Max letting Nick borrow his truck.

Back in present time, Valerie says, “Ginny Baker never came back to class—at least not the classes she had with me. And Tennille never looked me in the eye. And Stacey and I never sat together at lunch,” showing some people cannot move on from a tragedy at the same speed or in the same fashion as others (212).

Valerie continues in isolation, eating alone, existing by herself. Before, she considered herself an outcast, but with friends who were also outsiders. Now, after the shooting, she muses, “Being a true outcast, without even other outcast friends, is tough” (213).To cope, she uses her sketchbook, reviewing for the reader’s benefit different pictures of her classmates and school officials:

During the day I had drawn a line of P.E. students with faces dominated by enormous gaping holes for mouths, heading out to the track. A teacher—the Spanish teacher, Señor Ruiz—staring out over a staircase full of bustling students, his face blank, flat, an empty o.