5: Nineteen Minutes 387 - 491

"Dear Peter,
You don't know me by name, but I was number 9. That's how I left the school, with a big magic marker label on my forehead. You tried to kill me.
I am not at your trial, so don't try to find me in the crowd. I couldn't stand being in that town anymore, so my parents moved a month ago. I start school in a week here in Minnesota, and already people have heard about me. They only know me as a victim from Sterling High. I don't have interests, I don't have a personality, I don't even have a history, except the one you gave me.
I had a 4.0 average, but I don't care very much about grades anymore. What's the point. I used to have all these dreams, but now I don't know if I'll go to college, since I still can't sleep through the night. I can't deal with people who sneak up behind me either, or doors that slam really loud, or fireworks. I've been in therapy long enough to tell you one thing: I'm never going to set foot in Sterling again.
You shot me in the back. The doctors said I was lucky-that if I'd sneezed or turned around to look at you I would be in a wheelchair now. Instead, I just have to deal with the people who stare when I forget and put on a tank top - anyone can see the scars from the bullet, and the chest tubes and the stitches. I don't care -- they used to stare at the zits on my face; now they just have another place to focus their attention.
I've thought about you a lot. I think you should go to jail. It's fair, and this wasn't, and there's a kind of balance in that.
I was in your French class, did you know that? I sat in the row by the window, second from the back. You always seemed sort of mysterious, and I liked your smile.
I would have liked to be your friend.
Sincerely,
Angela Phlug
Peter folded the letter and slipped it inside his pillowcase. Ten minutes later, he took it out again. He read it all night long, over and over, until the sun rose; until he did not need to see the words to recite it by heart." (415-416, Piccoult.)

The book, Nineteen Minutes is a very powerful book. It tugs at heartstrings, blurs the line of right and wrong. It deals with a school shooting by Peter, at Sterling High School. He guns down 10 of his classmates; proving how within simply 19 minutes, lives can be forever altered.
Out of all the wonderful writing in the book, this excerpt stood out the most to me. Piccoult makes sure to end each small section with a lingering thought. It'll be a cliffhanger, a musing. Whatever it is, it leaves a lasting affect on the reader. This whole entire section, about the letter sent to Peter in prison stood out the most to me.
While reading Phlug's letter, I felt a bit of subtle guilt that Piccoult had underlined the novel with. Here, Piccoult reaches an area most people seem to forget in those involved in school shootings: The injured. "I don't have interests, I don't have a personality, I don't even have a history, except the one you gave me." (415) This entire quote is very, very moving and intense. It illustrates quite bluntly how a school shooter can shatter the lives of the injured to a point of disrepair. Phlug's entire life was changed, her entire future was off skew, as a result of something that she couldn't have possibly predicted.
Piccoult then infuses the letter of the victim with the idea of the shooter, Peter, also being the victim. "He read it all night long, over and over, until the sun rose; until he did not need to see the words to recite it by heart." (416) She shows Peter as so desperately longing for friends, so hideously lonely in prison. It is unclear to me about how exactly the small paragraph about Peter should be interpreted. First, I viewed it as Peter being lonely for friends his entire life. When Phlug tells him that she would be friends with him, Peter treasures this gesture so much that he reads the letter over and over again. However, at a second glance, Phlug's letter to Peter could have simply been a bomb, ready to explode guilt inside of Peter. Peter could have read the letter over and over again, until memorization, until the full force of the guilt and the impact of how he has changed an innocent person's life destroys him. Peter could have memorized the letter as an act of inflicting self harm.