Chapter 3 "Beginning To Change?"
Meanwhile, Veronica was in the bathroom of Freedom High School crying. She looked in the mirror and saw her face, red, and covered with tears. Her mascara, that had looked so amazing to her earlier, was running down her cheek. Her thoughts went to Troy and she hoped he would not see her like this.
In this moment of though, one of her classmates Maria Cruz walked in. Veronica saw her and screamed, "What are you doing here?"
Maria remained calm and said, "Mrs. Amador sent me to look for you. The class was worried about you…"
Veronica interrupted, "Why would they worry about me? I'm nothing to them!"
"Whoa, Veronica! We all care about you. Plus, we found the puzzle piece. Jimmy Michel was sitting on it. We left the piece out for you to place it into the puzzle. Come on, come back to the classroom."
Veronica signed and said, "Fine, I'll come back."
Veronica and Maria had been quiet during their walk back to Mrs. Amador's classroom until Maria spoke up. "Hey Veronica, do you want to sit with Faith, Brianna, Christina, Desiree, Maddi, Ezperanza, and I at lunch today? We have a chair open at our table everyday." Maria said.
"I'm already going to sit with Troy's friends." Veronica replied.
"Oh okay, there's always room for you at our table. Just come and sit down if you ever feel like doing so." Maria said as she opened the door to Mrs. Amador's classroom.
Veronica sat down at the table with the puzzle once again. As she picked up the final puzzle piece, she thought about her life. She realized that she felt very lonely. Her empty relationships had her feeling as if she were stuck on a deserted island. The only people she felt even somewhat close to were Troy and his closest friends. As she placed the piece into the puzzle, she knew she had to search for her missing piece, for what was missing from her life.
Veronica saw the completed puzzle and she realized how much it reminded her of Maria. Maria had always seemed like a star shining in the night sky to her. Her brightness never seemed to dim. If it ever did, it was back so quickly that Veronica had not noticed it was gone.
Veronica though, "What is it that she has that I don't have? How can she be so complete and so peaceful?"
She thought about Maria's group of friends also. "Why are they always so happy and joyful too?" she almost said out loud.
As the bell rang, Veronica started having second thoughts about not sitting with Maria and her friends. At the time though, she had no intentions of sitting with them. She had to sit with Troy if he was even at school. She had not seen him this morning so she thought that he might not be at school.
As she walked out of the classroom Veronica thought, "What to do? What to do?"