History I'd Rather Forget—Age Seventeen—June
- The next time that Vera sees Charlie after he hits her, it's at the gas station store. Her dad has let her borrow his car to go get some clothes for the summer, and she's stopping to get a candy bar.
- Charlie calls to her in the parking lot and asks her how the stripper business is going. It's obvious that he's completely drunk.
- She tells him to shut up, and as she's leaving someone from his group of friends—maybe Jenny—throws a beer at Vera.
- That night at 2:00AM, she hears Jenny drop Charlie off at his house; they're laughing and drunk.
- On Monday, Vera goes to interview at Zimmerman's Pet Shop and it goes swimmingly. When she gets home, she's super excited because they tell her that she'll hear back in a week.
- By Saturday, though, Vera still hasn't heard back. She decides to fill out the application to the pizza place… just in case.
- On her way back from dropping off the application, she hears Charlie's bike and sees him ride by with Jenny on the back. She decides to follow them.
- They stop at a dirty looking house with a white Chrysler parked outside—it's that pervert's house.
- When Vera calls Zimmerman's to follow-up on her application, she gets the bad news: The pet shop can't hire her. Apparently Mr. Zimmerman isn't calling the shots anymore because his store's been bought out.
- So Vera starts working as a pizza maker during the summer, and her dad finally lets her have her mom's old car.
- One day, Vera goes back to visit Zimmerman's Pet Shop. They've implemented a community service program with high school kids who screw up, and Jenny Flick is one of the kids in the program. Weird.
- Vera is mad about everything that happened and decides that maybe her father is right; maybe she shouldn't be focusing so much on the animals. After all, their area has a huge poverty problem, and maybe people should care more about the hungry kids or something.