Peter is a seventeen-year-old high school student who has faced bullying since the very first day of kindergarten. When the taunts become too much, Peter stockpiles guns and bombs and perpetrates a mass school shooting at Sterling High. His actions don’t just make victims of his fellow classmates, however. His mother and father, Lacy and Lewis, as well as the community of Sterling, must deal with the implications of his actions. Peter’s own parents often compared him to his older brother, Joey, whom they adored (and who was just as much of a bully to Peter as his other classmates, before Joey died in a car accident). Peter’s one-time friend, Josie, stopped hanging out with him to join the popular kids, who are the very same kids bullying Peter. He eventually realizes that he has a crush on her but is rebuffed. Peter is tried, and his defense attorney uses a form of battered-woman syndrome to show how years of bullying led to the shooting. It is revealed that Peter has been protecting Josie: Josie shot Matt, and Peter killed him to protect her. He is given life in prison but kills himself a month after being sentenced.