Chapter 8 begins Part 2 of She’s Come Undone. This section is titled “Whales.”

The chapter opens with an introduction to Dolores’s high school guidance counselor, Mr. Pucci. Dolores recalls that he had been her “only friend during my miserable three and a half years at the school.”

Mr. Pucci calls Dolores his “pal.” The two spend a lot of time talking in his office. Many of the other students make fun of the counselor. He lisps and seems effeminate. Dolores, however, is protective and defends him. Mr. Pucci defends Dolores as well. Since her freshman year, Dolores has gone from being slightly overweight to obese. When, as a gag, some of the football players nominate Dolores for Spirit Week queen, Mr. Pucci calls all of their parents.

However, in the spring of her senior year, Mr. Pucci betrays her, or so Dolores thinks. He calls a meeting between Dolores, her mother, and himself. He wants to talk about her future, specifically to press for Dolores to go to college. He tells them both that to pass up the opportunity may well be something Dolores will regret for the rest of her life.

The word “regret” compels Dolores’s mother to take action. Ma regrets agreeing to Dolores’s demands to tell no one about the rape, not even her father, and to not press charges against Jack. She has decided that what is best is just to “pretend it never happened.” It is a decision she is not comfortable having made.

To soothe her conscience, and stave off more regret, Ma agrees to let Dolores leave St. Anthony’s. She pays for a tutor to come to the home instead. And despite Dolores’s ability to run the tutors off, Ma remains resolute. Dolores will go to college. When Dolores stubbornly refuses to write her college application essays, her mother stays up all night writing one for her. The subject was to write on the person the student most admires. Her mother selects Trisha Nixon, the prim and proper daughter of President Richard Nixon, about as complete opposite a person as one could get from Dolores herself.

Dolores is unimpressed with the essay. She tells her mother that the letter would not even get her into a “school for retards.” Ma becomes very angry. “I am not…some piece of dog crap!” Ma yells.

To Dolores’s surprise, she is accepted into Merton College. Dolores balks. She screams that she will not take the required physical examination. She stomps up to her room and switches on the television.

Ma follows close behind. She is holding a steak knife in her hand. Wordlessly but deliberately, she picks up the cord to the television and slices it in two. She tells Dolores that she will get the television fixed when she takes the physical and gets the form signed.

Ma drives Dolores to the doctor. Dolores weighs in at two hundred and fifty-seven pounds. Opening the door to the waiting room, he callously tells her mother, “She’s too fat and she smokes.” Dolores runs out of the office.

More determined than ever not to go to Merton, Dolores thinks of a plan: fail her finals. It does not work. Despite failing the exams, her GPA is still high enough to graduate.

Dolores refuses to attend commencement ceremonies. Her mother and grandmother go without her. While they are gone, Dolores takes $100 that her father had sent as a graduation gift and spends almost all of it on food. She consumes the majority of it while her relatives are away.