Moments after their tender reunion in the waves, Rocky and Nick are bickering again. Rocky pushes Nick to articulate what he feels about everything that has been revealed and processed; Nick, weary and just wanting to ride the waves and eat his sandwich, deflects with a laugh and a shrug. Shouting over the surf in the achingly cold, salty water, Rocky recognizes the absurd smallness of herself picking a fight at the edge of a vast ocean.

Rocky reflects, via a foraging metaphor, that most of life exists in the wide middle ground between ecstatic highs and catastrophic lows—ordinary, decent, daily life. She accepts that Nick will never deliver a cinematic emotional climax, and that the work of untangling her shame, guilt, rage, and sadness belongs to her alone.

She recalls a therapist friend's advice to set sorrow and anger free in a little mental boat rather than repress them, and to simply decide to be happy. As another wave crashes over her, Rocky tumbles to shore on hands and knees, telling herself, like coaxing a dog to drop something from its jaws, to leave it—to release her grief habit.