Phoebe wakes at three in the morning, confirms to herself that she is still alive, and recognizes the dangerous shame and obsessive thinking that usually take over at that hour. Remembering Lila's insistence that she has to do a thing, Phoebe looks for one manageable action instead of returning to thoughts about Matt, Mia, and her failed life. She brushes her teeth, drinks water, decides against spiraling on her dead phone, and, when the bath proves impossible without a stopper, chooses the hotel hot tub. Before leaving, Phoebe removes her wedding ring and decides never to wear it again.

In the empty lobby, Phoebe notices that the hotel's books have all been turned backward for decoration, a choice that offends her. Carlson greets her without questioning why she is awake, and Phoebe quietly turns one volume, Shakespeare's Sonnets, back around before going outside. This small correction reinforces her new effort to do something, however minor, instead of collapsing into passivity.

In the hot tub, Phoebe first enjoys the warmth and the ocean view alone, then an attractive wedding guest joins her. Their conversation begins with joking banter about wedding small talk, beards, academia, and the pandemic, but it turns serious when Phoebe chooses not to lie about herself. She admits that she drank heavily, that her work stalled, that she is a professor, that she is not at the inn for the wedding, and finally that she came there to kill herself but decided not to. The man responds with humor and sympathy rather than panic, and he reveals that he once came close to suicide himself and eventually stopped thinking about it by waiting through the pain.

The shared honesty makes Phoebe feel unexpectedly seen and connected. The two continue talking about books, orphans, childhood fantasies, Phoebe's dead mother, and her emotionally absent father, and Phoebe realizes she feels beautiful and alive in a way she has not felt for a long time. When she stands up in her black underwear, she decides to be fully direct and tells the man that she wants to have sex with him. He admits that he is with someone, so nothing happens physically, but the exchange does not crush Phoebe; instead, she leaves the hot tub smiling, energized by having wanted something and said it aloud.

Back inside, Phoebe keeps turning books outward and takes Mrs. Dalloway, the last book she never finished, as if claiming it for herself. In her room, she throws out the cigarettes, drinks kombucha from the minibar, eats the cookies from Lila's gift bag, and reflects on how much of her life and scholarship had been built on novels that promised happiness through marriage and belonging. Remembering her father's death and her own earlier refusal to engage with older, unhappy, or suicidal characters, Phoebe now sees Mrs. Dalloway differently. Resting on the coconut pillow, she begins reading with a new question that matters to her survival: what comes after marriage, loss, war, and the impulse to die.