In Joar’s kitchen, Louisa reacts to hearing that Kimkim won the art competition, calling it a good, if sad, ending. Ted and Joar exchange uneasy looks, implying there is more to tell. Ted then announces he is leaving to fulfill his promise to help sell the painting, and departs quickly despite Louisa’s alarmed protest.

Left with Joar, Louisa struggles with the idea of wealth from the painting and admits she does not know what to do with the money. She confesses she originally tried to leave both Ted and the painting behind and suggests Joar and Ted should keep it. Joar counters that Louisa herself is the happy ending to Kimkim’s story because Kimkim gave her the painting after seeing her paint. Overwhelmed, Louisa briefly retreats, then returns to gift Joar her drawing of young Kimkim, which moves him deeply.

Joar leads Louisa onto the roof overlooking the town, sharing Ali’s old game of imagining ordinary lives in ordinary houses. He recalls Ali’s longing for a boring, safe family life and confirms a detail Ted once told her about polar bears and penguins. They play the game together; Joar says he would not marry someone ordinary because Ali believed two “broken” people could not be together, and he calls Ali his last love.

Louisa imagines a grand house she would share with her late friend Fish and asks if the game allows living with the dead. Joar agrees and distinguishes “main character” from “hero,” a remark that subtly shifts Louisa’s outlook. They joke about wealth and proximity, and Joar reassures Louisa that Ted will not abandon her; Ted is bad at leaving people.

Louisa notices a wheelchair ramp and deduces Joar cared for his father after the accident. Joar explains his father’s personality changed after the brain injury; the hatred in his eyes disappeared, and Joar eventually called him “Dad” while caregiving. He says he stayed mainly for his mother, who needed help managing the house. Joar recounts his father’s small funeral and the town’s grim pattern of men dying by violence or alcoholism.

Joar shares a rare happy ending: his mother later met a kind, sober man and built a gentle life, even taking up tennis after moving away. Louisa notes Joar still lives in the house; he reveals his ankle monitor and admits he assaulted a man who hit a woman while a child screamed in the car. A letter from the woman’s father later told him they left the abuser, which helped him endure prison. Near the end of his sentence, overcrowding led to his release with an ankle monitor.

Louisa asks if Joar was imprisoned when Ted was stabbed by a student and when Kimkim became ill; Joar says yes to both, weighed down by guilt. He reveals he only saw his friends once after the summer they turned fifteen. At Louisa’s urging for an ending that includes some ordinary parts, Joar takes a deep breath and begins telling her the rest of the story.