The chapter opens with Davey sharing a gay sex dream about a high school classmate, Aaron Bannister. The narrator is moved by his openness, contrasting him with older men she's dated who would never admit to such dreams. They look up Aaron online, and Davey reveals he's somewhat bisexual—something Claire knows about. When the narrator shows Davey her first girlfriend, she breaks down crying unexpectedly.

Their physical intimacy deepens in unconventional ways while they continue to avoid intercourse. Davey states that kissing would inevitably lead to sex, so they don't kiss. Instead, the narrator impulsively catches Davey's urine in her hand, an act that surprises them both and becomes strangely intimate. Davey washes her hand with great tenderness. Later, in an extended scene of radical vulnerability, Davey insists on changing the narrator's tampon. She reluctantly agrees, and the act—awkward, bloody, deeply personal—becomes their defining intimate ritual, something they'll never share with anyone else.

As their final days together approach, the narrator assumes they'll plan how to continue seeing each other. But when she broaches the subject, Davey responds with silence and vagueness, signaling a disconnect in their expectations. On Saturday, the narrator calls Harris and convinces him she needs one more night in Monrovia before coming home. She and Harris negotiate school drop-off schedules, and the mundane logistics feel absurd to her after weeks of transcendent intimacy.

On her last morning, the narrator packs while preserving the room as a kind of shrine, hoping to return. She leaves money for Helen and dresses in the cream dress from her first real day with Davey. Then Liza calls with devastating news: Arkanda has canceled their meeting and left for Beijing for three months, eliminating the narrator's pretext for future trips away from home. The narrator realizes she has no reason to travel anywhere soon.

Davey arrives for their final meeting. Instead of the extended farewell and planning session the narrator envisioned, Davey treats the goodbye as brief and final. He advocates going "cold turkey"—no calls, no texts. The narrator is stunned, realizing she has fundamentally miscalculated. Davey calls the experience perfect and unrepeatable, then climbs out the window. The narrator, numb and devastated, wheels her bags to checkout. Skip immediately begins offering her renovated suite to a new couple. Helen, the housekeeper, calls out that she doesn't regret her own affair and would do it all the same. The narrator drives away in tears, watching Helen in the rearview mirror.