Damon tells Melissa that there’s nothing physically wrong with him but that he keeps seeing visions of the dead boy. He tells her that he’s convinced the image is a recovered memory from his past. She suggests that he see a counselor, and he angrily rejects her idea. He asks her to “kill” him.

Melissa initially thinks that Damon is joking, but she soon sees that he’s serious. She says that they’re supposed to be creating life, not killing it. Damon says that he wants to have another near-death experience so that he can find out the truth about what happened. He says that she’s a paramedic and can help resuscitate him again. Melissa refuses; she thinks that the plan is too dangerous and that it’s selfish for him to ask this of her. Damon says that he’ll find a way to do it even if she doesn’t help.

Damon hasn’t spoken to Melissa in 16 days. In that time, he has purchased a used defibrillator online. He has also started posting on a message board for those who have a fixation with death. He uses the username “Jude St Francis,” a character from Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life. He posts about his experience, and a user named “The Good Samaritan” responds. Her real name is Laura Murray, and she says that she can help him die and then come back to life. Laura comes to his apartment for the procedure.

Laura is thrilled at the prospect of killing Damon. She recognizes his family name, Lister, but she’s not sure from where. She tells Damon that A Little Life is her favorite book. She says that she’s helped people die before, but she’s cautious. She explains to Damon that she used to work for a helpline for people in distress and guided several of them to die by suicide. She wants to record Damon’s death, but he refuses.

Damon is anxious as he begins to tie the noose. Laura says that he’s not doing it correctly and helps him. Then, she binds his hands behind his back to stop him from fighting her. Damon feels terrified. He notices that she has unplugged the defibrillator and that she’s smiling. He realizes, “[S]he wants me dead, but not in the same way I do” (82).

Damon begins to panic as Laura pulls the noose tight and he begins to suffocate. He has another vision of the dead boy, but this time, the boy is laughing at him. Damon begins to lose consciousness as the bedroom door bursts open.

Melissa bursts into the bedroom. She realizes that Damon is being asphyxiated by a woman she doesn’t know, Laura. She pushes Laura aside, cuts off the noose, and uses the defibrillator and CPR to revive Damon. In the meantime, Laura has fled. When Damon regains consciousness, he tells Melissa that he saw the dead boy with his mother.

Melissa props Damon up. She notices as she does so that Damon has a tattoo of a phoenix rising out of the waves. She also notices a handkerchief in his pocket. He had nosebleeds as a child, so he keeps it with him all the time.

Melissa says that she was worried when no one had heard from Damon in weeks, so she came to check on him. He tells her that he would have learned more had she left him dead for longer. Melissa says that Laura never intended to bring him back. Damon says that he had to rely on a stranger because Melissa refused to help him. He refuses other treatment. Reluctantly, Melissa agrees to help him with another near-death experience.

Damon is at work stacking groceries when he sees a hallucination of his mother. He is thrilled to see her, but when he approaches her, he notices that she’s disheveled and that there’s smoke rising from her head. He sees the dead boy take her hand. He wonders how they’re connected.

The hallucination continues, and Damon looks at his mother’s back. He sees that she has wounds and burn marks. He is shocked. He doesn’t know exactly how his mother died. He remembers as a child that a tall, inscrutable woman named Maud often visited when his mother was depressed. He felt that Maud’s visits and his mother’s illness were his fault. The hallucination of the dead boy says “Oodis” to Damon, but he doesn’t know what it means.

Damon goes to the fertility clinic to meet with the counselor and is approved as a sperm donor, pending the results of his blood tests. On his way to his car in the parking garage, he hears something behind him. He assumes that it’s a hallucination until he’s pushed into a wall.

Damon is too shocked to fight back. A man kicks him and then picks him up and dangles him over the side of the parking garage railing. The man says, “Finish what you started […] You play until the end” (98). Bewildered, Damon agrees. The man sets him down and leaves. As he catches his breath, Damon sees the dead boy laughing at him.

The next day, Damon dresses his injuries in the bathroom. He hallucinates that his mother is there with him. He has filled his bathtub with ice water. He thinks it will help cause death more quickly.

Melissa arrives, bringing a new defibrillator with her. She has reluctantly agreed to drown Damon and then revive him. She warns him about the risks and then binds his wrists and ankles to prevent him from hurting her. Then, she holds his head underwater until he loses consciousness and he begins to see his life flash before his eyes.

Damon regains consciousness. His throat is sore from having swallowed so much water. Damon tells Melissa that he has remembered that the dead boy’s name is Callum Baird and that Callum was Damon’s friend. He had a vision of Callum holding his mother’s hand.

Damon searches for Callum online and finds a news story. Callum was murdered in London when he was 12 years old, and the murderer was never found. Damon tells Melissa that he’s going to go to where Callum died to see if he can remember more. Melissa angrily tells Damon that he’s “chasing ghosts” instead of focusing on starting a family.

Damon goes to the street in South London where Callum’s body was found. He recognizes it as the place where he came upon Callum’s body. He recalls how, in his vision, Callum had been begging Damon for help. Damon feels relieved that it was not he himself who hurt Callum. While at the site of Callum’s small memorial plaque, Damon receives a text from Adrienne reminding him that he has an appointment at the clinic that week for sperm donation. He walks around the area until he sees a series of apartments that he recognizes as where he once lived.

Damon is looking at the apartments when an older man who has been drinking approaches him. The man says that he has lived there since the place was built. Damon asks if the man remembers Callum, and the man says that Callum was a “lovely kid.” Damon introduces himself, and the man grows enraged. He is shocked that Damon would return “after what happened” and remarks that “apples never fall far from trees” (112). As Damon rushes away, he is struck with the memory of how his mother died.

Damon has a vision of himself at 12 years old standing outside the apartment building and watching the fire inside. He remembers his mother, Bobbi Lister, breaking the window and then jumping out to escape the fire. He remembers that she was holding a phone as she fell. Damon is heartbroken at remembering the awful moment. When he shakes off his reverie, he hears the angry old man yelling at him, “I know what I saw […] They didn’t listen to me then, but I know!” (116).

Damon goes to see Helena again and tells her about his visions. That morning, his hallucinations of his mother and Callum had been joined by a vision of an infant on his mother’s hip in a checkered blanket. In his hallucination, he heard the infant child asphyxiate and die.

Damon tells Helena that he wants his case records so that he can learn more about his past and hopefully understand the visions. Helena tells Damon that he might not like what he learns. Damon then asks Helena what he said about his mother as a child; Helena responds that she doesn’t remember because of her strokes. She encourages him not to risk his life again, and he lies and says he will not.

After Damon leaves, Helena reflects on his time with her. She thinks about how much of an impact Damon had on her. She has fostered many children, but Damon’s transformation during his stay with her was the most remarkable. She wishes that she could explain to him now why it is better to not dig into his past. She wants him to know that she and his father “always had his best interests at heart” (123). She hopes that their “sacrifices” were not in vain. Then, she begins to prepare herself for her daughter Sally’s visit.

Three weeks after Melissa drowned and revived him, Damon receives his case notes from his time in foster care. While opening the envelope, he is wracked with a coughing fit. His health has worsened due to his repeated near-death experiences.

The case notes are heavily redacted, but Damon notes that he was considered “unsuitable for placement with a foster family” until he showed signs of improvement from his “Dependent Personality Disorder” (126). The case notes record that his father, Ralf Lister, was unable to care for Damon. Damon assumes that this is because his father was dead at that time due to an accident at work.

There is also a note that “[Redacted] could be considered a danger” (127), but Damon doesn’t know if that refers to himself or someone else. Looking up, Damon has a vision of his mother on fire, which frightens him.

Damon goes to Melissa’s house. Adrienne is not at home. Damon tells Melissa that he received his case reports. She reassures him that, since she has known him since they were 13, she doesn’t believe that Damon was dangerous. She once again suggests that he get counseling, but he rejects her advice. He tells her that he wants her help to die and come back once again.

Melissa asks if Damon’s obsession with recovering the past is a “convenient distraction” from his new obligations as a prospective parent. Damon says that all he ever wanted when they were together was to become a parent. Melissa says that she wanted “more than marriage and motherhood” and that “the miscarriage was probably a blessing in disguise” (134). Damon says that if Melissa doesn’t agree to help him, he’s going to refuse to be a sperm donor and tell Adrienne what Melissa has done. Reluctantly, Melissa agrees to the plan.

A few days later, Melissa comes to Damon’s apartment with an intraosseous drill used for the emergency administration of adrenaline. She makes Damon record a “statement of intent” so that in the event Damon dies, she will not be blamed (137). Then, she binds Damon’s wrists and ankles and drowns him in the bathtub.

Some time later, Damon regains consciousness. Melissa is crying. She tells Damon that it took 16 minutes to revive him. She explains that his ribs have been cracked from the CPR. She bandages him up and leaves, telling him that she cannot stand to be around him. Damon thinks about how he saw another dead person during this near-death experience, “a dead girl with half her face missing” (141).

Damon saw a young girl who was badly disfigured. She was wearing a 2012 London Olympics shirt and had a flag in her backpack for “Archbishop’s Park Fun Day” (143).

The next day, Damon searches online for information about a dead girl. He learns that the 13-year-old girl was killed 16 years prior. Her name was Daisy Barber. He is shocked when he learns that his father, Ralf, was convicted of her murder.