Damon forces himself to throw up the pills he took. He’s frustrated with himself for not having thought that his attacker would have taken his car to the apartment. He goes downstairs and sees Garry’s car with its dashcam.

While he sits in Garry’s car, his mother appears as a hallucination in the passenger seat. She points to a copy of A Little Life in the car. Damon realizes that Laura must have left it there for him to find.

Damon goes to Dr. Owen Fernandez-Jones’s house. He found the address online. The house is full of medical equipment for ECT, a medical procedure that involves administering electric shocks to the brain. Fernandez-Jones was a pioneer in the field. Damon had contacted him under the pretense of being a university researcher, but Fernandez-Jones immediately recognized him as his former patient.

Damon is surprised that Dr. Fernandez-Jones recognizes him since it has been 16 years since he was his patient. Fernandez-Jones explains that Damon doesn’t remember much of his past due to retrograde amnesia caused by the ECT treatments. Fernandez-Jones explains that he’s no longer practicing due to the controversy over his use of ECT on criminal patients in an attempt to curb their violent tendencies. He says that Damon was given ECT as a child in an attempt to prevent him from killing again.

Damon is shocked to learn that he killed someone. He insists that he didn’t kill anyone as a child. Dr. Fernandez-Jones explains Helena and Ralf brought him in for treatment when he was a child six weeks after the death of Bobbi. He tells Damon that Ralf did not kill anyone; Damon did.

Damon initially refuses to believe Dr. Fernandez-Jones. The doctor says that Damon had “reactive attachment disorder” and elements of “psychopathy,” but he felt that Damon could be treated to become less violent.

Fernandez-Jones tells Damon that he confessed to killing Callum to him. Damon then hallucinates Callum. He sees the dead boy pull Damon’s handkerchief out of his mouth. Damon is shocked at the revelation. He confesses to Fernandez-Jones that he has killed someone recently. Fernandez-Jones says that another course of ECT could help him remember more about his past.

During the ECT treatment, Damon remembers more of his childhood. He remembers that in 2009, he was 11 years old and friends with Callum, his next-door neighbor.

The narrative shifts to a flashback. One afternoon, the young Damon comes home to find his mother making out with Callum’s father, Lloyd. Lloyd and Callum move in with Damon and Bobbi. Damon grows resentful that Callum is “stealing” his mother’s affection. He sets fire to Callum’s favorite West Ham shirt in revenge. Callum taunts Damon and says that when Bobbi and Lloyd get married, Damon will have to go live with his father. Furious, Damon attacks Callum with a pair of scissors.

Damon chases Callum with the scissors out of the apartment and down the road. Callum runs into the road, and Ralf accidentally hits Callum with the car. Callum appears dead. Damon and Ralf move Callum off the road. Ralf tells Damon to get help and to not tell anyone about the accident, as it would threaten his parole. Ralf flees the scene.

Damon notices that Callum is still alive. Callum tells Damon that he’s going to tell people that his father hit him with the car and that it was Damon’s fault for chasing him into the street. Damon takes out his handkerchief and asphyxiates Callum.

That evening, Callum’s body is found. Damon revels in the attention he gets from his mother and schoolteachers following the death. Ralf gives him a lighter by way of apology for leaving Damon to deal with the aftermath of hitting Callum with the car. Lloyd breaks up with Bobbi, as he blames her for his son’s death. Damon doesn’t feel remorse; he feels that he did the right thing.

As the ECT treatment continues in the present, Damon begins to remember what happened to his infant brother, Bobby. When Damon was three years old, Bobby was born. He was a very fussy baby. Ralf couldn’t cope and often left the house. Damon grew increasingly resentful that the baby was getting all his mother’s attention and causing conflict between his parents. He decided that if the baby slept through the night, it would be better for the family. He smothered Bobby with a blanket. He was thrilled when Bobbi clung to him after his brother’s death. Soon after, Ralf left for good, and his mother fell into a depression.

During the ECT treatment, Damon also remembers what happened to Daisy Barber.

In a flashback, Damon meets Daisy a few months after Callum died. He has a crush on Daisy, and they spend a lot of time together. However, over time, Daisy begins spending more time with the “mid-teen” daughters of her mother’s boyfriend. Damon is jealous. He asks her to go with him to a celebration in the park for the 2012 Olympics. Daisy says that she can’t go because she has “girl’s problems.”

That evening, Damon sees her at the park with another group of people. He follows her home and confronts her. She calls him “creepy” for following her. She says that she’s going out with Luke now. Damon tries to kiss her, and she rejects him. Enraged, Damon hits her on the head with a rock.

Back in the present, the treatment ends. Damon feels sick with everything he has learned but also strangely calm. He sees a vision of Callum taking the handkerchief out of his mouth. He realizes that Callum is not saying “Oodis” but “you did this.”

Suddenly, Damon’s head feels heavy. He and Callum look at each other and then at Dr. Fernandez-Jones. He knows that the only way to feel better is to kill the doctor.

Laura watches the video of Damon killing Garry over and over again. She feels no remorse for his death. She had met Garry at the hospital where they both worked. She had caught him stealing medication. In exchange for not reporting him to authorities, he agreed to help her threaten Damon. Laura texts Damon that she wants “what [she’s] owed” (276).

Damon realizes that Laura planned to kill him the night he asked for her help, but she doesn’t know who she’s threatening. Damon buys some beers and drinks them in the park. His physical appearance has deteriorated precipitously. He sees a hallucination of Daisy while drinking. He doesn’t feel remorse for what he’s done. He feels that he is a monster.

Damon returns to the hardware store where his father works. He wants to ask his father why he took the blame for what Damon himself did. He tells the manager that he wants to see Ralf. He sees a vision of his father bleeding in an aisle. The manager tells Damon that his father died weeks ago.

Laura breaks into Damon’s apartment. She wants to move things around to terrify him, but it’s too messy for that to be impactful. Instead, she decides to tamper with his Audite, “a second-rate Alexa-style virtual assistant” (285).

Damon returns to his apartment and falls asleep. He is awoken early in the morning by his Audite playing “Every Breath You Take” by The Police. He laughs and realizes that Laura meant to scare him by leaving this message for him in his apartment.