Grant arrives uninvited at Michelle's funeral and Helen orders him to leave.

Helen recognizes Grant at the writers' team dinner and confronts him, demanding he quit the project.

Helen decides not to report Grant to Suraya, resolving instead to prove her professional superiority over him.

Suraya orders the entire writing team to attend a mandatory camping and hiking retreat.

During the hike, Helen takes a cannabis edible, falls behind with Grant, and apologizes for her constant hostility.

Helen and Grant discover at the airport that both are flying home to New Jersey for the holidays.

Helen and Grant break into their closed high school and explore familiar places together.

Helen brings Grant to Michelle's grave and confesses her years of unresolved pain, anger, and guilt.

Helen kisses Grant for the first time after they play a game of Connect Four at his house.

Helen and Grant agree to begin a relationship that will end when she returns to New York.

Helen's parents visit the show set, and their pride turns to fury when they learn Grant works on the project.

Helen ends her relationship with Grant, choosing her parents' approval over her own happiness.

Helen is injured in a car accident and tells Grant in the hospital that they have no future together.

Helen finishes a letter to Michelle confessing her love for Grant and emails it to him.

Grant races to Helen's hotel after reading her letter and they reunite, committing to a shared future.

Helen Zhang and Grant Shepherd reconnect as adults in Los Angeles, where both are working on the television adaptation of Helen's novels — despite the tragedy that once bound them when Grant's car struck and killed Helen's sister Michelle. Their early interactions are hostile, with Helen demanding Grant quit the project and struggling to adapt to the emotional openness the writers' room demands. A mandatory team retreat forces them into closer proximity and Helen's defenses begin to crack. Their connection deepens during a Christmas trip home, culminating in a cemetery visit and a first kiss that launches a secret, time-limited relationship. When Helen's parents discover Grant's role in her life, she ends things — but a car accident and a letter confessing her love finally break through her fear. Grant rushes to find her and they commit to a shared future, eventually marrying in Ireland.

The headline events of a love story built on shared loss.

Grant has a panic attack alone at home after seeing Helen for the first time since high school.

Helen stays up late searching Michelle's old computer, still hoping to find a final message from her sister.

Grant sets a boundary at their first private lunch, telling Helen they will not discuss Michelle at work.

Grant sets an open tone in the writers' room by sharing an embarrassing personal story; Helen feels like an outsider.

After the hiking trip, Helen tends to Grant's scraped hands and impulsively kisses his palm before bandaging it.

Helen approaches Grant at the campfire to propose a truce, admitting that her stress extends well beyond him.

Grant rescues Helen from a failed parallel parking attempt outside a colleague's Christmas party.

Grant ends his casual relationship with his high school ex and calls Helen to invite her to lunch.

The high school principal catches Helen and Grant trespassing, and they claim he was considering proposing there.

Grant introduces Helen to his mother over dinner at his childhood home after their cemetery visit.

Helen's mother discovers texts from Grant on Helen's tablet in the hospital and angrily confronts her.

Helen lashes out at her parents in the hospital, accusing them of never truly accepting who she is.

Grant visits Helen's favorite New York library, then spots her at a subway station but she does not answer his call.

Helen visits her parents in New Jersey and they reconcile, expressing newfound trust in her career choices.

Grant silently proposes to Helen at the New York Public Library by slipping a ring onto her finger.

Beneath the headline events of Helen and Grant's story lie the smaller moments that built — and nearly broke — their connection. Grant's panic attack after their reunion and Helen's late-night searches for Michelle's final words reveal that both characters are quietly consumed by grief. Their early professional boundaries and the writers' room dynamics establish a fragile truce, while unexpected moments like Helen kissing Grant's palm and their campfire conversation deepen their bond. Back in New Jersey, Grant ending things with Lauren signals he is ready for something real, while a cemetery visit leads to an introduction to his mother — a genuine act of trust. The story's later stages are shaped by the fallout of their breakup: Helen's mother discovering their relationship from stolen texts, a brutal hospital confrontation with her parents, and a near-miss at a New York subway station — before a quiet, wordless proposal at a library finally brings them together.

The quieter moments and secondary beats that shaped the love story.

Grant reluctantly agrees to join the writers' room after his agent argues that Helen will rarely be involved.

After cursing at Helen in the writers' room, Grant commits to unflappable professionalism and courtesy toward her.

Suraya privately confronts Helen about her visible animosity toward Grant and her discomfort with the writing team.

Helen and Grant are the first to arrive at the mountain cabin and make tea while trading guarded conversation.

Helen wakes from a sexual dream about Grant and finds him noticeably aroused in the cabin's living room.

At a colleague's Christmas party, Nicole teases Helen and Grant about their denial of any past romantic connection.

Helen lights incense at Michelle's shrine in her parents' home and tries to imagine their adult relationship.

Helen runs into her high school ex-boyfriend and unexpectedly encounters Grant in a New Jersey parking lot.

Helen flees Grant's house after they grow dangerously close while looking through old yearbooks together.

Helen and Grant become physically intimate at the New Year's Eve party before she leaves without discussing it.

Helen coaches Grant through a panic attack triggered by witnessing a car accident on the freeway.

Grant and Helen take turns recounting their separate, haunting memories of the night Michelle died.

At his birthday party, Grant declares he has fallen in love with Helen and asks her to pretend she feels the same.

In the hospital, Helen tells her parents she will no longer write about teenagers, likening herself to Michelle.

Helen and Grant marry on a sheep farm in Ireland, with Mrs. Zhang welcoming Grant to honor Michelle at the family shrine.

The deeper story of Helen and Grant is one of quiet turning points — small choices and sudden discoveries that shifted the course of their lives. From Grant reluctantly agreeing to take the job to Helen's first sexual dream about him at the mountain cabin, the early chapters are filled with decisions that set their collision in motion. Their Christmas trip home surfaces old wounds: Helen lighting incense at Michelle's shrine, encountering Grant in a parking lot, and later fleeing his house after an intimate moment — all revealing how much she wants and fears what is growing between them. Grant's panic attack on the freeway becomes the doorway to the most important conversation in the novel, as both characters finally recount their haunting memories of the night Michelle died. The final act is driven by Grant's birthday-party declaration of love, Helen's defiant hospital speech, and a wedding in Ireland that closes the loop on the tragedy that once seemed to define them both.