Ted gives Louisa the postcard, which the artist wanted him to return. He is carrying two boxes, one of which Louisa correctly guesses is the artist’s ashes. She tells Ted she is sorry that he lost his “human,” which is what Fish was for her. She got to hold Fish’s ashes briefly after her death. Ted gives her the other box and explains that the artist sold everything to buy it. He turns to leave and hears Louisa’s reaction when she finds the painting inside the box.

Louisa calls out to Ted, demanding to know why he gave her the painting and whether he was the one who farted on the pier that day. He explains that the artist believed in her and wanted her to have it. Louisa doesn’t want to keep the painting because she has no home, and people might think she stole it. She suggests that Ted buy it from her, but he’s a schoolteacher and can’t afford it. He tells her to sell it and buy a home. 

Ted is returning to his and the artist’s hometown to bury his ashes. Louisa asks if she can come with him, but Ted wants to be alone with his grief. He implores her to leave him alone, but she follows him to the train station. Ted points himself out in the painting, which plunges him back into his memories of that summer. He says Joar was the one who farted. 

Louisa says she is 18, so if she goes with him, he won’t be suspected of kidnapping. She wants Ted to help her sell the painting, and then they will split the profit. Ted cries because he feels overwhelmed by the responsibility of this girl.

Ted recalls that summer, 25 years ago, when “[a]t night the teenagers lived in different realities, but at daybreak they belonged to each other again” (75). Ted only knew Joar through the artist, and he was jealous that Joar and the artist had known each other longer. Joar’s father was an abusive man with a substance use disorder, and Joar was always covered in bruises. The artist was “different” from an early age and didn’t like to be touched or in confined spaces. His classmates bullied him in preschool, and once they locked him inside a trunk, Joar came to his defense, solidifying their bond.

Joar and the artist met Ted when they were 12, when Joar crashed into him on the pier. The boys soon started spending evenings together, and sometimes the artist stayed at Ted’s late into the night, drawing because he didn’t feel safe creating his art at home, sometimes drawing nude men. The artist’s parents weren’t physically abusive, but they showed him no love or affection.

Ted’s father had cancer, and the artist began stealing his pain meds. Ted told Joar, which is why he suggested the artist enter the art competition. The artist confessed to Ted that he didn’t believe he could create the painting and that Joar’s belief in him was misplaced. Ted said nothing, a decision he would regret for the rest of his life. Though he was jealous of the artist and Joar’s connection, Ted loved the artist and silently vowed to keep his memory alive.

Back in the present, Ted tells Louisa that he can’t be her guardian. Louisa understands and says she will ask strangers to help her sell the painting. Ted protests, saying she can’t do that with such a valuable piece. Louisa proposes that he allow her to travel with him, help her sell the painting, and she will return home afterward, never bothering him again. Ted wonders if she should be in school or if he should let her foster home know where she is. Louisa reminds him it’s Easter holiday and says she’s never going back to the foster home. 

A sheriff notices that Louisa has gone through the turnstile yet hasn’t purchased a ticket. When he grabs her arm, Louisa reacts and jerks her arm away, revealing bruises and scars, which Ted sees. He intervenes, saying he will buy her ticket. They board the train, and at first, Louisa is annoyingly chatty. She falls quiet when they begin to move, and she sees her hometown slipping away. As they depart the station, Louisa spots the artist’s cat sitting on the platform, and she imagines that it’s Fish reincarnated.

The narrator explains that the painting isn’t valuable because it’s exceptional but because it was C. Jat’s first work. Once he became world-famous, his first painting became invaluable. When he created it at 14, he didn’t fully understand what art was, and it began as a drawing because he couldn’t afford paints. He set out at first to draw clouds “because clouds are nothing and that was how he saw himself. Everything else? That was what Joar saw in him” (96). He viewed his work then not as art but as childish drawing born out of his imagination as a way to escape the pain of reality.

Joar always got into trouble at school for fighting, but only because he was defending the artist. Once, when the artist’s classmates stole his sketchbook filled with nude sketches, Joar shoved the bully into the trash can. His father retrieved him from school and severely beat him. Joar played extra hard in the soccer game the next day to have excuses for his bruises. 

On the day of the pier, Joar tried to convince the artist that he must enter the contest because he would never survive in the town as an adult. Only “hard men” like Joar's father could survive there. The artist worries about leaving Joar, who says that he can visit art museums occasionally and see his friend’s work, which will help him survive.

That night after the day on the pier, Joar returned home and helped his mother with household chores because her arm was broken from his father’s abuse. Joar hid his knife in a flowerpot and waited for his father to return. Later, the artist added a representation of Joar’s mom to the painting: flowers on the pier.

While on the train, Ted reminisces on attending a funeral with the artist at the end of the summer 25 years ago. He also thinks about the way he cared for the artist during his recent illness—he remembers happily that they laughed a lot together, despite how bad the artist's illness was. During this time, they heard that the painting would be sold at auction, and the artist decided that he would sell his possessions to buy it back because their childhood friendship was so meaningful to him.

Ted remembers when the artist completed the painting that summer 25 years ago, and then fulfilled Joar’s prophecy of becoming famous. Once autumn came, he moved to the city to attend art school; he and Ted stayed in touch and called often. The artist's parents died when he finished school, and he returned home to bury them. To make sure that he wouldn't stay in the town, Ted encouraged the artist to travel the world. When the artist asked him to come along, he declined. 

The artist returned from his world travels with a deeper understanding of his craft and himself. Almost at once, the fame became too much, and he began having anxiety and panic attacks. He spoke with Ted on the phone for support. By his mid-thirties, the artist stopped creating and rarely left his home. Ted came for a visit and never left—he lived with the artist for the last two years of his life and cared for him. As he neared the end, the artist told Ted that after his death, he wanted Ted to live and find happiness. Now, Ted contemplates his current situation, on a train with the artist’s ashes, Louisa, and the painting.

Ted dozes off, but when he wakes up, Louisa is back to chatting again, and he wishes for silence. When she goes to the restroom, Ted speaks to the box as if he were talking to the artist, expressing his annoyance over Louisa. When she returns, she is full of questions, including asking if Ted has a spouse or children. She asks about the flowers in the painting, which people rarely notice, and Ted explains that they represent Joar’s mother, who brought so much light into the world despite her horrific life.

Ted recalls that the painting should have been called “The Boys and Her” because their group consisted of four friends: the artist, Ted, Joar, and Ali (125). On the day the painting depicts, the artist and Ted waited for Joar, who was late. They went to his house, and Joar came out and retrieved the knife from the flowerpot. His father never came home that night, because he was too drunk, but Joar knew he never could have killed him with his mom in the house anyway. The three boys went to the pier, with Joar and the artist concealing their secrets in their backpacks—Joar with the knife and the artist with the pills he stole from Ted’s house. They waited for Ali, who finally arrived.

Now, Louisa continues to bombard Ted with questions, and she asks about his limp. Ted reluctantly shares that a student stabbed him during an altercation, but he lies and says it wasn’t life-threatening. He moved in with the artist shortly after the incident. 

Louisa wants Ted to ask her questions, so he asks how Fish got her nickname. Louisa explains that it came from their foster parents poking fun at Fish’s eyes being too far apart. Ted asks what happened to Louisa’s parents, and she shares that her father died in a bar fight and her mother abandoned her. She’s been in foster care ever since. Hearing Louisa’s story makes Ted realize that the artist was right that Louisa is “one of them.”

Louisa asks about what Ted will put on the artist’s headstone. He tells her it will say, “I love you and believe in you” (138), something the artist said to Ted often. Louisa catches Ted looking at another man on the train and asks what kind of man he falls for. He says he falls for “geniuses.” He tells her that Fish was in love with her because she is a genius. Since Ted is a history teacher, Louisa wants to hear the history of the painting from the beginning. Ted starts by explaining that there are two boys and one girl in the picture.