While waiting for their surfing instructor, George’s smile triggers Frankie’s memory of when he returned to the Big House at 14 after seven months of living in Montreal with his father. Mimi had rescued him after his father neglected him. Frankie had found him sobbing alone in his room in the Big House and comforted him with her mother’s whale story.

They discuss the day’s plan. Frankie states that her parents’ relationship forced her mother to sacrifice her marine-biology career, though George challenges this notion. They discuss Nate, and Frankie concludes that Nate was safe but not intense enough to be destructive. She admits that she dampened herself around him. George says that he pictured her with someone less superficial. Frankie is still confused about why Nate waited until the night before the wedding to break up with her.

Frankie struggles with her wetsuit, and George helps her zip it up, making her skin tingle as he touches her. Their instructor, Liz, teaches them the basics. George pops up on his first wave and jokes that he will brag about it into their eighties.

Initially competitive, Frankie’s focus shifts from winning to simply experiencing the moment with George. While sitting on her board, she feels profoundly connected to the ocean and suddenly misses her mother. She finally stands up briefly before falling off her board. George dedicates a wave to her and wipes out, and Frankie finally rides one all the way to shore. George splashes through the water to embrace her tightly as she cries happy tears.

While relaxing on the resort beach, Frankie wakes to find that George has covered her with a towel. When he returns dressed for dinner, she cleans his glasses automatically. George hums his mother’s lullaby, which Frankie notes he only does when happy. George says that she’s the only person who has ever noticed. Frankie has a fleeting thought about marrying George but dismisses it as the alcohol talking. For a photo, George pulls her onto his chair against his chest. While studying it later, she thinks they look like a couple.

At the Pointe restaurant, the meal inspires Frankie to go back to cooking things she loves. Over wine, she tells George she wants deeper purpose and feels more alive with him. Their server brings complimentary drinks for the honeymooning couple. Frankie prompts George to tell a made-up story of their wedding, and he describes them marrying under the apple tree just as they did when they were kids.

Later, Frankie proposes a companionable, sexless marriage in which they support each other while maintaining independence. George stares silently before abruptly leaving the restaurant.

Frankie pursues George through the lobby, and they drive back in tense silence. She chases him onto the beach, where he confronts her about how hurtful her suggestion was, pressing her about whether she thinks he would accept a partnership without sex and desire. Frankie insists that she was only trying to say that she wanted to spend her life with him. When she says she thought he might want the same, he flatly says he does not.

Then, George clasps her wrist and pulls her close. His lips brush her ear, his thumb strokes her neck, and he pulls her against his aroused body. He tells her that he rejects her sexless marriage.

Sixteen-year-old Frankie, anxious about having never had sex and feeling left behind by George’s experience, made plans to sleep with Dylan Martin at the winter formal, but George punched Dylan in the parking lot.

Eight weeks later, with her parents away, Frankie invited George over. Greeting him in her underwear surrounded by candles, she proposed that they sleep together so that she could “get it over with” (226). She kissed him, and George seemed briefly tempted but refused, saying that it would be a mistake. After he left, he wouldn’t speak to her. Two days later, she found his letter asking her to promise never to kiss him again. She agreed.

The next morning, George is distant and tells Frankie that he shouldn’t have crossed the line. In keeping with the day’s theme of reflection, he tells her to write a list of all the things she likes about herself and leaves for his run. While surfing, Frankie can’t stop noticing George physically and reflects on how undeniable the desire between them was. Liz picks up on their tension and assumes they’re a couple. Frankie denies it, and Liz asks why not. Frankie opens her mouth to list the reasons but can’t articulate them.

George joins Frankie in a hammock and, seeing her nearly empty list, guides her through the exercise. Frankie insists that he complete his own list too. She admits that because Nate disliked her cherished vintage items, such as her grandmother’s lamp and her thrifted mismatched china, she got rid of them when they moved in together. George promises to help replace them when he returns from his next assignment in Mexico.

Frankie asks why George disliked Nate. George admits that Nate “wasn’t that bad” but he didn’t want Frankie “to make a decision [she] couldn’t reverse” (239). George apologizes for withdrawing, explaining that he was working through issues on his own. He tells Frankie that he wishes his mother could have met her—a meaningful new sentiment. Frankie holds his hand briefly. Setting out to hike, she realizes that she has romantic feelings for George and recognizes danger ahead.

During heavy rain on the rainforest trail, George expresses profound gratitude for being there with Frankie. She tells him that she can’t keep her promise not to kiss him. George notes that she promised not to kiss him—but he never made the same promise.

They kiss in the rain, and Frankie recalls fighting her attraction throughout their lives. They pull apart, recognizing the danger to their friendship, and agree that it was a lapse in judgment. In the car, they agree to forget the kiss while acknowledging that their attraction is unlikely to fade.

After Rebecca calls, George urges Frankie to discuss what happened when her mother left and hear her side of the story. Frankie asks him whether he has forgiven his father. George says that he’s working on accepting that his father couldn’t parent him after his mother’s death and that talking about her felt like losing her again. Frankie tells him that his mother was lucky to have him and takes his hand.

Frankie texts Aurora about the kiss, and Aurora asks whether she wants to spend her life keeping her feelings in check. Inspired, Frankie cooks cedar-plank salmon with berry sauce and photographs it for a new personal album—ideas for her own cookbook. After dinner on a foggy beach, George announces that he will sleep on the couch. Halfway upstairs, Frankie asks, “What if it’s not a bad idea?” (258). The question hangs unanswered.

One day, 20-year-old Frankie recognized George’s father, Beau, outside their Toronto apartment. Although she distrusted him, George had invited him for coffee. Frankie confronted Beau privately, threatening him that “if [he] upset[] [George], [she’d] make sure [he] regret[ted] it" (260). The visit lasted three days, during which Beau seemed reformed. George told Frankie that he hoped his father could relate better to him now that he was an adult.

The next morning, Beau was gone, and George’s birthday money from Mimi was gone too. George collapsed crying. Frankie packed his bag and, despite having to work, took him home to the Big House for a family dinner with her family and Mimi.

George wrote a letter thanking Frankie for bringing him home after his father’s betrayal and for 12 years of friendship. He imagined an alternate reality where they never became neighbors and pitied that version of himself. He concluded that the only reality he wanted was the one he shared with her, and he signed the letter with love.