The Ex

Cassie Donovan is the owner of Bookland, a small independent bookstore in Manhattan, which she inherited from her grandparents Bea and Marv at the age of 22. Although she hates to admit it, Cassie knows Bookland is in trouble: Sales are down despite the best efforts of Cassie and her employee and best friend, Zoe. Cassie’s worries about the shop are interrupted when an attractive doctor named Joel buys a copy of Wuthering Heights, Cassie’s favorite novel. At Zoe’s urging, Joel asks Cassie out for date. Cassie eagerly accepts, even though Joel seems nervous, leading Cassie to suspect that he recently ended a relationship and is newly single.

Five months after her breakup with Joel, the Ex is still struggling to accept that he is gone. She dresses up in revealing outfits and takes photos of herself to post online, pretending that she has a vibrant social life. In reality, she spends her nights alone and her days following Joel using a location-sharing app called WhereAmI that he installed on both their phones when they were still together. The Ex uses the app to follow Joel to a coffee shop. She is thrilled when Joel approaches her, but disappointed when Joel reveals that he will no longer pay for her to live in their old apartment. The Ex lies about having found a new place and promises to invite Joel to her housewarming party.

The Ex tours a new micro-apartment that is only 70 square feet, a far cry from the luxurious apartment she shared with Joel. The apartment features a tiny, coffin-like sleeping space and a shared bathroom. Since she has two weeks left in her lease, the Ex decides that she can wait for something better to appear. As she leaves, she notices an unhoused woman sitting on the street. Keenly aware of how close she is to becoming unhoused herself, the Ex offers the woman $5 and agrees to buy her a sandwich from a convenience store that won’t let the woman in. When she tries to pay for the sandwich, she notices that the woman stole her wallet.

Cassie’s grandparents, Bea and Marv, met by chance when a stranger pushed Bea on the subway platform and her favorite book, Wuthering Heights, fell onto the tracks. Marv offered to replace it, bringing Bea to the bookstore his parents owned. When Bea and Marv married six months later, they took over the store. Many years later, Marv died in the store, and Bea joked that he haunted it. Shortly after, she died in the same spot, and Cassie took over the store.

As she prepares for her first date with Joel, Cassie wonders if their love story can live up to her grandparents’ story. The date goes well until an old friend of Joel’s approaches their table and confuses Cassie for Joel’s ex-girlfriend, Francesca.

Frustrated with her lack of options, the Ex travels to Brooklyn to cook dinner for her grandmother, an Italian immigrant. Her grandmother offers to set her up with the grandson of a friend, but the Ex rejects her offer. When the Ex complains about her lack of success finding an apartment, her grandmother offers to let her move in for free. The Ex accepts, convincing herself that anything is better than a micro-studio. She opens the WhereAmI app and notices that Joel is at a restaurant. Convinced that he is with another woman, the Ex decides to go into the city to find out who she is.

Joel’s friend Rob apologizes profusely for confusing Cassie with Joel’s ex-girlfriend, Francesca. Cassie is embarrassed by the mix-up and by Rob’s description of Francesca as a beautiful, brilliant woman that Joel had been excited to marry. After Rob leaves, Joel apologizes and says he doesn’t want to talk about Francesca. Cassie suspects that Francesca broke up with him, and wishes she knew more about their relationship, but respects Joel’s wishes. After a few awkward minutes, Cassie and Joel are able to return to the fun, flirty rapport they had at the beginning of the date. Cassie reassures herself that everyone has a past.

The Ex uses the WhereAmI app to find Joel’s exact location, a restaurant in Manhattan. As she rides the train in, she hopes that she’ll see him at a restaurant with his friends and not with a new woman. She arrives at the restaurant to find that he has already left. Using the app, she stalks him down the street until she finds him standing on the corner with a young woman with olive skin and long dark hair. As she watches them kiss, she remembers the first time Joel kissed her, at a Christmas party under mistletoe. Although she knows she should leave Joel and his new girlfriend alone, she keeps watching them until something snaps inside her.

The rest of Joel and Cassie’s date goes smoothly, and they share a perfect first kiss after leaving the restaurant. Joel offers to get Cassie a cab home, but she insists on taking the subway. She is pleased when he respects her decision, but later regrets it as the subway platform is empty and the train itself is filled with rowdy teenage boys. As she leaves the train at her stop, she senses someone walking behind her. She rushes into her apartment building and only dares to look back after the door locks behind her. She is surprised to find that no one is there.

After following Joel’s date home, the Ex stands outside her apartment for an hour. In the moment, she enjoyed knowing that the new girl was frightened. In the light of day the following morning, she is embarrassed by her behavior. She deletes the WhereAmI app and decides to go shopping to distract herself. While shopping, she runs into Lydia, the wife of Joel’s best friend Pete. Lydia rejects her offer to get a coffee, explaining that she doesn’t want to tell the Ex things that Joel told her and Pete in confidence. She does reveal that Joel is taking his new relationship seriously. To save face, the Ex tells Lydia that she is dating a new man named Connor.

Several weeks into their relationship, Cassie is convinced that Joel is unlike any man she has met before. Cassie makes plans to spend Halloween with Joel. As she walks to work, she is hassled by Maureen, an unhoused woman who spends most of her time in an alley next to Bookland. When she arrives at the bookstore, she is horrified to find that the façade has been splattered in a red material that she suspects is blood. Although she is hesitant to call the police, fearing she might be arrested for an unnamed crime, she knows she has no other choice.