Chap­ter 5 opens with Phoebe, con­sumed by a deep sense of iso­la­tion, as the last rem­nants of a wed­ding cel­e­bra­tion echo in the emp­ty room. The space, which was once filled with voic­es and the hum of hap­py con­ver­sa­tions, now ampli­fies only the harsh sound of her own thoughts. Her fam­i­ly, with all its com­plex­i­ties and emo­tion­al bag­gage, looms in her mind, offer­ing no com­fort but only a reminder of the tan­gled web of rela­tion­ships that she strug­gles to under­stand. In this silence, Phoebe is con­front­ed with the over­whelm­ing sense of dis­con­nec­tion she feels from her­self and her own body. She is caught in a tumul­tuous inter­nal bat­tle, strug­gling with self-doubt and self-loathing, and for a fleet­ing moment, the thought of end­ing it all seems like a way to escape the relent­less noise in her head. The very essence of her iden­ti­ty, wrapped in con­fu­sion and sor­row, seems frag­ile, and the weight of these emo­tions grows heav­ier as she con­tem­plates the enor­mi­ty of her exis­tence, which she no longer feels con­nect­ed to.

In her quest to numb the pain, Phoebe reach­es for anoth­er drink, the famil­iar com­fort of alco­hol offer­ing her some reprieve, though momen­tar­i­ly. She fol­lows this with a bot­tle of tuna-fla­vored painkillers, a des­per­ate attempt to fol­low through with the res­o­lu­tion she’s made to end her life. But even as she swal­lows the pills, her mind is flood­ed with mem­o­ries of a con­ver­sa­tion with her ther­a­pist, who had once told her she wasn’t “the type” to fol­low through with such dras­tic mea­sures. The words, meant to offer her a sense of reas­sur­ance, only inten­si­fy her feel­ings of inad­e­qua­cy. Phoebe can­not help but com­pare her­self to Mia, some­one who seems to approach life with an audac­i­ty that Phoebe finds for­eign to her own nature. Mia’s dar­ing and fear­less atti­tude toward life con­trast sharply with Phoebe’s own self-doubt, and it stirs up feel­ings of jeal­ousy and frus­tra­tion. Phoebe is left ques­tion­ing her place in a world that seems so full of life, while she feels par­a­lyzed by her own inde­ci­sion and fear.

As Phoebe con­tem­plates her next steps, she finds her­self dis­tract­ed by the lin­ger­ing scent of the bride’s per­fume and the trace of her lip­stick left behind in the room. These rem­nants of the bride’s pres­ence spark a train of thought about her own unful­filled ambi­tions and the goals she has aban­doned over the years. She thinks of the unfin­ished nov­els that are scat­tered in her mind, frag­ments of dreams that have nev­er been brought to life. This real­iza­tion prompts her to shift her focus. Rather than suc­cumb­ing to the temp­ta­tion of end­ing it all, Phoebe resolves to make a final act of defi­ance. The deci­sion to end her life sud­den­ly seems less like a state­ment of clo­sure and more like a foot­note in the sto­ry of her life, an incom­plete nar­ra­tive that she no longer wants to be a part of. Even as she feels a fleet­ing sense of accom­plish­ment from swal­low­ing the pills, a moment of vic­to­ry quick­ly turns to doubt. She begins to ques­tion whether the pills will actu­al­ly work or if they will leave her hang­ing in a state of uncer­tain­ty, just as she has felt through­out her life.

Sud­den­ly, a knock on the door inter­rupts her con­tem­pla­tion. It’s Pauline, a young woman who offers her assis­tance, though Phoebe ini­tial­ly feels no incli­na­tion to accept. Despite the inner voice telling her to push peo­ple away, Phoebe can’t help but feel a sense of famil­iar­i­ty in Pauline’s pres­ence. They share a con­nec­tion, hav­ing both come from the same Mid­west­ern back­ground, and in that moment, Phoebe finds a small degree of com­fort in the recog­ni­tion. Pauline’s pres­ence, so full of life and hope, serves as a reminder of what Phoebe has lost touch with. She lis­tens as Pauline shares her own strug­gles with her new job, a con­ver­sa­tion that Phoebe ulti­mate­ly dis­miss­es as naive, yet there is some­thing in Pauline’s youth­ful opti­mism that stirs Phoebe’s own long­ing for sim­plic­i­ty, for a time when life seemed less com­pli­cat­ed.

Exhaust­ed and emo­tion­al­ly drained, Phoebe sinks into her thoughts again, her mind rac­ing with con­flict­ing emo­tions. As she lis­tens to the speech being giv­en below her win­dow by the bride’s moth­er, mem­o­ries of Lila’s child­hood are recount­ed. The speech mean­ders through sto­ries of the bride’s ear­ly years, evok­ing a sense of nos­tal­gia and a long­ing for the uncom­pli­cat­ed nature of youth. These anec­dotes pro­voke Phoebe to reflect on her own child­hood, par­tic­u­lar­ly her unre­solved issues with her par­ents. The frac­tured rela­tion­ship with her fam­i­ly and the lack of parental love weigh heav­i­ly on her heart, and she is left won­der­ing if she will ever tru­ly under­stand what it means to be loved in the way oth­ers seem to expe­ri­ence. The speech below, while trig­ger­ing these dif­fi­cult mem­o­ries, also serves as a cat­a­lyst for Phoebe to con­front the emo­tion­al void she has car­ried for so long.

As Phoebe sur­ren­ders to the over­whelm­ing despair, some­thing inside her shifts. She begins to recall the impor­tance of com­ple­tion, the need to face the chal­lenges of life rather than retreat into death. Her thoughts evolve into a desire to con­tin­ue the sto­ry she has been unwill­ing to fin­ish, to find out if there’s more to her nar­ra­tive than the dark chap­ter she feels trapped in. She real­izes, despite the sad­ness and con­fu­sion, that she does not want to die, that she has more to explore, more to expe­ri­ence. This epiphany leads her to the bath­room, where she instinc­tive­ly tries to purge the pills from her sys­tem, des­per­ate to undo what she has done. The act is exhaust­ing, both phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly, yet it marks a turn­ing point for Phoebe. As she lis­tens to the joy­ous sounds of the cel­e­bra­tion below, she feels an unex­pect­ed sense of con­nec­tion to the world she once longed to leave behind. Despite the over­whelm­ing void she feels inside, Phoebe choos­es life, cling­ing to the hope that the next chap­ter might bring more than she can imag­ine.