The arrival of Han­nah, a warm and ener­getic woman with a north­ern accent, shifts the con­ver­sa­tion toward broad­er top­ics, offer­ing John­no a brief reprieve from the group’s taunts. Her pres­ence injects a refresh­ing con­trast, and when she inquires about his life, the dis­cus­sion veers toward his dis­taste for city liv­ing and his pref­er­ence for the wilder­ness. He speaks of his pas­sion for the out­doors, recount­ing his role in orga­niz­ing a stag event filled with rugged adventure—kayaking through rough waters, scal­ing rocky cliffs—experiences that allowed him to reclaim a sense of pur­pose. As he speaks, John­no feels a flick­er of pride, momen­tar­i­ly for­get­ting the lin­ger­ing frus­tra­tions of the night. Yet, the past has a way of creep­ing back in, and the con­ver­sa­tion soon turns toward their shared his­to­ry, par­tic­u­lar­ly a tra­di­tion from their school days known as “Sur­vival.” The rit­u­al, once a test of endurance, left boys strand­ed in the vast school grounds overnight, forc­ing them to nav­i­gate the dark until morn­ing. While some recount the expe­ri­ence with exag­ger­at­ed brava­do, Johnno’s own mem­o­ries are more complex—he recalls fear giv­ing way to a kind of reck­less invin­ci­bil­i­ty, a trans­for­ma­tion that still lingers in the way he sees the world.

As the evening wears on, the group shifts focus to Johnno’s attempt—and failure—to secure a spot on a tele­vi­sion show, a moment of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty that he tries to mask with humor. The sting of that rejec­tion remains, a reminder that while oth­ers have carved out suc­cess­ful paths, he is still grasp­ing for his own. To dis­tract from his embar­rass­ment, he intro­duces a bot­tle of whisky he has brought, a ven­ture he has pur­sued in an effort to estab­lish some­thing mean­ing­ful beyond his out­door escapades. The whisky becomes more than just a drink; it sym­bol­izes his attempt to rede­fine him­self, to prove that he is more than just an adven­tur­er with­out direc­tion. The group indulges, their appre­ci­a­tion of the spir­it momen­tar­i­ly bridg­ing old ten­sions, offer­ing John­no a fleet­ing sense of val­i­da­tion. The warmth of shared admi­ra­tion, how­ev­er, does lit­tle to erase the under­ly­ing frac­tures with­in the group, the rem­nants of com­pe­ti­tion and com­par­i­son still evi­dent beneath the sur­face.

As the evening pro­gress­es, cama­raderie shifts into some­thing more reck­less, as some­one sug­gests a drink­ing game, an idea met with hes­i­ta­tion from Jules but quick­ly embraced by the oth­ers. The tran­si­tion from casu­al con­ver­sa­tion to an act of shared indul­gence mir­rors their school days, where moments of con­nec­tion often car­ried an edge of risk. Whether fueled by nos­tal­gia or a need to escape the real­i­ties of adult­hood, they slip back into their old roles, cling­ing to the reck­less­ness that once defined them. Beneath the laugh­ter and play­ful jabs lies a deep­er truth—each of them is grap­pling with the weight of expec­ta­tion, the lin­ger­ing pres­sure of who they were meant to become. The chap­ter mas­ter­ful­ly explores themes of mas­culin­i­ty, friend­ship, and the haunt­ing influ­ence of past expe­ri­ences, paint­ing a por­trait of men who, despite the years that have passed, are still teth­ered to the ghosts of their youth.