Chap­ter 1 begins with the nar­ra­tor mak­ing a stop at Men’s Wear­house in Strouds­burg to return the tuxe­do he had worn to a wed­ding. The employ­ee behind the counter, a young man with pink hair and mul­ti­ple pierc­ings, greets him warm­ly and asks how the event went. The nar­ra­tor responds polite­ly, though his mind is else­where, still reel­ing from the events of the pre­vi­ous night. The exhaus­tion from the long dri­ve back from New Hamp­shire with Tam­my and Abi­gail weighs on him, but even more than that, the uncer­tain­ty of what had unfold­ed leaves him rest­less. Despite Maggie’s reas­sur­ances that things would set­tle down, a per­sis­tent wor­ry lingers. He spends the night check­ing his phone for any updates, but by morn­ing, there is still noth­ing. The lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion gnaws at him, fuel­ing his anx­i­ety about what could hap­pen next.

In an effort to shake off the unease, he turns his atten­tion to house­hold chores, hop­ing the dis­trac­tion will help. He strips the sheets off the bed in Maggie’s child­hood room and loads them into the wash­ing machine, an act that feels both prac­ti­cal and emo­tion­al. Although she had said she wasn’t com­ing back, he finds him­self unwill­ing to ful­ly accept it, cling­ing to a small hope that she might change her mind. After return­ing the tuxe­do, he heads to ShopRite, fill­ing his cart with Maggie’s favorite foods, almost as if prepar­ing for a home­com­ing he knows is unlike­ly. Each aisle he walks through is punc­tu­at­ed by the habit­u­al glance at his phone, search­ing for a call or mes­sage that has yet to arrive. Hours pass, the sun dip­ping low­er in the sky, before his phone final­ly rings. See­ing Vicky’s name on the screen, his stom­ach tight­ens, know­ing that what­ev­er she has to say will only add to the emo­tion­al weight he is already car­ry­ing.

Vicky wastes no time address­ing the ele­phant in the room, offer­ing her con­do­lences after see­ing the shock­ing news online. A tech mogul’s son had died in a firearms acci­dent right before his wed­ding, a sto­ry that quick­ly spread across social media and news out­lets. The cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the tragedy have drawn intense pub­lic scruti­ny, and Vicky nat­u­ral­ly wants to know how Mag­gie is hold­ing up. The nar­ra­tor hes­i­tates, not want­i­ng to lie but also unable to reveal the full truth. Instead, he set­tles on a vague response, stat­ing that Mag­gie is con­fused, which, while tech­ni­cal­ly accu­rate, bare­ly scratch­es the sur­face of her emo­tion­al tur­moil. Sens­ing his reluc­tance, Vicky sug­gests meet­ing up for din­ner, offer­ing him a space to talk things through. Though tempt­ed by the idea of sup­port, he instinc­tive­ly recoils, know­ing he isn’t ready for that kind of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. He dis­miss­es her offer, remark­ing that she isn’t a ther­a­pist, a state­ment that vis­i­bly stings her.

The ten­sion in their con­ver­sa­tion lingers, and though Vicky insists she isn’t “just” a hair­dress­er, he feels over­whelmed and brings the call to an abrupt end. Frus­trat­ed with him­self and the sit­u­a­tion, he takes down her busi­ness cards from the refrig­er­a­tor, debat­ing whether to throw them away. He tells him­self that avoid­ing anoth­er hair­cut for at least a month will give him the space he needs to cre­ate some dis­tance. Despite this ratio­nal­iza­tion, he can’t shake the feel­ing that push­ing peo­ple away won’t make his prob­lems dis­ap­pear. Yet, at this moment, avoid­ance feels like the only way to main­tain con­trol over the chaos unrav­el­ing around him. As he stares at his phone, wait­ing for a mes­sage that might nev­er come, the weight of uncer­tain­ty set­tles over him once more, leav­ing him caught between the past and an unknown future.