Chap­ter 35 cen­ters on Mil­lie, who is strug­gling to find nor­mal­cy and inde­pen­dence amidst the com­plex­i­ties of her life. Despite Andrew’s advice to refrain from tak­ing on work for the house­hold, Mil­lie takes small but sig­nif­i­cant steps toward regain­ing con­trol. One of the first acts of auton­o­my she rev­els in is gro­cery shop­ping, a sim­ple activ­i­ty that she finds lib­er­at­ing, espe­cial­ly when com­pared to the rigid gro­cery lists Nina once imposed on her. In the past, Nina’s lists dic­tat­ed every item Mil­lie bought, restrict­ing her choic­es and fos­ter­ing a sense of con­trol that now feels suf­fo­cat­ing. Now, free from this con­straint, Mil­lie takes plea­sure in pick­ing out her own gro­ceries and mak­ing deci­sions that are entire­ly her own. The sense of free­dom she feels in such a mun­dane task is empow­er­ing, mark­ing a sharp con­trast to her pre­vi­ous exis­tence under Nina’s watch­ful eye.

How­ev­er, her peace­ful moment is dis­rupt­ed when she receives a call from a blocked number—one that has been per­sis­tent­ly try­ing to reach her all day. The call is fol­lowed by an unex­pect­ed encounter with Patrice, a woman from Nina’s cir­cle, whose seem­ing­ly casu­al con­ver­sa­tion soon takes a dark turn. Dur­ing their dis­cus­sion, Patrice inad­ver­tent­ly reveals to Mil­lie a chill­ing fact: Nina has been track­ing her move­ments through a phone app. This rev­e­la­tion com­plete­ly shocks Mil­lie, as she had only imag­ined Nina’s con­trol extend­ing to benign actions like read­ing her text mes­sages, not real­iz­ing that Nina had been mon­i­tor­ing her every move so inva­sive­ly. The dis­cov­ery of this sur­veil­lance deeply unset­tles Mil­lie, high­light­ing the extent of Nina’s pow­er over her life, which she had nev­er ful­ly grasped before.

This chap­ter skill­ful­ly cap­tures Millie’s grad­ual real­iza­tion of the depth of Nina’s con­trol. It’s not just about check­ing her texts or know­ing her whereabouts—it’s the fact that Nina’s sur­veil­lance has been so thor­ough and secre­tive, mak­ing Mil­lie feel like her every action has been mon­i­tored. Patrice’s seem­ing­ly inno­cent con­ver­sa­tion serves as a cat­a­lyst for Mil­lie to con­front the true nature of her real­i­ty. The shock of learn­ing that Nina’s over­sight has been more per­va­sive than she ever imag­ined forces Mil­lie to ques­tion not only the rela­tion­ship dynam­ics but also her own sense of agency and inde­pen­dence. What she ini­tial­ly believed were nor­mal, if some­what con­trol­ling, acts of con­cern, now feel like vio­la­tions of her pri­va­cy and free­dom.

As the chap­ter pro­gress­es, Mil­lie begins to process the weight of this new infor­ma­tion. The idea that Nina has been spy­ing on her, going so far as to track her move­ments, cre­ates a sense of vio­la­tion and unease that Mil­lie can­not eas­i­ly shake. The psy­cho­log­i­cal toll this dis­cov­ery takes on her is immense; she feels a mix­ture of anger, betray­al, and con­fu­sion. These emo­tions are com­pound­ed by the real­iza­tion that she has been liv­ing under a con­stant cloud of sur­veil­lance, stripped of the pri­va­cy that should have been her right. Millie’s desire for auton­o­my becomes more urgent as she grap­ples with the impli­ca­tions of Nina’s con­trol, know­ing that to reclaim her life, she must con­front these hid­den forces that have shaped her real­i­ty.

The chap­ter con­cludes on a note of intro­spec­tion, as Mil­lie reflects on her past actions and how they have led her to this point of aware­ness. The shock of Nina’s inva­sive behav­ior serves as a turn­ing point in Millie’s emo­tion­al jour­ney, awak­en­ing her to the unhealthy dynam­ics that have dom­i­nat­ed her life for so long. Now, she must decide how to nav­i­gate the future—whether to con­front Nina and take back her free­dom or to con­tin­ue liv­ing in the shad­ow of her manip­u­la­tion. This new­found aware­ness forces Mil­lie to acknowl­edge the uncom­fort­able truth that she has been liv­ing under con­stant con­trol, and in order to regain her auton­o­my, she must take action.

This chap­ter is a pow­er­ful explo­ration of the themes of auton­o­my, con­trol, and sur­veil­lance, which res­onate deeply in the con­text of mod­ern rela­tion­ships. For any­one expe­ri­enc­ing sim­i­lar forms of emo­tion­al manip­u­la­tion, the chap­ter high­lights the impor­tance of rec­og­niz­ing and address­ing con­trol­ling behav­iors ear­ly on. Sur­veil­lance, in any form, is a vio­la­tion of per­son­al pri­va­cy, and learn­ing to iden­ti­fy when bound­aries have been crossed is essen­tial for men­tal and emo­tion­al well-being. Millie’s jour­ney serves as a cru­cial reminder of the impor­tance of self-aware­ness, per­son­al bound­aries, and the need to reclaim one’s space and iden­ti­ty from unhealthy rela­tion­ships. For any­one in a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion, this chap­ter under­scores the impor­tance of stand­ing up for your­self and tak­ing the nec­es­sary steps to pro­tect your emo­tion­al and men­tal health, even when it means con­fronting dif­fi­cult truths.