After caring for Sylvia through her pain episode, Peter texts Naomi that he'll be staying at Sylvia's for the evening. He watches a film with Sylvia until she falls asleep, then sits beside her, overwhelmed by guilt over his double life. He reflects on how he has given both women reason to believe he is truly in love with them—and realizes he himself has believed it with both. Frightened by the disorder of his life, he leaves Sylvia a note professing his love and heads out into the night.

Peter takes pills from his wallet and goes to meet friends at Mulligan's pub. He drinks heavily while his friends discuss the housing crisis. When talk turns to Naomi's eviction and living situation, Peter notices Val and Matt exchanging knowing glances, realizing they are aware of his relationship with Naomi—and possibly of her past as an online sex worker. He internally cycles through imagined advice from friends, debating whether to choose Sylvia or Naomi, framing it as maturity versus youth, intellect versus appetite, the love of his life versus his captive tormentor.

As the group disperses, Peter persuades Gary to stay for another drink. In a rare moment of drunken honesty, Peter confesses that he and Ivan despise each other, reveals Ivan's relationship with an older woman in Leitrim, and admits he reacted badly out of hypocrisy—recognizing the parallel to his own age-gap relationship with Naomi. He further confesses to Gary that he's involved with someone else besides Naomi, and Gary quietly deduces it is Sylvia. Gary offers no judgment, and Peter stumbles out into the rain.

Walking home drunk through Dublin, Peter is consumed by grief—for his failed relationship with Sylvia, for his father's death, and for the life he and Sylvia might have shared. He weeps against a lamp-post, mourning that his father died without knowing Peter and Sylvia still loved each other. He resolves that there is only one way forward: he must choose Sylvia and end things with Naomi, offering her his father's empty house in Kildare.

Arriving home, Peter finds Naomi watching snooker in the dark. He collapses at her feet and, for the first time, fully explains his history with Sylvia—the accident, the chronic pain, the inability to be physically intimate, and his unbroken love for her. He tells Naomi they have to stop seeing each other. Naomi listens, then pushes back, arguing that his insistence on conventional exclusivity is self-destructive and that she would accept the arrangement with Sylvia. Peter insists life doesn't work that way. Naomi, hurt and angry, calls him sick for trying to put everyone in boxes. They kiss passionately, and she asks him to come to bed one last time before sending her away. Peter, too drunk, declines but promises they will be together in the morning—and that he will tell her he loves her then. They go to sleep.