Peter goes to the university hoping to see Sylvia after his afternoon class, needing the comfort of her company after his troubles with Christine and Ivan. He discovers from a colleague that Sylvia is home sick. He texts her, and she asks him to pick up her prescriptions and leave them outside her apartment door. Peter senses something wrong in her insistence that he not come inside, but he collects the medications from the pharmacy and heads to her apartment.

At Sylvia's door, Peter announces himself and she tells him to leave the medicine outside. He overrides her wishes and lets himself in with his key. He finds Sylvia lying on the floor between the coffee table and the sofa, drenched in sweat, with a basin of vomit beside her, unable to get up due to excruciating pain. Peter gives her water and medication, cleans the basin despite her protests, and sits beside her on the floor, holding her hand through waves of pain. He reflects on his feelings of guilt and uselessness—paralleling his helplessness during his father's cancer treatment—and struggles with the unbridgeable gap between witnessing another person's suffering and being able to alleviate it.

After about twenty minutes, Peter helps Sylvia to her feet, supports her to the bathroom and then to bed. As the painkillers begin working, they lie together and begin an emotionally raw conversation. Sylvia explains she broke up with him to prevent mutual hatred, but Peter confesses he feels she punishes him by letting him humiliate himself pleading for her, only to reject him again. Sylvia admits she finds his pleading flattering and enjoys imagining he still desires her. This honest exchange shifts into physical intimacy: Peter kisses her, and they share a tender, almost tentative sexual encounter that leaves both of them happy and relieved at how easy and natural it felt.

Afterward, they exchange declarations of love. Peter goes to make Sylvia toast, feeling euphoric. In the kitchen, he checks his phone and finds texts from Naomi, who is cooking dinner at his apartment and asking what time he'll be home. The messages shatter his contentment. Peter is struck by the full weight of his contradictory commitments—his declarations of love to Sylvia, his intimacy with Naomi, his fractured family relationships. He feels a desperate impulse to pray but stops himself, recognizing the conceptual collapse of all his compartmentalized lives into one unbearable reality, with no clear answer to even the simple question of where to sleep tonight.