In this flashback to when Frankie and George were sixteen, Frankie explains that she became preoccupied with sex partly because she knew George was already sexually active with Tish. Frankie's anxiety about being inexperienced, combined with George's refusal to discuss sex with her, makes Frankie feel that their lives are beginning to split apart. Wanting control over her first time, Frankie decides to sleep with Dylan Martin after the winter formal and even steals a condom from George's room to prepare.

The plan goes badly. Frankie gets tipsy on Dylan's rum, and George unexpectedly follows Frankie and Dylan out of the dance. George is furious, and Frankie sees him hit someone for the first time. In the weeks that follow, Dylan stops talking to Frankie, George and Tish break up, and Frankie creates a new plan.

One night, while her family is away and Darwin is gone, Frankie invites George to sleep over. When George climbs in through her window, he finds Frankie waiting in her underwear with candles lit. Frankie blurts out that she wants them to have sex together, arguing that she trusts George, that he would not humiliate her, and that his experience would make him the safest choice. Beneath Frankie's practical reasoning is another motive: Frankie also wants to know whether George's earlier anger over Dylan meant something more.

George is visibly shaken by the sight of Frankie and by the proposition. He sits beside her, listens, and responds when Frankie kisses him; his lips soften and he takes her hand. But when Frankie frames sex as something she wants to "get over with," George recoils. George tells Frankie that he does not even know who she is in that moment, then leaves through the window.

The next morning, Frankie tries to apologize, but George avoids her for two days. He finally sends Frankie a letter through the birdhouse, saying that Frankie is his best friend, that sleeping together would be a huge mistake, and that he is sorry if he ever made her think otherwise. George asks Frankie to promise never to kiss him again, and Frankie writes back that it will never happen again.