The Love of My Afterlife

Delphie wakes up on Sunday, her last day on Earth, trying not to think about her return to Evermore. Instead, she focuses on giving Mr. Yoon the best party he could hope for. She visits Mr. Yoon to get him ready for the party, and he informs her he is excited to go to his first party in 30 years. Both are amazed when they get to the library’s music room, where Aled shows Mr. Yoon a device that voices whatever he types. Many guests have decided to attend—even more than Delphie originally invited. Frida is there, as is the downstairs neighbor, Mrs. Ernestine. Delphie also speaks to Cooper’s mother, Amy, who suggests that Cooper is in love with her, and Delphie reconsiders how her imminent death will affect him. She gets a message from Merritt revealing that the coworker whom she thought was suspicious of her is actually just attracted to her. Merritt again insists that Delphie find Jonah and kiss him, if only so that she can keep living the happy life she has built for herself over the last 10 days. Delphie rethinks whether or not this is a life she is capable of giving up.

When Delphie returns to the music room, she sees all the guests in a circle, waiting for her. Cooper gives Mr. Yoon his violin, and he plays the most beautiful music that Delphie has ever heard. When Mr. Yoon is finished, both he and Delphie have tears in their eyes. He reveals that he composed this song two years ago, shortly after they became friends, and titled it “Delphie from Next Door. A Sonata.” Cooper asks Delphie to dance, which is something that he wanted to do at the earlier gala. As the two dance, Delphie knows that she doesn’t want to give up this life, and she feels as if she is finally living for the first time. She knows that she only has two hours left before Merritt takes her back to Evermore, and she resolves to find a way to get Jonah to kiss her.

Delphie slips away from the party and goes to Gen’s house. When she arrives, she sees that Gen’s seemingly happy life isn’t nearly as happy as she thought. Rather than asking Gen where Jonah lives, Delphie asks if Gen really forgot her after all these years. They begin to talk about their past, and Gen admits that she was only mean to Delphie around the time that Delphie was trying to hide the severity of her mother’s crisis after the divorce. Gen offers a halfhearted apology, but Delphie accepts it and asks for Jonah’s address, which Gen reluctantly gives her. As Delphie is leaving, Gen asks if she wants to have a drink sometime, and though Delphie understands the reasoning behind this offer, she refuses.

When she returns to her building, Delphie finds Cooper’s apartment filled with many of the guests from the party after the illicit party at the library was disbanded. Delphie asks Cooper to drive her to Jonah’s house. Because she is unable to explain why her request is so urgent, Cooper assumes that she is not well and tries to get her to sit down and relax. Delphie ends up blurting out the whole truth about Evermore, Merritt, and Jonah, but Cooper thinks she is joking and is particularly shocked by her mention of Merritt. Even so, Cooper agrees to drive Delphie to Jonah’s, but he seems extremely distant. In all the chaos, Delphie realizes that she doesn’t even know Cooper’s full name, which he reveals is Remington Leopold Cooper. The mood is lightened as they joke about Cooper’s ridiculous name. However, as they turn onto Jonah’s street, they crash into another car, and Delphie feels a surge of pain before all feeling disappears.

Delphie wakes up to see Merritt with another man whom she correctly guesses is Merritt’s coworker and rival-turned-lover, Eric. Delphie cannot believe that she died in a car crash before she was able to get to Jonah, but her next thought is immediately about Cooper. Merritt points out that Cooper is sleeping in a chair right behind Delphie and that he too is dead but hasn’t yet awakened in the afterlife. Delphie cries and begs Merritt to send Cooper back to the real world, knowing that he doesn’t deserve this end to his life. However, when Cooper finally opens his eyes, he immediately finds Merritt rather than Delphie and hugs her, saying he can’t believe she is actually here. Merritt is crying too, and when Cooper finally sees Delphie, he explains that Merritt is his deceased sister, M (whose name Delphie mistakenly assumed was “Em”). Merritt reveals that she didn’t intend to bring Cooper to Evermore and wasn’t responsible for the car crash at all, but fate has brought them both here. Merritt is disappointed that Cooper and Delphie want to leave Evermore, but as Delphie is about to ask her about it, she begins to collapse. Merritt mentions something about Delphie getting her kiss after all, and Delphie begins to fade away into nothingness.

Delphie wakes up in the real world to find Jonah giving her CPR. She sees Cooper lying on the ground in front of his crashed car just before she is rushed into an ambulance. When she wakes up later in the hospital, she is surprised to see Jonah again. He informs her that she had surgery but should recover. She asks after Cooper, who is in the bed next to her and is in a coma. Jonah reveals that he has been waiting for her to wake up all night and doesn’t want to leave her, even though she terrified him twice in one week, but Delphie insists that he can go. A doctor eventually comes in and tells her that Cooper is in a bad state. She goes to Cooper’s bedside and begs Merritt to return him to life, but she hears nothing. Though she now has her life back because Jonah technically kissed her, Delphie does not know what her life will look like without Cooper.

Delphie is moved to a less intensive ward in the hospital, away from Cooper. She calls his parents and Aled, who stayed with Mr. Yoon the previous night. Aled tries to prepare Delphie for the worst news, but she doesn’t want to hear it. She tries to get a nurse to give her the strongest pain medication possible, hoping that she might be able to reach Evermore as an unconscious visitor like Jonah did, but her plan doesn’t work. When she wakes up later, she is still in the hospital, and she sees Cooper’s parents and Uncle Lester, who all look disheveled. Delphie knows that she is to blame for their anguish, and she reflects that it is her fault for causing them to lose yet another child. She mentions that Cooper was distracted and laughing when they crashed, and his parents reassure her that they will be there if she needs them when she gets out of the hospital. Delphie tells them to be with Cooper, then convinces another nurse to give her the strongest medication possible.

Delphie fades in and out of consciousness over the next three days. A nurse comes to tell her that she is being cut off from the pain medication. She receives a message from her mother after admitting that she is in the hospital, but her mother’s reply is brief and careless. Delphie finally recognizes how often her mother treated her dismissively, so she deletes her mother’s phone number. The next afternoon, the doctor tells Delphie to prepare herself for the possibility of Cooper’s death, as they don’t know why he hasn’t woken up yet. Leanne comes to visit her and brings her soup, and Delphie feels bad for having failed to reciprocate Leanne’s attempts to form a friendship. Leanne reminds her that she promised to go out for a drink, and Delphie thinks that such an outing might actually make her feel better.

Delphie thinks about her feelings for Cooper and realizes that it is more than just lust. Jan visits and reassures her that fate will bring her what she needs. When Aled comes to visit, Delphie explains her fake-dating experience with Cooper, and Aled compares it to a common trope found in romance novels. This causes Delphie to reflect on Merritt’s interest in romance tropes, and as she does more research on the genre, she realizes that she and Cooper resemble the protagonists in a romance novel far more than she and Jonah ever did. Delphie starts to suspect that Merritt intended to set her up with Cooper and will eventually send him back to the real world but wants more time to say goodbye to him in Evermore. Acting on this intuition, Delphie lets Merritt know that she is aware of the Afterlife Therapist’s plan and is willing to wait however long she needs to in order to be with Cooper again. When Delphie is discharged from the hospital, all of her friends are there to pick her up, making her realize that for the first time in her life, she might have too many friends. When she gets to her apartment, a man is there, and she assumes it is Cooper before realizing that it is Jonah. He is happy to see her and offers to help her up the stairs, but Delphie wants to do it on her own. Jonah admits that he can’t stop thinking about Delphie since he gave her CPR. He describes feeling a spark around her and says he broke up with the woman he was seeing. Jonah insists that they have a connection and believes that they must have met before, but Delphie rejects him, now knowing that she is in love with Cooper. She also feels like a completely different person and no longer has any desire to chase after Jonah.

Twelve weeks later, Cooper still hasn’t woken up, but Delphie still goes to visit him every day. She tells Cooper that Aled and Mr. Yoon have become best friends and explains that Mr. Yoon’s new text-to-speech device allows him to tell her all about his life. Mr. Yoon now has a nurse to give him the care he needs, and they are joined for breakfast every morning by their neighbor, Mrs. Ernestine. While Delphie was recovering from the broken leg she sustained in the accident, she took up drawing again and drew portraits of everyone in her life. Delphie has learned so much more about their friends, all of whom are doing well and have encouraged her to exhibit her drawings at the library. 

On the day of the exhibition, Cooper appears, having suddenly woken up from his coma.

Cooper reveals that he woke up from the coma that morning; the doctors say he will be fine. Cooper tells Delphie that Merritt finally sent him back. Suddenly, Merritt herself appears, and the three of them embrace. However, Merritt states that she didn’t intend to set Delphie up with Cooper. Merritt sent Delphie back to the real world to show her what her life could be like, and she used Jonah as a ploy to do so, bringing him to Evermore during his dental surgery, knowing that the effects of the heavy drugs would give the impression that he had feelings for Delphie. Merritt thought this would help Delphie to live a little, but she didn’t expect Delphie to fall in love with her brother or to give up on the possibility of kissing Jonah. Merritt was responsible for fortuitous arrangements like the rain storm after the gala and the booked-solid hotel rooms. However, the car accident was not part of Merritt’s plan, and she couldn’t use the Franklin Bellamy clause to send Cooper back because he wasn’t technically dead. Her new boyfriend, Eric, made a plea to their bosses to send Cooper back for the sake of true love after he and Merritt saw how desperate Cooper was to be with Delphie. As Merritt tearfully prepares to leave Delphie and Cooper, she reminds Delphie about all the things that are worth living for. Cooper and Delphie confess their love for one another, and she takes him to see all their friends. Surrounded by the people she has come to care for, Delphie feels excited to live the next chapter of her life.