Yunior recalls Miss Lora, and wonders whether he would have entered into a relationship with her if his brother Rafa hadn’t recently died from cancer. In 1985, Yunior is sixteen years old and has a girlfriend, Paloma, who refuses to have sex with him because she can’t afford to make “any mistakes” — she dreams of going to college. Yunior often dreams about an oncoming apocalypse. Miss Lora, his neighbor, is willing to listen to him rant. Yunior admires Miss Lora’s muscular frame, and she seems to show an interest in him too. Frustrated by Paloma’s modesty, Yunior starts to visit Miss Lora every night and have sex with her. He learns about her life: She grew up in an unstable home and had been an Olympic-aspiring gymnast until the Dominican Republic had to pull out of the competition. She had tried to live with boyfriends in Berlin and Michigan before she settled down by herself in New Jersey. Miss Lora encourages Yunior to open up about his brother and to apply for college. In Yunior’s senior year, Miss Lora gets a job at his high school. Another teacher starts to see Miss Lora at her house, and Yunior gets jealous, even as he and Miss Lora keep up their affair. After graduation, Paloma goes to the University of Delaware, but Yunior stays behind. He works at a steel mill and continues to see Miss Lora. Years later, when Yunior has moved to college at Rutgers, he has a series of failed relationships and chalks up his troubles to Miss Lora. Finally, in senior year, Yunior dates the girlfriend of his dreams and opens up to her about Miss Lora. The girlfriend sees Miss Lora as abusive, but Yunior says that it wasn’t like that. When Yunior brings his girlfriend home, she asks his mom about Miss Lora. Yunior’s mom replies that he’s just like his father and brother, both of whom had numerous affairs. The girlfriend goes up to Miss Lora’s building and knocks on her door, but no one answers. Miss Lora shows up to Yunior’s college graduation. Later, she moves away as neighborhood prices rise. Yunior still sometimes looks up her name online. When he visits her hometown in D.R., he asks about her and carries around a photo of the two of them.