The following version of this story was used to create this guide: Rooney, Sally. "Unread Messages." The New Yorker, 2021. https://www.newyorker.com/books/this-week-in-fiction/sally-rooney-07-12-21.

Note that parenthetical citations refer to the page number on which the quotation appears.

"Unread Messages" begins with the third person narrator describing a woman's afternoon on Wednesday. At her desk, she spends time reading and editing different pieces of writing before telling her colleagues that she is going out to lunch. At the cafe, she watches as a man enters on his phone. Soon after, he comes over to her and apologizes, offering to buy her coffee. His name is Simon. The two exchange banter about the man's personal life and the woman's sister's wedding while remaining flirtatious with one another.

The woman returns to work, and afterward, after arriving home, she spends time searching for a man named Aiden Lavin. She searches through a number of his social media pages, looking at photos and comments from women. The woman goes to sleep.

The narrator explains that the woman's name is Eileen Lydon. She grew up with an older sister, named Lola, who is now getting married. One of their neighbors was a boy five years older than Eileen, named Simon. Eileen and Simon developed a close relationship that continued through Eileen's time at university and into her job at a magazine. They always kept in touch with one another, even when they were each in relationships. Occasionally, they would sleep together. In her twenties, Eileen had a novelist roommate named Alice and afterward, a boyfriend named Aiden. Aiden eventually broke up with her after many years together.

Returning to the present, Eileen attends a poetry reading sponsored by her work. Afterward, she and a coworker, Paula, have drinks and talk about relationships. When Eileen returns home, she calls Simon, who is staying in a hotel. The two have a flirtatious conversation.

A few weeks later, Eileen goes to a birthday party at a bar with friends. On her way, she has a fraught text message exchange with her sister, Lola. At the party, the group debates the merits of Marxism and the notion of the working class. Eileen leaves late, and on her way home, stops at Simon's house. They have sex, and the next morning Eileen asks if she can come to church with him even though she is not Catholic. They go to church and hold hands during the mass. After mass, Eileen and Simon bid one another goodbye.