One night, there is a lot of weird giggling coming from Max's bedroom. This is not unusual, and Marcus is used to ignoring it. But there's some other, weirder noises as he walks past her door, and he realizes that MANG is watching porn. He laughs-but honestly, best not to think about it.
Except he hears Ginny mention that guys are bad at sex because they watch too much porn.
Oof.
He doesn't really watch porn, or not much, but that wasn't why he was bad at sex, their first time.
Later, he happens to look out his window just as Ginny is looking out her window.
On a whim, he texts her: Howdy, neighbor
He figures there are a couple of possible outcomes, the most likely being that she just ignores him. Second most likely, she says something about him being a creeper, or How did you get my number?, or maybe: Just leave me alone.
You never know which Ginny you're going to get.
The one thing he would never, ever have expected is to get back a picture of Ginny dressed only in a bra—and a lot of makeup and some filters—making the kind of expression girls think is sexy, but just comes off looking a little strange.
And she even asks him: Is this sexy?
He answers immediately that yes, of course it's sexy, because it is, even if he personally thinks she's sexier without all the Instagram makeup and a normal expression on her face.
But still, it's hot, and made even more so by the fact that it came the fuck out of nowhere.
He keeps it going: he asks her for more pics. Not sexy pics, he just asks what she's doing. Brushing her teeth. He's brushing his teeth too.
And before he can stop himself, he asks if she actually enjoyed the sex. The sex they had, that one time. It seems so long ago. He admits he overheard the MANG porn chat.
She doesn't respond for a second, but eventually admits that she did not, in fact, enjoy it.
Marcus isn't surprised, but at least she's being honest about it.
And then she says it's not his fault; that she's never had an orgasm.
Marcus is in completely unknown territory now. He doesn't sext with Padma. Has never sexted with anyone. Has, in fact, sat through more than one mortifying lecture from his parents, separately and jointly, about how they will personally kill him if he ever sexts with anyone, because the internet is forever, and does he really want that stuff coming back to haunt him later, and also something something child pornography … and that's usually when he stops listening.
He also has no idea how to give any real useful advice about … female masturbation, or orgasms.
But he tries, tentatively, to sext with Ginny. In a sort of lowkey way. No nudes. It still feels weird. He'd rather actually be with her in person. He feels like he's playing a role. And it's not one he's familiar with.
He pretends he's—going along with it. So to speak. He's not. Ginny sends an awkward picture. Another fake Instagram face. The whole thing was a bad idea. They're both faking it. Pretending. And when they've both fake-finished, he ends the convo as fast as he can.
And tries to smother himself with a pillow.
The whole thing was basically the text equivalent of their first time together.
This is not sexy.
But then he picks up the phone again, and looks at the first pic Ginny sent him, Instagram pout and all. He stares at it. He sighs and gets up to head to the bathroom.
Max cackles from her bedroom door: "How many showers are you gonna take tonight, perv?"
"Watch more porn, loser," he calls back, and that shuts her up.
Ginny avoids Marcus after the awkward sexting session. She also ignores his subsequent texts.
Marcus tries to talk to her at school, just to see what's up. Maxine chases him off.
Of course she does.
Marcus is living his own double life these days—while he's constantly thinking about Ginny, he and Padma are hooking up a little more often. She's dropping more hints. About their status. Not outright asking. But he can feel the question there, lingering under the surface. He can feel how bad she wants to ask. But she won't actually ask. She's being cool. She's got other stuff going on—her band stuff, with, God, Hunter—and all the other things she's involved in. She pretends it's not a big deal. Them.
He shouldn't be sleeping with her. But the antidepressants are definitely out of his system now, and his sex drive is basically out of control. And Padma is, let's face it, smoking hot.
He just doesn't have a lot to say to her afterwards.
It's not okay, what he's doing. He knows she's actually getting hooked on him. It wasn't supposed to happen. And he's taking advantage of it.
I need to stop this, he thinks, each time. That was the last time.
That was definitely the last time.
… Ok, but this one is definitely the last time.
Ginny still won't answer his texts. He deletes all the pictures she sent him, because he's pretty sure the sexting is what fucked everything up, and he doesn't want to be reminded of it.
He stops texting her, so she doesn't have a reason to tell people he's being creepy.
But during Fall Fest, he sits down next to her at the face-painting table. He asks for a heart.
Ginny stares ice daggers at him. She tries to get him to leave. She's obviously worried people are going to see them talking, like that's some big crime.
Marcus persists. It's a dumb impulse, but he can be stubborn, and so he keeps trying.
Ginny draws a penis on his face.
Yeah, Marcus thinks, looking in the mirror. Yeah, I guess I had that coming.
So he resolves to leave her alone after that. No texts, no window visits—and none of their lingering, knowing glances at school.
The mixed messages are too much for him to deal with. The Two Ginnys are one too many.
But he's got to do something about Padma.
Halloween night, and Marcus is so happy to be home and alone and high and getting ready to do some sketching.
But there's suddenly a ruckus in the hallway. Max is always making a ruckus, but something doesn't sound right. And it's too early for her to be home from her party. And there's more than one voice.
He pokes his head inside her doorway, and it's immediately obvious what's going on: Max is completely hammered, like falling-down, out of her mind, alcohol-poisoning hammered. Ginny is there too, but that's only the third or fourth most important thing happening right now: Mom is also calling up to find out what's going on.
Marcus quickly handles that: "I was trying to scare Max," he improvises.
"Don't scare your sister," Mom admonishes.
Marcus silently responds, with a certain kind of universal sign language, before ducking back inside Max's bedroom.
Ginny's dressed up as—he can't quite place it, some kind of slutty schoolgirl thing?—but Max is still the issue, because he's never seen her this drunk.
But she's not too drunk to talk about the girl who has broken her heart, or something, and to flop around in the bed and make jokes. He gets her under the covers. He makes her roll over on her side, because when they both started experimenting with drugs and booze, they made a pact that, no matter what, they would always make sure the other one didn't die from choking on their own vomit—because they both agreed, that would be unbelievably gross.
He kisses her on the cheek, because Max must actually be hurting to be this messed up. Besides, she won't remember he did it.
He ushers Ginny out of the room with him.
Next thing he knows, Ginny is apologizing. In a sad, heartfelt voice that blows all of Marcus's emotional guards away.
She's apologizing for everything. For avoiding him, for ignoring him, for all of it. She admits it was shitty. She says she didn't want to mess things up with—and here she pauses—"Max and everyone".
He can't tell if what she really means is Hunter. Or if she does just mean Max and her clique. Or her Wellsbury life in general. He doesn't know which Ginny he's dealing with right now.
But he doesn't want to waste this moment, so he makes her a proposition: they can just be friends.
At first, she wrinkles her nose: "Friends?", like that's not enough, but she quickly goes along with it. So it must be what this particular Ginny wants. Or what she wants right now.
So now they're friends. Which is, in a way, better than the weird situation they were in before.
It also sucks.
This is not sexy.
Ginny leaves. Maxine hollers for Marcus, so he goes to check on her again, before Mom gets riled up. Maxine does her bloody-mouth Halloween prank again.
She is absolutely exhausting.
"What is wrong with you?" he asks her, knowing there is no answer. She's just Maxine, all the time.
"You cared about me," Maxine burbles triumphantly.
"You're the worst," they say, and sign, at each other, and he gets out of there before he is forced to murder her.