Marcus has caught wind of some kind of drama going on with Ginny, some sense of something wrong, but he's just getting the edges of it. She doesn't smile at school. He doesn't know which Ginny she is right now, but definitely not a happy one.
So the next time Ginny is hanging out at their house, he walks past Max's bedroom a little more slowly than he might otherwise.
He overhears Ginny say: "I'm so sick of people not being direct and truthful."
Interesting, but she could mean almost anyone in this dumb town.
But then Ginny drops a huge bombshell: some massive family drama; some secret, previously unknown relatives or something?
Marcus rounds the corner into Max's bedroom, muttering some unnecessary excuse about how their parents are gone.
Then he looks directly at Ginny, before Max can throw him out. "Are you okay?"
And then Max tries to throw him out.
Of course she does.
But Ginny vetoes Max this time. She speaks directly to Marcus, and repeats what she'd been saying before: stuff about secret, long-lost family members, her mother lying to her, people who were supposed to be dead aren't actually dead? It all sounds completely nuts.
Honestly, from his observations of Georgia Miller so far, none of this is surprising.
But Ginny is obviously distraught. Not excited to have new relatives.
Max, on the other hand, is delighted: "I would watch the shit out of that show."
God, Max.
To Ginny, Marcus says: "That sucks."
One thing he learned in therapy is that sometimes people just need someone to agree with them that, yes, this particular shit, whatever it is, does indeed suck.
Sometimes a person doesn't need to be told that they're overreacting, or that it could be worse, or that they'll feel better tomorrow or next week or next year, or that they should just exercise or a get a hobby.
Or—jesusfuckingchristmax—that their problems sound so cool and so interesting.
Ginny talks some more, just letting stuff out. There's real concern on her face. It's not the typical my-parents-suck thing; it obviously goes deeper than that. She's worried about what else she doesn't know about her newly-discovered family members. What else her mother is lying to her about.
Marcus suggests to Ginny that she ask the long-lost aunt for more information.
Ginny looks thoughtful, but then gets a call from Georgia, something about babysitting Austin and—some other kid? Marcus doesn't quite catch who it is. One of the new family members, he guesses.
Maxine announces that she'll come along.
Marcus, on an impulse, and a strong suspicion that Ginny needs something more than Max treating her life like a fun reality show, announces that he's coming too.
"No you're not," Max says.
Of course she does.
But fuck that. Not this time. Marcus and Ginny are officially friends now, after all. He doesn't need Max's permission. He breezes past her objections with a dumb joke, the kind of thing Max herself would say. She has no comeback.
So get wrecked, Max.
Marcus is pretty good with kids. They've always had younger cousins around the house visiting, and they've been on a couple of group family vacations. Mostly, kids are just small, loud, uncomplicated adults. And when they lie to you, it's only about dumb stuff.
He gets them playing The Floor is Lava, which he hopes takes the pressure off Ginny to think about the mechanics of babysitting.
Then Georgia, Joe from the cafe and … a woman who must be the long-lost aunt all arrive at the front door. All three of them are clearly drunk.
Austin calls the woman in question Aunt Maddie.
Aunt Maddie is by far the drunkest of the three. You can smell the booze coming off her as she crashes to the carpet at their feet. Marcus takes her in, one quick glance. The phrase white trash comes to Marcus's mind unbidden, even though it's the kind of thing he would never say out loud. She's got Georgia's drawl, but definitely not Georgia's sense of fashion.
Aunt Maddie's sense of fashion, as she sprawls on the floor, involves exposing bits of flesh that Marcus is pretty sure he shouldn't be seeing. He looks away quickly.
Max, for a change, picks up on the … general fucked-up-ness … of the situation, and rather than being an eager spectator, she hustles the kids out of the room.
Marcus looks at Ginny; her face is ashen, a silent storm of anger and humiliation.
Joe nods to Marcus to help him with Aunt Maddie, and Marcus jumps up to do that, because getting her out of Ginny's sight is the biggest favor he can do for her in this exact moment.
But as he's helping Maddie get to her feet, while trying not to touch any of her ample exposed skin, he hears Georgia chiding Ginny on her way past: Don't be a party pooper.
Holy shit, he thinks.
A lot of stuff about Ginny suddenly makes a whole lot more sense.
Drop this kind of life-changing bomb on your kid, come home wasted, and then tell her she should be happy about all of it? Like it's just some big adventure? Like their life really is a trashy reality show?
Marcus has a weird epiphany, for just a split second, that maybe he should be a tiny bit more grateful for the fact that he has 'normal' parents.
But it's just a fleeting thought, and then it's gone, because he can see that Ginny is sinking; deeper and deeper and deeper.
He goes over to her once they're alone in the room. "You okay?"
Ginny stares at him. It's the realest expression he's ever seen on her face. All her guards are down, mask off; the real Ginny is actually here in the room with him, and she is deadly serious when she says: "I hate her."
Again, it's not typical teen angst. It's not she won't buy me a car, or she put a family tracker on my phone; it's the weight of those few words, the tone of her voice, the look on her face. It all says that none of this, this horror show tonight, is actually a surprise. It's part of a pattern. Just another thing.
Marcus can see it all reflected in Ginny's eyes: a series of scenes like this. A succession of disappointments, of broken promises. Chaos.
Gaslighting.
Don't be a party pooper.
God, no wonder Ginny doesn't really trust anyone. Not even herself.
Ginny gives words to his thoughts: "She does this. She ruins everything. It's always something."
Her face is still unguarded, her voice is raw, and tears are just barely standing in her eyes.
Marcus remembers the time he nearly cried in front of her, and suddenly the air is electric with that tension between them, the tension that's always there but never acknowledged—not now that they're friends.
Their eyes lock. Two or three heartbeats pass. He moves an inch closer.
Then Ginny's guard goes back up. She quickly plasters on a smile. She pushes Marcus gently, so he loses his balance. "You're in the lava," she says softly.
I'm not, he thinks. But now I understand why you are.
He matches her smile with his own.
And then, just to make this whole thing more absurd, Mayor Fucking Paul shows up. With flowers.
Ginny is polite but distant.
Marcus suddenly remembers the way Georgia and Joe were eyeballing each other, which he had noticed but not really cared about, because he's got his own romantic problems to deal with, and there was so much else going on with Drunk, Half-Naked Aunt Maddie.
And he remembers that Georgia and Joe are still upstairs together. Right now. Also drunk.
Isn't Georgia dating Paul, or something?
Fuck it.
Marcus suggests to Paul that he go upstairs to give Georgia the flowers. He looks at Ginny, who looks confused, but then she grins hugely.
"Yeah," Ginny assures Paul. "Go on up."
Marcus doesn't really care what happens up there. He's just happy to see Ginny smile again.
Maxine comes back with the kids, and they hang out a bit longer. Maxine, thank God, has stopped treating the situation like a joke, and she tries to make sure Ginny is okay before they leave.
Marcus knows Ginny isn't okay, but he also knows there's nothing they can do for her right now. But he's proud of Max for focusing on someone's problems besides her own for five whole seconds.
As they walk home, he says to Max: "That was … grim."
Max is quiet a moment. "I guess our parents really aren't that bad."
"I was just thinking the same thing."
"But," Max muses, "Having a trashy long-lost aunt would be kind of cool …"
"Nope," Marcus says, remembering Ginny's face as Aunt Maddie lay there on the living room floor.
"Maybe not," Max finally agrees.
Back in his bedroom, Marcus thinks and thinks about the situation, and tries to think of some way he can help Ginny, but there's literally nothing he can do. Nothing but try to be there for her. To be there to pull her out of the lava.
If she'll let him.
The thing about being friends with Ginny, and trying to be there for her, is that he has no way to get out of it when Ginny and Maxine approach him about having a little get-together at their house for Ginny's birthday, since their parents will be gone.
He knows that means Hunter will be there. Leaving aside his issues with Hunter, Marcus really loathes the other dudes in Maxine's little friend group, especially Press and Brodie. They're obviously racist, sexist d-bags, and he has no idea why Max, of all people, puts up with them even being in the same room as her.
But Ginny pouts at him, and he caves. Fine, whatever, he'll just spend the night locked in his room with his earbuds in. Nothing unusual there.
Actually, Marcus has been working on a painting of Ginny. To be fair, he was working on it before he knew about her birthday, but it seems like it might be a good excuse to give it to her. Just not in front of the bro squad. Or anyone else.
At least, if he can get up the nerve. He's not usually too self-conscious about his art. It's something that comes easily to him, especially when he listens to music, and it's something he does for himself. Usually.
This time is a little different. Is it too personal, as a gift for a 'friend'? Too intimate in some way? It's not just a portrait of Ginny. It's the way he, Marcus, sees her. Which is a different thing. He doesn't even know if she'll understand that.
He's still thinking about it at school when maybe the worst, cringey-est thing he could imagine happens: Hunter, fucking Hunter, has organized some sort of flash mob tap dance thing for Ginny's birthday, and it's like the whole long school hallway has become the set of the world's worst Glee episode, and Marcus can't decide whether to laugh hysterically or to go home and burn the painting he's been working on.
He mimics stabbing himself in the eyes, one at a time, with a pen, and then goes to class.
Later, at home, staring at the painting again, he thinks about the whole thing some more.
Hunter's performance was, yes, a pretty big gesture. But it was just that: a performance. He was performing, because Hunter, among other things, is an extrovert who likes performing. Being in the spotlight. Sure, it was for Ginny's birthday, but maybe it was also for Hunter. Not that Hunter himself would even realize that, because for all his book-smarts, the guy is only like fifty percent self-aware, in Marcus's estimation.
Ginny was grinning the whole time it was happening. She looked happy. But the whole school was watching for her reaction—when they weren't watching Hunter and his damn backup dancers. Of course she was going to be smiling.
And even if Ginny isn't really into Hunter, which Marcus is still convinced she isn't, it was a big gesture, and one that obviously took a lot of effort on Hunter's part. So even if Ginny's smile was real, it doesn't mean their relationship is.
And it doesn't mean Marcus shouldn't give her the painting.
Solid logic, yeah.
Later that night: up the drainpipe. He could do it with his eyes closed at this point.
Ginny smiles to see him, which is a nice change from his usual window visits.
She's got an electric piano in her room now, and he plays around with it a bit, mostly to hide his nervousness. Even when he starts to hand over the rolled-up painting, he pulls it away again. He's teasing her, playing around, but also still full of dread.
She unrolls the piece, seems genuinely shocked: that he painted it. That he can paint. And she starts to roll it up so quickly, having barely looked at it, that Marcus feels a little hit to his ego.
Except that she's rolled it up carefully so it won't slide away, and so she can get up to hug him. She said she loved it. She's in his arms, for the first time in—he can't really remember how long. It feels so familiar, but better. He doesn't want to let go of her. She doesn't let go either.
And so, because he's an idiot, he goes in for a kiss. The kiss he's pretty sure was about to happen at the Sophomore Sleepover. Unfinished business, that's all.
But as usual, it all just goes wrong again; he's caught somewhere between the two Ginnys, and she's pulling away, reminding him again that they're both seeing other people. Just friends.
And this time she's being more aggressive about it: she mentions Padma.
"I don't care about Padma," he sighs.
Ginny, unexpectedly, jumps on that. Accuses him of mistreating Padma. She's obviously heard something. Padma is obviously talking to people about their non-relationship.
And Marcus is in the wrong—Ginny has him dead to rights about Padma, after all—so he lashes out, does the only thing he can do, which is call her out on the fiction that is her relationship with Hunter.
Ginny doesn't back down, or at least not at first.
Not until Marcus says: "Does that guy even know you?"
Only then does her bravado waver, and uncertainty flickers in her eyes.
He knows she knows.
But now it's Ginny's turn to lash out. To prove to Marcus that her relationship with Hunter is real, not just some role she's playing, she casually mentions that she and Hunter are going to bang the following night.
Marcus knows what she's doing, why that's her weapon of choice, but it still stings. It stings even though he's still been sleeping with Padma on the reg. And it's infuriating that this is the way she wants things to be, that she wants to keep pretending with Hunter. That she wants to live her whole Wellsbury lie.
"Happy birthday," he mutters, and he wishes like hell he hadn't agreed to host her party at their house.
Once he's down the drainpipe and back on the ground, he also wishes like hell he had grabbed up the painting before he left.
He never should have given it to her.
At some point during the night in question, Marcus makes the mistake of taking out his earbuds when he gets up to use the bathroom. He can hear the unmistakable sounds of Ginny's dumb birthday bash downstairs. Music, squeals, unintelligible bro-shouts. Beer pong, which is maybe like the dumbest thing ever invented.
So it's begun.
Back in his bedroom, he ignores it for a while, but even with his earbuds in he can feel the bass coming up through the floor, and the house is creaking with movement that means people are doing stuff in bedrooms that he really, really doesn't want to know about.
Maybe people like Ginny and Hunter.
He can't be here anymore. He rolls a joint and gets dressed, pulls on his jacket to go for a walk.
He has to make it through the downstairs gauntlet first, so he decides to grab a soda or something on his way out.
But in the kitchen, he doesn't realize he's coming up behind Ginny—he's not used to her new hairstyle yet—until he hears the words: Hunter went down on me.
His stomach lurches a little. But really, what did he expect? She told him what would happen.
And Ginny sees him. "Hey, Marcus," she all but whispers. She does not look thrilled that he overheard that. Looks embarrassed, even.
Marcus grabs some bottle of booze at random. He gives Ginny his iciest, most arrogant fake grin, says "Happy birthday," and takes a big slug of something disgusting as he turns to leave.
After that he just walks and walks, all the familiar sidewalks of their hood. He stops and pours out whatever the liquor was, tosses the bottle in a neighbor's recycling bin.
He stops in the little park by the pond to smoke, but suddenly just doesn't feel like it. He suddenly doesn't feel like a lot of things. Like playing this game with Ginny anymore, like pretending to be just friends with her, like doing things for her when she's not going to be real with him.
And the thing with Padma, that definitely has to end. No matter what else Ginny said or did, she was right about that part. He's been being a dick. He can go back to being a dick all by himself, instead of hurting someone who's made the mistake of actually caring about him.
Tomorrow, he thinks.
As he walks home, he sees red and blue flashing lights glinting off the trees, down the block towards their house. He sighs inwardly. Max, you're an idiot.
He watches from across the street and a few houses down, as they put everyone into the back of cruisers. He can't help but feel a little bit of glee as Press and Brodie disappear into the cop cars.
And then it's Ginny's turn. He still has that instinct to want to help her, but she's obviously drunk now, and rambling about how her mom is dating the mayor, or something, and it's surprisingly easy to just … not react.
After the last cop car pulls away, Marcus walks to his house, lets himself in the unlocked front door, and surveys the damage. It's a lot worse than when he left.
Maxine is going to be grounded forever for this.
It's her own fault. This wasn't his idea, and no way in hell is he going to take any of the blame for it.
But he's not a total dick, and Mom and Dad are going to have enough to deal with when they come home.
So he sighs, grabs the soda he wanted hours ago, and goes to the garage to get the big box of trash bags.
He cleans and cleans. He empties all the liquor bottles down the sink, puts them into one bag to toss into another neighbor's bin. He wipes down the sticky counters, mops the sticky floors. He checks the bathrooms for puke, makes sure no one got into their parents' bedroom or stole any televisions or laptops, then locks up the house and finally, finally, goes to bed.
While he was cleaning, he'd come up with a plan for exactly what to say to Padma. He's going to end it, going to man up, do it in person, and stop screwing around with her feelings.
And while he's telling himself he also has a plan for how to deal with Ginny—by completely ignoring her—he knows by now that his plans for dealing with Ginny never actually work.