Ginny was having trouble processing the happiness on Hunter's face with the avalanche of guilt that had collapsed on her. The cocktail of alcohol and marijuana in her system revolted against her, and her stomach lurched uncomfortably.

What had she done.

In one fell swoop of misplaced lips she'd betrayed Marcus, and used and led on Hunter.

Hunter turned over to his phone on the bedside table and fiddled with it while Ginny fought the urge to cry or vomit. Or both.

The tinny audio of a phone speaker rang out in the bedroom. Ginny's head snapped up, and saw Hunter had captured his serenade on camera. Hunter brought it over to show her.

'Look, how good is this?' He grinned as 2-minutes-ago Hunter sang out his kindly thought out lyrics.

Time slowed down for Ginny as she saw Hunter pop-up a menu on his phone to share the video to social media.

'No!' she yelled, panicked.

Hunter glanced at her in confusion.

'What?'

'Please don't upload that,' she begged, her eyes wide as Hunter's thumb hovered dangerously close to selecting the YouTube app.

'What? Why?' His thumb didn't move away.

'Because! This was...private,' Ginny improvised.

'Don't you want people to see? I worked really hard on that song.'

'Well, I'm in the video too. And I'm uncomfortable about it.'

'Oh.' Hunter frowned, and clicked out of the 'share' menu on his phone. 'Uh, I guess I don't have to share it.' He pulled a slight face as he put his phone away.

Ginny knew if she wasn't so preoccupied with the terrible decision she'd just made, she'd be irked by that tone. Hunter his put his arm around her shoulder. Ginny tightened uncomfortably, and felt another rumble in her stomach.

'That's okay, we don't have to do it now.' He leaned in and placed a kiss on her cheek.

Her mind flashed with Marcus' eyes, deep and stormy. Guilt rocked her stomach again. Ginny sank like a stone to the floor, heavy and sluggish. She felt small, but wished she were even smaller, and drew her knees up to her chest. Hunter watched her slip down.

'You okay?'

'...I did something bad,' she whispered at the wall opposite them.

Hunter sat down next to her.

' 'Fess up. What'd you do?' he asked playfully.

Ginny looked at him, took in his warm expression, and looked away.

'Yeah, what'd you do?'

Ginny and Hunter looked up at the source of the cold voice.

Marcus was standing in the doorway, looking pointedly at Ginny. His eyes didn't even flash in Hunter's direction; they bored into Ginny in a constant, painful drone. Hunter glanced at Ginny and back at Marcus.

The silence between them lengthened, as Ginny found herself without an excuse or even the words to fabricate one.

But Marcus nodded slowly at her, as if he understood what had just transpired.

'Gotcha. Happy birthday, Ginny.'

He turned, and his head tipped back as he did so, eyes rolling back in his head.

Now Ginny really did feel sick. She lurched up, rushed past Marcus and flew into the bathroom, just barely making it to the toilet bowl to dispose of the contents of her gut. On her second retch, some hands pulled back the hair that was falling around her face, and pinched it at the nape of her neck while she vomited. Her eyes watered from discomfort, but she finally stopped and was able to relax against the cold tile. She wiped her mouth with a shaking hand.

Someone put their arms around her. She glanced up.

Hunter.

Not Marcus.

'I need a drink,' she choked out, and rose to her feet unsteadily. She moved into the washroom and stuck her mouth under the faucet to rinse out the taste of bile-infused alcohol. Hunter followed her awkwardly.

'I'll get you some cold water,' Hunter offered.

'No,' Ginny burbled through a stream of water. She wiped her mouth and began to vigorously wash her hands. She looked back up at Hunter with resolved eyes. 'Alcohol. Lots of it.'

Ginny no longer wanted to even remember her birthday.

Hunter's eyebrows rose, but he woodenly turned around and went downstairs as Ginny took the liberty of borrowing a spare toothbrush under the sink. She paused as she put the toothbrush pack back, remembering the last time she'd used an emergency toothbrush in this house. Memories of Marcus and sweet private moments rushed through her mind, warm and wonderful. Ginny avoided eye contact with her reflection as she scrubbed away the last of the sick taste.

But as she rinsed her mouth again, hot tears sprung from her eyes. She looked at the pathetic excuse of a person in the mirror, crying feebly. Ugh. Marcus deserved better. She gripped the toothbrush and walked to Marcus' room, an apology halfway out her lips.

But the room was empty.

She rushed over to his window and pulled it open. She glanced down into the bushes below. Was his skateboard there? It was impossible to see in the dark.

Ginny looked back out to the hallway, and knew Hunter would be back shortly with drinks for her. Nevertheless, Ginny put the toothbrush in her mouth for some reason and hauled herself out the window as carefully as a tipsy person can. She rummaged in the bushes, but found no skateboard.

He'd left.

Ginny began to run, toothbrush in hand.

o
o - o
o - o - o
o - o
o

She found him in the park, at the bench where they'd shared a joint together for the first time. Where Ginny had first realised the gentle but strong undercurrent of like turning to love.

She found him broken and small, with his torso bent over his knees and skateboard under his feet, gently rolling from left to right.

Ginny had never really had the power the hurt anyone before.

She stood there a moment, coming to terms with the pain she had caused another human being who did not deserve it. It was a deeply uncomfortable sensation; she felt her mind actively trying to step away from it, to dodge responsibility.

'Hey.' She cringed internally. "Hey – ugh."

'I was ignoring you,' Marcus said simply.

'Oh.'

'You run quite heavily, for someone so small,' Marcus huffed. 'Heard you coming from way back.'

Ginny tucked her hair, which was beginning to frizz up from sweat, behind her ear awkwardly.

'Oh,' she said again.

Marcus climbed to his feet and kicked his skateboard into his hands.

'You also kiss a lot of other people, for someone who says she loves me.'

'A lot of people? I kissed one!' Ginny defended, stung.

'Yeah, that's too many.' He strode away, tossing his board out in front of him and deftly jumping on.

Ginny walked after him.

'Marcus, please!'

'Take a hint, neighbor.'

Ginny stopped in her tracks. With a cry of frustration, she threw the toothbrush still in her hand at his retreating back, but missed by a mile. It landed several feet ahead of him. She saw him glance down at it.

'Did you just throw a toothbrush at me?' He turned his head over his shoulder to look back at her, the ghost of amusement on his face.

'Yes,' she said in defeat.

Marcus gently turned the skateboard back in Ginny's direction, bending down to scoop up the toothbrush as he passed.

'Of all things to throw at me, that's probably in the top ten list of things to make me turn around.' He stopped a few feet in front of her, and threw the toothbrush directly back at her. It hit Ginny in the shoulder. 'I have much better aim than you, though.'

They stared at each other for a moment, Marcus with visible caution.

'I'm sorry.'

'Oh, don't be sorry, it's probably just a result of years of sexist teachers not thinking women are as good at sports as men, so you never got to have the toothbrush-throwing lesson.'

'Don't be cute.'

'I'm not, I'm being irreverent.'

Ginny sighed and tipped her head to the side. Marcus almost smiled, but his eyes were hard.

'I'm sorry I threw a toothbrush at you.' Ginny took a deep breath. 'And I'm sorry I kissed Hunter.'

'I am also sorry I threw a toothbrush at you and that you kissed Hunter.'

Ginny fought the urge to give him a stern look, but focused instead on the toothbrush on the ground. She picked it up.

'I love you,' she said earnestly, looking back up at Marcus, whose lips hardened into a smooth line. 'But there was a moment there...where I was tempted by how easy it would be to be with Hunter.'

She hesitated as Marcus' face stiffened even further.

'Hunter is not someone I really connect with,' she continued, flicking the bristles on the toothbrush absently. 'Hunter asked me to be his girlfriend tonight and he sang me a song about how much he liked me.'

Ginny's mouth twitched at the brief moment of disgust that flickered across Marcus' face.

'It would just be easy and uncomplicated...Hunter is a part of my friend group, and Max actively wanted me to date him – it was kind of weird, really, like it was immediate and pushy. Anyway, he represents everything that I've wanted in a way...just a normal life, a normal boyfriend.' She exhaled forcefully in frustration and continued.

'And even though I know that I love you…I still let him kiss me.'

Marcus blinked and looked to the side.

'And that was really, really shitty of me. And I'm so sorry that I hurt you. And I just want you to know that it had nothing to do you. It was just me.'

She looked back down at the toothbrush in her hand, remembering leaving her mother's house in a storm as her surprise-aunt turned up and flipped her life upside down – fleeing to the welcoming and warm arms of Marcus and his remarkably normal, bar Max, family.

'I don't even know why I did it,' she went on. 'I mean, I know why, but I don't know why why– if that makes sense. And the thing with us, um, with you and the – I don't know what happened.' The confusing sensation of Marcus surprisingly going down on her and the face of her dead step-father coming to mind rattled her again. 'I think...I think something is wrong with me...?'

Tears pricked her eyes and she looked back up at Marcus, as the odd truth of that sentence sank into her bones. Marcus swallowed, but didn't say anything.

'Anyway, that's what I came here to say. I'm sorry, and it won't happen again...if you...if you still...'

The weight of Marcus' silence and the stillness of his expression ripped her guts down.

Something closed inside Ginny. The door, perhaps, between her and Marcus. That golden connection that brought them together, that intangible string. It closed now. Marcus was dark to her.

It was all dark. And it was because of her.

'I'll let you be alone now.'

She turned away and began the walk back to the party, forcing her shoulders to be still as she did her best to smoothly breathe out sobs and hide any sign of her distress. She dug a fingernail into her palm, the familiar sensation of sharp pain bringing minute relief, but thought desperately of the lighter on her desk at home.

'Ginny?' Marcus called out.

Ginny surreptitiously wiped her tears and made a point of turning around not-too-quickly.

'I'll talk to you tomorrow,' he said. Not cold, not warm. Neutral. Impeccably neutral.

Ginny's mind ran amok with the inferences of his tone.

'...We're okay,' he added after some time. He nodded at her, saluted, and then skated away.

Ginny continued on her path back to the Baker's home and let relieved sobs shake her chest. Somehow, she hadn't ruined everything.

The door to Marcus was open again, a sliver of golden light falling across Ginny.

o
o - o
o - o - o
o - o
o

Ginny turned the corner on Bradley St to see red and blue flashing lights. She stared in surprise as police cruisers drove by with her friends in the back seats. She caught Hunter's eye as they passed, his expression unreadable. She ran home.

Ginny slowed as she walked on her front lawn, becoming more aware of the sound of her mother yelling from inside the house.

'What do you MEAN Ginny isn't there?'

'All the kids were put in the police cars, she wasn't one of them.'

Paul's voice.

Ginny wished she was tall enough to be able to climb back to her room using Marcus' route. Instead she started to creep around the back, just as the front door burst open.

'Virginia Miller!' Georgia yelled out, striding across the street, as if Ginny would hear her from inside the Baker's house. Paul quickly followed. She swept up the Baker's lawn and rapped on their door like a jackhammer. 'Ginny!'

'Georgia, come on,' Paul pleaded. 'The neighbors!'

Georgia began to step back and survey the Baker house. To Ginny's surprise, Georgia suddenly began to scale the wall just like Marcus did.

'Georgia, you can't climb peoples' houses!'

'The hell I can't. Ginny!'

Georgia was nearing Marcus' window.

'Mom!' Ginny yelled, and then waved awkwardly under the fierce look her mother threw at her from her precarious position. Ginny had no doubt Georgia would have climbed all the way inside.

Georgia dropped down and practically flew over to Ginny. Ginny flattened her expression, steeling herself for the next bout of distress the night would bring.

'So, this is the thanks I get?'' Georgia yelled.

'Thank you,' Ginny said sarcastically. 'I had a great party.'

'Listen here, you little lunatic. I am responsible for all your friends when they're under my roof. You can't sneak out and lie to me, and then not tell me where you're going.'

She gestured at the house behind her and continued before Ginny could say anything. Ginny noticed a confused-looking Maxine standing in the doorway, watching the shouting match, ensconced in the warm glow of her house. Ginny didn't have time to wonder why she wasn't in the back of a police cruiser.

'I call the cops to break up your little soiree,' Georgia continued, 'and you're not even there.'

'You called the cops on me?' Ginny asked. Something about this irked her, and the increasingly familiar sensation of a rift growing between herself and her mother deepened.

'Well, that's what you get when you lie to me.'

'Okay, okay, you are like – you are like the grand poobah of lies, okay? Y – You're like a lie pro.'

'You ever think that maybe my secrets are to protect you? To keep you happy and safe?'

The issue with Georgia's phone call clunked into place, and it was absurd, so ludicrous that Ginny felt strangely outside her body again for the second time that night for a brief moment. But the anger of her realisation pulled her back in - back to her body with dark skin. Her body so unlike Georgia's.

'Protect me? You think calling the cops on me is protection?'

'I'll do what I must to teach you a lesson, jerkface.'

'Like sic the cops on YOUR BLACK DAUGHTER? You want me to get shot or something?'

Georgia blinked, and stammered. Ginny seized on that rare moment of weakness.

'Yeah, didn't think about that, did you? This isn't about my safety, or my happiness, this is about you.' Ginny stalked forward, so angry she was almost frothing at the mouth. 'YOU wanted to do this for my birthday and didn't even ASK what I wanted. I go and do the thing that I actually wanted, am a grand total of about 40 feet away from you and you call the fucking cops on me, under the guise of protection, regardless of what that might actually mean for me. Step up for your Mom of the Year award.'

Georgia actually took a small step backward from Ginny and her fury, but Ginny stepped up and brought her face inches from her mother's.

'You risked my life tonight,' Ginny said through clenched teeth so only Georgia could hear, her voice strange and cold. She allowed Georgia a brief moment, and Ginny was satisfied to see tears brimming in her mother's eyes. But her mother's beautiful face had transformed to Ginny; it was now cold and ugly. Calculating and petty. Ginny didn't know this woman anymore.

Ginny marched away from her and straight into the open door Max beckoned her through, not even sparing a glance back at Georgia or Paul. Max closed the door behind her, with tears in her own eyes and followed Ginny into the kitchen. Ginny stared at her best friend, her lips trembling.

'Why – why didn't you get taken away like everyone else?' Ginny asked to break the silence, clearing her throat.

'I didn't drink...not after Halloween.'

Max held her hands helplessly in front of her, looking torn between giving Ginny space and reaching out to comfort her.

Ginny nodded, and blinked away a few fresh tears, conscious of the fact that Max had never seen her quite like this. Max, whose eyes were already much like a puppy on a regular day, were even more so right now as she stared at her friend, frozen with sympathy.

'I don't think I have a crush on Georgia anymore,' Max said with a thick voice.

And with that little crumb of validation, Ginny broke, grieving that she lived in a world where her mother chose to be vindictive and reckless directly against her daughter. A slap in a brief moment of passion...she could eventually look past. But this...

Ginny was miserable, and a right state crying in the Baker's kitchen.

'I miss my dad,' she sobbed, and put a hand over her mouth to stifle the noise.

'Aw, honey,' Max said, pulling Ginny in for a hug.

'Why is she like this?' Ginny's voice muffled in Max's shoulder.

'I don't know.' Max patted Ginny's hair, and then pulled back, placing her palms on Ginny's wet cheeks. 'Let's get you to bed.'

Max put her arm around Ginny and led her upstairs.

'God, who knew such a bitch could have such a bod?' Max pondered.

'Max, please.'

'My bad.'

They entered Max's room and Ginny flopped face first in the bed. Max gasped.

'I have an amazing idea,' Max said.

'Mm?'

'You should move in!'

Ginny rolled on one side to look at Max.

'That's very sweet, but I don't think I can. After tonight, I'll have to go – ' Ginny got stuck before the word 'home' could leave her lips. '...back.'

'...Is she always like that?' Max asked quietly. Ginny shook her head.

'No...sometimes she's...almost normal.' Ginny took a deep breath and looked at Max, that cold truth coming over her for the second time that night. 'I don't think it's just Georgia though. I think...there's something wrong with me.'

Max didn't joke. She looked back at Ginny solemnly.

'I don't think there's anything wrong with you. You know I think you're awesome. You're the best thing that's happened to this town in years.'

Ginny closed her eyes, and readied herself to lose her best friend.

'I kissed Hunter tonight.'

'What?!'

'I'm sorry. That's why I was missing, I went running after Marcus to apologise.'

'But why? How could you do that to Marcus?'

'That's what's wrong with me. I love Marcus – sorry – ' she added as Max pulled a 'bleurgh' face, ' and I still did that because Marcus and I had a fight? And I just wanted to feel wanted, and for everything to be easy. And I wanted it so bad...it felt like I was going to explode.'

'Well, that was a real dick move. You didn't just hurt my brother, you hurt my friend too!' Max yelled.

'I'm sorry...'

Max huffed.

'Let's just go to sleep or whatever.'

Ginny stared in surprise.

'Look, I reserve the right to be really mad at you tomorrow, okay? But I'm not a total dick; you've had a sucky birthday and your mom is – ' Max widened her eyes and shook her head as she failed to come up with a word for Georgia. 'And...you're sorry...and you did a whole romantic-comedy run-after-your-love-at-the-airport thing.'

'Thank you…'

Ginny and Max quietly went to bed, with Max pulling up a movie on her phone for them to fall asleep to.

'Loser, I'm home! Thank god your friends are gone.' Marcus called out, knocking on Max's door frame as he went past.

'Whatever, don't careeee. Also Ginny's here.'

'What? Why?' Marcus' voice grew louder as he backtracked.

'Because Georgia is a racist.'

Marcus peered inside the door, and locked eyes with Ginny.

'Your mom's racist?'

'Maybe not racist, but definitely something,' Ginny sighed. 'It's okay, we can talk tomorrow like you said. Just because something shitty happened to me doesn't mean you have to get over me doing something shitty to you.'

'You're not wrong,' said Marcus off-handly. 'I am however happy to waive that.' He walked over to Ginny's side of the bed and sat on the floor with his knees up. Ginny rolled over to him and they exchanged sad glances.

'Are you okay?' they both said simultaneously, and then smiled.

With the tension broken, emboldened, Ginny reached out a hand and rested it on his knee. Would he still let her touch him?

'I'm so sorry,' she whispered.

'I know,' he said gently, and he placed his own hand on hers.

There it was again. Safety and warmth, ensconcing Ginny's tired psyche. Ginny had her best friend on her left, and the boy she loved on her right. Was it really barely thirty minutes ago that Ginny had screamed at her mother? And now happiness was pulsing around her, seeping into her from the smooth comfort of Marcus' hand and the weight of Max's body next to hers.

But Ginny was aware of a dark power in her mind, waiting for the next moment where Ginny wasn't happy to pounce and thrash her to the point of burning her own skin. It was a little alarming.

She was lucky; she had done something unforgivable, though it seemed she was going to be forgiven. But she couldn't rely on that happening again. Ginny couldn't let that dark power take her over again.

Ginny's thoughts wandered across the road and upstairs to her bedroom, where a small piece of card listed the phone number of one Dr Darmody.