Page 61 of Margo's Got Money Troubles

“The reason you didn’t go to NYU,” Becca said, “is because you were too chickenshit to go to a big city where you might not be the big fish in the little pond anymore. You wanted to stay where you could pretend you were better than everyone. Like, ‘Oh, my professor is in love with me, oh, he thinks I’m so special! I’m gonna have his baby!’ You think he picked you because you were special? He picked you because he knew you had fucking daddy issues!”

“Hello,” Jinx said, “excuse me.” He was standing by the table and smiling. “Please leave.”

“Are you kicking me out?” Becca asked.

“Dad,” Margo said.

His eyes flicked to her, obedient and detached.

“It’s okay,” Margo said.

Jinx shrugged slightly and walked away, down the hall. They heard the sound of his bedroom door closing.

“I think you should probably go,” Margo said softly.

“Just so you know,” Becca said, “getting knocked up by your professor and living with your pro wrestler dad is fucking trashy. Like, everyone is grossed out. They all talk about it, and I’m like, ‘I don’t know what’s going on with her.’ Lenin Gabbard said he saw you on OnlyFans, and I had to spend, like, twenty minutes telling him he had to be mistaken.”

Margo froze. Bodhi was asleep in her lap now, her nipple still clamped in his mouth. She couldn’t breathe, it was like her lungs were stuck in the fully open position.

“Oh my God, it’s fucking true,” Becca said. “Are you serious right now?”

“Please leave,” Margo whispered.

“I didn’t believe it. Like, everyone knows your mom was a slut, but you? I thought, Margo would never, she’s only ever slept with, like, two guys!”

Jinx moved across the room so quickly, Margo barely registered him before he took Becca by both shoulders and steered her, gently but authoritatively, almost like she was a moving dolly, toward the apartment door, saying in that low, calm voice, “And you’ll be leaving now.” He opened the door, shoved her through, closed it softly behind her, and snapped the locks shut. They could both hear Becca’s voice in the hallway, tiny, saying, “Unbelievable. Fucking unbelievable.”

They listened to her boots as she stomped down the echoey stairs.

Margo was shaking. She pulled her nipple out of Bodhi’s mouth and tucked her boob back in her bra, which was a relief. There had been something especially yucky about having her boob out during all that.

“I feel,” Jinx said, sitting down with her at the table, “as though maybe ice cream is in order.”

“Large quantities,” Margo said. “Disgusting amounts.”

They laughed and then a silence fell, tender and swollen. “I felt so ashamed,” Jinx said, “when you were talking about college—”

“It’s fine—”

“The truth is, I don’t think I could afford full-time tuition at NYU.”

“Oh, I know,” Margo said. She knew this was not because he didn’t have the money, but because the money was already being spent on full-time tuition at Barnard, and weddings, and on things for his real kids.

“But a plane ticket, or help moving, or a few thousand here or there, you can always ask me for those things.”

Margo was going to cry if he kept talking, both because it was too nice and because it was still not enough.

Ever since the KikiPilot video, Margo’s phone was constantly vibrating with notifications, so it took her a while to notice that this time all the notifications were coming from Facebook, her personal account, which was weird because she hardly ever went on there. She was cuddled up with Jinx on the couch, stuffed full of ice cream, watching old WCW matches. She clicked, only mildly curious.

An account named SlutSleuth had posted ten screenshots of her OnlyFans content, the naughty parts blurred, on her Facebook wall. Some of them already had more than fifty comments, and they’d been up for only an hour. She scrolled through, reading bits and pieces of the comments in her panic. Mostly they were shocked emoji, or embarrassed emoji, or exclamation points, or jokes about how this must be why she dropped out of college. Or: I guess now we know how she wound up pregnant! She deleted the posts from her wall as fast as she could, though she knew the damage was done. She had seen Shyanne’s name in the comments. She had written, I have never been more ashamed than on this day. Kenny had liked the comment.

“Oh God,” she gasped. She left Facebook and opened her Instagram. In her personal account, SlutSleuth had tagged her in the same screen captures. Even worse, they had found her HungryGhost account and under her latest post left a comment: @MargoMillet, this you? Now all her HungryGhost Instagram followers had a direct link to her personal account. She deleted the comment.

“You okay?” Jinx had paused the match and was looking at her.

Was she okay? She was sitting on a couch, safe, with her dad and her baby. But also, maybe her life was ruined? Or ruined more than it already was?

“Tell me,” he said, and she handed him her phone.

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