Chapter 14 Summary and Analysis
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
The chapter opens with Shyanne calling Margo the day after their tense conversation, softening her tone but still insisting Margo delete her OnlyFans account. Margo agrees on the phone and genuinely means it in the moment, but once the call ends, she doesn't follow through. Instead, she privately decides to keep the account for three more months, reasoning that if it hasn't succeeded by then, she'll take it down. The narrative notes that this logic conveniently ignores how much harder a successful porn career would be to bury than a failed one.
The week before Christmas becomes a blur of creative work. Margo, Jinx, and Suzie get the go-ahead from Rose and KC to use their apartment for filming. Late at night, they go to Fry's Electronics—Jinx and Suzie skipping through the store like kids while Margo waddles behind carrying Bodhi in a carrier—and buy two GoPros, a boom mic, lights, and a Roomba. They shoot from Tuesday through Friday, far longer than they'd anticipated. Suzie becomes the unofficial fixer, fetching Chipotle and tracking down lost items, while Jinx surprises everyone with his knowledge of lighting. The project requires endless costume changes to create the illusion that the videos span seven days. Margo spends another three days editing, and when she watches the finished product, she loves it—not sure if it's good, but certain they made something real.
Amid the chaos, Margo barely sleeps and forgets Christmas shopping until the last minute. She orders a teddy bear for Bodhi, an electric razor and tea subscription for Jinx, and a gold ace of spades necklace from Etsy for Shyanne. She books her flight to Vegas for Shyanne's January 6 wedding, adding a lap infant, and tries not to resent the expensive ticket.
Throughout the week, Margo maintains a steady correspondence with JB, exchanging messages three or four times a day. They ask each other personal questions—first boyfriends, first girlfriends, beliefs about ghosts, worst test performances. Margo writes him four pages about the best sandwich she's ever had and spends an hour googling the mall near his hometown. JB suggests she consider film school, which plants a seed she hadn't allowed herself to imagine. He tells her about his job in machine learning and advertising, his move to D.C., and his loneliness there. Margo googles his likely salary and is stunned by the figure. They agree to post the videos on December 26, after the Christmas traffic dies down, and Margo thinks the suspense might kill her.
On Christmas Eve morning, a courier arrives at their apartment. Margo signs for her own papers, then wakes Jinx to sign for his. Jinx has received a restraining order from Mark and Elizabeth. Margo's papers are a petition from Mark seeking to establish paternity and requesting full legal and physical custody of Bodhi, with visitation granted to the petitioner only. Margo is baffled—Mark and Elizabeth had gone out of their way to keep Bodhi out of their lives, forcing her to sign an NDA—so why would he now want custody?
Jinx confesses: he called Mark and threatened him. He was furious that Mark had made Margo sign the NDA, that he'd been her teacher, and he wanted to stand up for her. He insists the call technically doesn't violate the NDA, since it only prohibits Margo from contacting Mark, not Jinx. He describes his threats—asking if Mark knew how easy it was to break someone's fingers, and saying he'd cut off his