Content Warning: The source text depicts drug use and addiction. It mentions sexual assault and contains offensive and derogatory language surrounding sex work.

Margo Millet, the novel’s protagonist, is narrating the story from a later point in her life. She describes the time when she is 19 years old and pregnant. She works as a waitress, and her boss, Tessa, throws her a baby shower. Margo pretends to laugh at the cake that is shaped like a penis, but later, she cries in the shower because she knows Tessa was making light of Margo’s tough situation. Both Shyanne, Margo’s mother, and Margo’s professor, Mark, who fathered the child, want her to have an abortion. However, Margo chooses not to.

Shyanne is of no help throughout Margo’s pregnancy. Though she is present for the baby’s birth, Shyanne does not take time off from her own job to help Margo. Margo names the baby Bodhi. She feels terrified and lost and takes Bodhi home to the apartment she shares with three other roommates. She keenly feels the lack of Shyanne’s help and support.

Margo’s first interaction with Mark was in his English class at Fullerton College.