I finished the hall carpet and took the sheets down to the laundry, because work does not stop just because you have been made to kneel in it.
The iron was already hot on the board. Pressing the guest sheets was my job too.
Piper: Look at her. All on her own in the basement.
Piper came in with her two friends and shut the door behind her with her heel.
Piper: Sit down, Marnie. I'm doing your hair. Everyone's saying it looks like a rat died on your head.
I did not sit down. One of them got me from behind and wrapped both arms round me, and the other one took my wrist and bent it up my back.
Piper took a fistful of my hair and pulled until my neck bent back and my eyes watered.
Piper: Look at that. Greasy little nest. No wonder Ellis never wanted you.
Piper: You think he would touch this? You think anyone would? You're a dirty little psycho bitch, and now everyone gets to see it.
The cold of the blades touched my ear. The first snip was so close I felt it in my teeth.
A hank of hair dropped on the tiles, and her friends made a noise like they were watching a goal.
Her nails had left red marks on my jaw, same as Doreen's did, and I knew they would still be there tomorrow.
Piper: Move and I'll open your ear. Then I'll do your face and film the whole fucking thing.
The iron was behind my hip on the board, spitting steam, and my hand found it without asking me first.
Piper: I said hold still. I'm not finished with you.
I was not finished either.
I swung it like a hammer. The steam burst between us, and the plate hit her jaw with a sound I still hear.
Piper: Fuck! Fuck, she hit me! She fucking hit me!
Blood came out of her mouth fast and bright, and she went down on the tiles with both hands over her face.
Her friends let go of me and stepped back into the machines. Nobody said a word.
I still had the iron in my hands, and it was still steaming.
Then the room went quiet, the way a room does after something breaks.
I looked down at what I was holding.
There was blood on the plate. Blood on the cord. A piece of her copper hair stuck to my wet sleeve.
I did that. Me. Nobody made me do it.
And in my chest, something was singing. Sick and bright and glad.
That was worse than the blood. Worse than anything. I liked it.
Piper: You're dead. You're fucking dead, you psycho. My family will bury you.
She said it through her fingers and her voice was wet, and I believed every word.
My hands would not stay still. I saw my face in the glass of the washing machine door and it was not a face I knew.
It looked like the person everyone kept saying I was.
Upstairs, a door banged, and hard feet started down the stairs.
Doreen would come. Then Piper's family would come. Then the police.
I put the iron down slowly, because my hands wanted to run and my legs were not sure they were allowed.
For the first time in my life I was not the one on the floor. So why did I feel like the monster everybody runs from?