The bus put me down in Dunmore at half eleven, and the whole station smelled of chips and wet concrete.
My sleeve was stiff down the cuff. I kept that arm clamped against my body like it was broken, and I walked fast without looking at anybody.
There was a tap round the back by the bins. I held my cuff under it and worked the soap from the toilets into the stain.
The water went pink, then clear, then pink again. The stain stayed. Some things just set.
Two lads came round the corner with a crate of lager and stopped dead when they saw me.
The tall one looked at my wet sleeve and my face and asked if the blood was mine or some bastard's.
They laughed. The tall one said I looked like I had crawled out of a skip and asked if I wanted company to go with the blood.
Marnie: I'm fine. Go away.
It came out like a squeak, which made it worse.
The short one spat by my shoe and told me to fuck off out of it before he made me, and it was the way he said it, so bored, that made my legs go weak.
They went off down the road laughing, and I stood there dripping, with my hands shaking like leaves.
Then a woman came round the corner with a bin bag in each hand and stopped dead.
Juno: You alright there?
Her voice was flat and calm, like she asked it a lot and got told the truth most times.
Marnie: I'm fine. Just, I cut myself.
It came out way too fast. I could hear how stupid it sounded while I was still saying it.
She looked at my sleeve for about a second. Not the way Piper looked. Not like she was filing it away for later.
Juno: Bins are fucking rank tonight, mind. Don't lean on them.
Juno: Here. That one's clean. Mostly.
She held it out and did not make a big thing of it, and that was the strangest part.
Nobody had ever handed me something for nothing. I stood there holding it like a idiot.
Juno: It's not a bomb. Put it on, you're freezing.
It smelled of soap and floor polish and something warm off her skin. The sleeves came down past my hands.
And it hurt. The warmth hurt, like hot water on a hand that went numb hours ago.
Juno: I'm Juno. I run the Rollaway up the road. Skating, burgers, sticky carpet, the whole circus.
Juno: What's your name?
I had a lie ready. I always have a lie ready. Then my mouth went and said the true one.
Marnie: Marnie.
I hated myself the second it was out. Names are the first thing people use to find you.
Juno: So where you going this time of night, Marnie?
I looked at the bins and the wet road and could not think of one single place to say.
Marnie: Nowhere.
She nodded like that was an answer she had heard before.
Juno: Right. Car's over there. One night. I'm not asking you anything else tonight.
Anyone with sense would have said no. I should have said no.
Marnie: Why?
Juno: Because it's pissing down, the buses have stopped, I've got a spare couch, and I'm not a fucking monster.
She talked the whole way about a broken skate and a kid who was sick on the arcade machine, and she never once asked about the blood.
That was the worst bit. The kindness got in under my ribs, and all I could think was, she'll hate me by morning.
Because Ellis might be dead. Piper's family were out there. The police were out there. And here I was, getting warm.
Juno: You can stop doing that, you know.
Marnie: Doing what?
Juno: Checking the mirrors. Nobody's following us.
I did not know how to tell her I was not checking for a car. I was checking that I was still here.