Juno's car smelled of pine air freshener and old chips, and she talked the whole way like she had known me for years.
Juno: This lock's a proper bastard in the wet. Shove it with your shoulder.
Inside, the rink was dark and smelled of rubber and sugar. My shoes squelched on the tiles.
Juno: Mind the carpet, it's fucking lethal. Kid puked on it Saturday and I still can't get the smell out.
I followed her because my legs had nothing better to offer.
Juno: Right. Back room. Cot, blanket, kettle. The lock's shit but the door shuts.
There was a proper bed in the corner with a grey blanket folded on it. A bed. For me.
Juno: Don't stand there like I've handed you a severed head. Sit down before you fall down.
She got a pan out and poured soup into it like it was nothing. Like feeding a stray was just a thing you did on a Tuesday.
Juno: Tomato. It's from a tin but it's hot, and you look like you've not eaten since fucking Easter.
I sat with my hands in my lap and my stomach going loud enough to hear.
She put the bowl on the floor by my feet because there was no table anywhere.
Juno: Go on. I'm not sitting here watching you starve out of politeness.
The first mouthful burned my tongue and I did not care. It was the best thing I had ever eaten.
My eyes went hot and stupid and I had to look at the wall.
Nobody had heated anything for me in years. Not one single thing.
Juno: You alright there? Soup not that bad, is it?
Marnie: It's fine. Sorry. I'm fine.
She sat on an upturned crate with a mug in both hands and looked at me properly for the first time.
Juno: So. Marnie. That your real one?
My mouth went dry. Here it came. The questions I had no answers for.
Marnie: It's my real one.
Juno: Then it's a problem, love. Real names are how people find you. Ask me how I know.
I did not ask. I did not want anything else about her that I would have to keep.
Juno: There's a girl who used to skate here. Sadie Croft. She moved away, nobody's going to come looking for her.
Juno: You're Sadie now. Sadie Croft. Say it.
Marnie: Sadie Croft.
It felt like putting on clothes that belonged to someone else and finding they fit.
Juno: Now the rules. Don't answer the back door. Don't use the wifi to ring anyone.
Juno: Someone asks, you're my cousin from out of town.
Juno: And if any bastard comes in here asking about a girl called Marnie, you come and get me. Not Ronan. Me.
Juno: The lads round here are animals once they've had a drink. You don't want any part of that.
I nodded so hard my neck hurt.
The soup sat warm in my belly, and underneath it the fear was already awake and pacing.
If she found out about the iron and the cash box and the blood on my sleeve, she would put me back on the wet road.
Juno: You've gone white again. Sit down and finish that, for fuck's sake.
I finished it. I did not tell her I was not really sitting in that room at all.
Juno went to lock up and I followed her into the hall, because I did not want to be alone in a room I had been handed.
There was a man by the front doors. Tall, dark coat, hands in his pockets, like he had been standing there a while.
Juno: Cassian. Didn't hear you come in, you creepy bastard.
Cassian: Door was open.
He did not say hello. He looked at my face for half a second, then down at my shoes.
There was a grey line of blood dried along the side of the sole where the tap had not reached.
I pulled my feet back under the hoodie like it made a difference. It did not.
Cassian: Who's this?
Juno: Sadie. My cousin. She's stopping in the back room a while.
He looked at me again. Grey-green eyes, no hurry in them at all.
Cassian: Sadie.
He said it like he was testing whether the name would hold my weight.
Cassian: Right.
Then he said nothing else. Not one word. He just let the silence do the talking.
Juno was chatting again about the kettle and the lock and the cot. I was smiling and nodding like a person.
But I could feel him behind me, still and quiet, like a door I had not noticed was open.
The soup was real. The blanket was real. The name was a lie.
I lay on the cot with the blanket up to my chin and my eyes wide open in the dark.
How long before the kind one asks a question I cannot answer, and the quiet one already knows?