I lay on that cot a long time with my eyes open and my shoes still on.
The rink made noises in the dark. Pipes ticking, or the sea wind getting under the door.
Juno: You're not asleep. I saw the light under the door.
She had no jacket on, and her arms were all muscle and goosebumps in the cold.
Juno: Shift over then. My knees are fucked from the skate floor.
She sat down close enough that her shoulder was near my hand, and she did not fill the silence up straight away.
Juno: You don't have to say anything tonight. But you've been shaking since the bus stop.
Marnie: I'm not shaking.
Juno: Love, you're rattling the whole cot.
Juno: So I'll go first. That's how it works.
I did not know what that meant. I just held the mug and waited.
Juno: I was seventeen. My mum had this fella. Darren. He'd been in the flat about four months by then.
She said his name like she was reading it off a form.
Juno: He was fine at first. All jokes and giving me a tenner for chips. Then he started on her.
Juno: Bruises where people couldn't see. She got really good at long sleeves.
Juno: I said something to him one night. Stupid. Showed him my mouth.
Juno: He put me in the wall so hard I saw white. Then he did it again.
Juno: There was a wrench on the floor by the radiator. I got it before he got me.
She stopped there. The mug was warm in my hands and I could hear my own blood in my ears.
Juno: I hit him. Twice, maybe. I don't remember the second one.
Juno: He went down on the kitchen lino with blood coming out his ear, and my mum was screaming.
Juno: Not at him. At me. She was screaming my name like I was the one who'd come in off the street.
I knew that scream. Different house, same noise.
Juno: He lived. That's the bit people always want to know first. Like it counts for anything.
Juno: Half his face still doesn't work. He talks out the side of it now.
Juno: Everyone in that block knew. Monster. Psycho. She's a fucking animal, that one.
Juno: I'm twenty-two now and I still get it. My mum still says it.
Relief came up my throat like being sick, and I had to put the mug down on the floor before I dropped it.
Somebody else in the world. Somebody who did it, and is still here, and is not sorry.
Juno: You're doing that thing with your face.
Marnie: What thing?
Juno: The one where you're deciding whether I'll hate you.
Her forearm was warm against my knee. I did not move, and neither did she.
Juno: I'm not telling you this so you'll owe me a story. People did that to me for years.
Juno: I'm telling you so you know I'm not going to flinch.
My thumb was on the hoodie cuff, on the place where the blood had set and would not wash out.
The iron was right there behind my teeth. Piper on the tiles. The words sat in my mouth like stones.
Marnie: Juno, I did something. I did something bad.
Juno: Not tonight. Keep it tonight. It'll still be there in the morning.
Juno: There's three of them you need to know about round here. Ronan, my brother. Toby. And Cassian.
Juno: They're mine. And they're the sort of men you want on your side. Not the other way.
Out in the dark of the rink, a chair moved. Just once. Then nothing.
Juno: That'll be Cassian. He doesn't sleep either.
She had just told me the worst thing she ever did, and I was the one lying there with my heart going.
She had three dangerous men in her pocket. I could not work out if that made me safer or not.