How Do I Love Thee (5 page)

“Welcome to my crypt,” she said.

“Is all this yours?” He could hardly believe his eyes.

“I come alive at night, remember? I need something to do while the rest of the world sleeps.” She started around the room, pointing to things as she went. “That door leads to my bedroom and bathroom. In there is a food pantry so that I don't have to go upstairs in the daytime for anything. This computer is for schoolwork, this one for games, this one I only use to surf the Net and keep up with my friends, others like me. The screens are specially coated for my protection. The lamps
have special bulbs that emit lower levels of UV light. The candles are for atmosphere and because I love candlelight. Any questions? “

He was awed by the complexity of her setup, by the extreme precautions taken to protect her. “Not too shabby,” he said, hoping he didn't sound like a dweeb.

She sat on the sofa and patted the cushion next to her. He sat beside her. “My parents are good people. They've done everything they can to make my life as normal as possible. I used to get mad at them because they wouldn't let me do anything they thought might hurt me. Actually, now that fin older, I feel sorry for them. They never asked to have an XP child. But because they did, they knew they carried the genes for it and so they never had another one. They feel responsible for bringing me into the world, and now that I'm here, they feel responsible for keeping me safe.”

“How did they find out you had XP?” Now that she was willing to talk to him about her disorder, he wanted to hear everything.

“When I was a baby, Mom took me outside and sat me on a blanket under a tree while she
did some gardening. I started to scream bloody murder. She ran over and discovered that I was covered with huge red welts and blisters. She rushed me to the emergency room, and the doctor said I had third-degree burns on my arms and face. He believed my mother had deliberately burned me, that I was abused.”

“But it was the sunlight, wasn't it?”

Shayla nodded. “Even fluorescent lights burned me. My parents had to completely reconfigure this house and make it lightproof. We started fixing up the basement for me when I was eight. It was much easier to live down here than upstairs.”

“Didn't you ever go to regular school?”

“I tried in third grade. The school had to cover the windows and lower the lights whenever I came for the day. My mother had to toss a blanket over me so that I could ride in the car to even get there. I felt like a freak sitting in the backseat with a blanket over my head. In fourth and fifth grade, I came less often because kids started making fun of me. They called me Ghost Girl and Earthworm. By sixth grade, I stopped coming altogether. Teachers
came here, and of course, there was the Web. No big deal.”

It was a bigdeak Brett recalled how he'd felt when he ‘d been called names. “And now?”

“Now I've moved ahead and left them in die dust.” She offered a smile. “I've already completed a year of courses from Boston College on die Internet. College is more fun anyway, and a whole lot more challenging.”

“I'm impressed. I can hardly keep up with high school.”

“There's nothing to distract me, you know, like football games, or cliques of dopey girls talking about their boyfriends.”

She'd left unsaid the things that were good about school, but he didn't argue. He asked, “Do you ever go out in the daytime?”

“Sometimes, you when the sun's just gone down, or first thing in the morning. But I don't stay out long, and I have to rub on gobs of sunscreen.” She went to the bookshelves, selected a videotape, and inserted it into die VCR. The TV screen lit up with a clip of the sun glowing like an enormous red ball over die plains of Africa. The scene shifted to images of a white-sand beach where people sunbathed and a pale
green sea lapped the shoreline. Brett could almost feel the heat on his skin.

Shayla froze the tape on a shot of the sun burning white-hot in a blue sky. “Dirty pictures, “ she joked, making him laugh. “The sun fascinates me. I wish … I wish I could feel it without it hurting.”

The longing in her voice unsettled him. He held out his arm, tanned from a lifetime of beach-going and skin diving in the Florida Keys. By comparison, her skin looked white as milk. “Your skin is beautiful,” he said. “You should see some of the old guys in Florida who've spent too much time in the sun. They look like old leather saddles.”

She ran her hand across his skin and made a tingling sensation race up his back. “Why are you being nice to me, Brett?”

“Because I like you.”

“You're going back to the others to tell them all about meeting up with the Ghost Girl, aren't you? Please don't talk about me.” She sounded so sad that it hurt his heart.

“I told you I wouldn't do that.” He took a deep breath. “Shayla, I know what it feels like to be on the outside looking in.”

“How could you? You're perfect.”

His heart began to hammer. He wanted her to know he was more like her than she realized and that she was special to him. “Not perfect,” he said, his long-held secret trembling in his mouth. “Once, I had leukemia.”

rett told Shayla of his bout with leukemia. He held her hand while he talked and when he paused or choked up, she squeezed his fingers as if to help him over the rough plaees in his memory. He'd never spoken so frankly to anyone before about his feelings, but in Shayla, he believed he'd found acceptance and understanding. When he was finished, he felt cleansed.

“I'm glad you made it,” she told him, tears in her eyes.

He brushed them away. “I didn't tell you so you'd feel sorry for me. Pity's the last thing I
want.” He leaned forward, wanting to kiss her so much he ached.

Her eyes widened as she understood his intention. He saw her lips part, tremble. Suddenly one of her computers beeped, making both of them jump. “I've got mail,” she explained with a nervous laugh.

Bad timing
, he thought. The spell was broken.

She went to the desk and clicked the mouse. “I keep in touch with other XP kids and sometimes we message bade and forth all night long.”

He looked at the clock on the mantel over the fireplace, let out a shout, and jumped to his feet. “It's two
A.M.
I've got to get home.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to—”

He placed his fingertips over her mouth. “Cool it. I wanted to stay. Wild horses couldn't have dragged me away. Truth is, I want to come bade. I want to know everything there is to know about you.”

“I'm very boring,” she said.

“Not to me.” He kissed her forehead. “I'll call you tomorrow night as soon as I go home and check in with Mom. Then once she's
asleep, I'm coming to see you.” He stopped at the door and turned as a bold idea struck him. “Would your parents mind if we went out tomorrow night—you know, like on a date?”

She laughed. “I'm almost eighteen, and Mom and Dad don't hold me prisoner. I know the rules about how to take care of myself.”

“Good. Then how about packing up some you food? I'd like to take us on a picnic in the moonlight.”

When Brett coasted into Shayla's driveway at midnight, she was ready to go. He set the basket she'd prepared in the backseat and drove off. “I've cased some places,” he told her, “but the best place is that field where I first saw you dancing.”

“You must have thought I was loony that night.”

“I was too surprised at first to think much more than ‘Wow, what a pretty girl.

“I never expected anyone to actually catch me out there. I saw you moving in the trees and almost ran away, but then decided to sneak around behind you and find out what you were doing in the woods so late at night.”

“Well, I'm glad you did … even though I almost made a run for it when you told me you were a vampire.” He bared his teeth and she laughed. “Why
did you
say that to me?”

“Because I'm a big fan of mythology and folktales. I grew up reading everything I could get my hands on about fairies, elves, vampires, and such. I honestly think that these kinds of stories are rooted in truth. One day I got to thinking about how people in medieval times would have reacted to a child born with XP.”

“They would have probably drowned ‘em,” Brett said. He was a fan of history and knew that superstitions had generally been held as truth before the emergence of science.

“But think about it—a person put her child in the sun and suddenly the child started to ‘burn.’ It would have blown their medieval minds.”

“And demanded an explanation,” Brett added.

“Exactly. So storytellers started incorporating the fact about sunlight burning a person into the legend about the vampire because it couldn't be explained any other way.”

“A legend Bram Stoker writes about in
Dracula”
Brett grinned. “That's an interesting theory, Shayla.”

“I wrote it up and it was published in a medical journal,” she said, sounding pleased with Brett's approval.

“Now I'm
really
impressed,” he said. “Way to go.”

By now they were parked at die edge of the wooded area. Brett carried the basket and Shayla the blanket as they made their way to the field. The grass had been mowed, and now the field looked flat and gray in the light of the crescent moon. Brett spread the blanket under the stars. Shayla took candles from the basket and lit them. The twinkling light cast a rosy glow on her face. Brett was struck by her ethereal beauty and swallowed hard. He wished he had the courage to kiss her, but he didn't.

They ate the food she'd packed while night sounds of tree frogs and crickets surrounded them. “This is fon,” she said, nibbling on a grape. “I've never been on a picnic before.”

“You mean a picnic in the moonlight,” he corrected.

“No, a picnic
ever.”

He wasn't sure why her confession pleased
him so much, but it did, “There's plenty of things I'd like to do with you, Shayla.”

She leaned toward him, her eyes shining in the flickering of die candles. “Tonight we did something I've never done before. Now it's your turn to do something with me you've never done before.”

In Brett's mind, the list was endless, beginning with kissing her. “Such as?”

“Wait until tomorrow night and I'll show you.”

Shayla was at die foot of the steep road leading up to her driveway when Brett arrived the next night. “Park here,” she said, motioning to a spot next to her family's roadside mailbox. She was wearing a sweatshirt and handed one to him. “We ‘re going across the street.”

“The ocean's across the street,” he said, taking her offered hand and jogging beside her over the deserted main road.

“Things aren't always what they seem,” she whispered mysteriously.

On the far side of the road, seawater splashed against a jumble of rocks, in the midst
of which stood a small boathouse. Inside there was a wooden dinghy, complete with oars and a small motor. “Yours?” he asked.

“Dad bought it for me when I was fifteen. I'd rather have a sailboat, but unless there's a gale, there's no wind at night.” They stepped into the boat.

“I had one like this in the Keys. My friends and I used to take it out to the reef and skin dive.”

“I use it to putter around offshore.” She pulled the starter cord, and the outboard motor sputtered to life.

In minutes they were skimming across the glassy calm of a quiet sea. The night air was frigid on his face, and he was grateful for the sweatshirt. “You know where you're going?” he yelled above the roar of die motor.

“Don't you trust me?”

He gave her a thumbs-up, sat back, and enjoyed the ride. When they were far offshore and the lights along the highway and on the tip of the harbor looked like twinkling jewels, Shayla cut the engine. Brett heard waves lapping against the wooden sides of the boat
before the water settled into calm again. Stars littered the night sky like white confetti. Shayla hunkered down next to him.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“We're inside a natural rock formation. You can't see the rocks because it's high tide.”

“What if you hit a rock? Knock a hole in the boat?”

“Relax, I've been coming out here for years. I know my way around. When the tide goes out, it's like you're inside a bowl.”