Free How the Light Gets In by M. J. Hyland

takes down to the basement. We are under his black sheet and his leg is rubbing against mine.
    ‘Hey there, weirdo,’ he says, his voice a deep, low whisper.
    ‘Piss off, loser,’ I say, and to stop myself from turning red, I think of myself as a disused telephone, its plug wrenched from the wall, the cord dangling, no longer capable of being startled.
    ‘Weirdo,’ he says.

6
    It’s our eleventh night on the road, and I’m sitting cross-legged, looking out the back window, riding the bumps in the road, letting myself sail. At times the road is so quiet that we seem to hover like a spacecraft under the bright stars, taking off when the road climbs up a hill and landing when it glides down the other side.
    I like the open country road at night. It is one of my favourite things, along with the sound car tyres make on a wet road, and road signs with knives and forks on them to signify food, and beds to signify sleep, and the sight of an aeroplane at night, with its landing lights on. Everything that is stupid by day seems intelligent and meaningful by night. I love to look out the wide back window and pretend that I am alone.
    I love how the road lights burn holes in the dark. The damp air, and the darkness, inside and out, remind me of my first game of murder in the dark. The shock of pitch black, of hands reaching out for hands, exaggerated cries, an odd weightlessness in my legs as I ran fast to hide in a cupboard at the end of the hallway. I was nine or ten and my sisters’ boyfriends were much older, adults compared to us.
    When we drive at night, I feel that same weightlessness and speed in my blood. And when we drive at night something happens to James. During the daylight hours his conversation is quick and sharp, defensive, like verbal kung fu.
    But at night there is a change. James’ big face, his tufty, immature sideburns, his pimply skin, his oiliness, are all covered up. He looks better, but more than that, the fact that his flaws can no longer be seen in the dark seems to cause in him a psychic transformation, and his words are kinder.
    Bridget and Margaret are sleeping and Henry drives. All is quiet and smooth and peaceful. James sits close to me, and copies my cross-legged pose. In the darkness his face looks good and it occurs to me that mine might too. I look at him, much longer than I could bear to look at him with the light on us.
    James’ eyes rearrange me when he stares back. My body shudders; a tiny, sharp, quick pulse travels through me, and my face, rather than rising to a blush, feels warm as though I were sitting before an open fire. My palms, rather than sweating, crave the sensation of skin and so I rub my own hands, one over the other softly, deliberately, to feel flesh. James’ eyes have narrowed but they do not look away. He continues to gaze into my eyes and his chest rises violently; a deep, sudden breath. We have become something else in the darkness and it feels more like the truth.
    A car overtakes us, going too quickly, and Henry beeps hard and clicks his tongue on the roof of his mouth, tsk, tsk.
    I look away from James, excited, and afraid. We have nearly kissed each other’s shadow and now we pull away. We lie down, facing out the back window, close enough to each other for it to take a long time for the stirring to go away.
    One of us has to speak. I ask him, ‘Do you know what desquamation is?’
    James does not look at me.
    ‘I don’t know. It’s clearly a noun. Probably some kind of illness. Am I right?’
    ‘If I knew what it was I wouldn’t have asked you,’ I say,staring out of the window. This disappointing bit of conversation ends, and what had seemed to be the truth suddenly looks like a dangerous lie the darkness told.
        
    We are eating in a hotel restaurant to celebrate Bridget’s fourteenth birthday. Bridget opens her presents. Margaret and Henry give her a gold bracelet with a diamond in it and her grandparents have given her a gold pen. Henry