Free Exposure by Talitha Stevenson

legs; to Luke they suggested sport, tennis matches in the sunshine on red clay courts in southern Italy. He saw lemon trees, he heard cicadas. He could imagine her devastating serve.
    His mind was full of faraway pictures as he sat there beside her in the car.
    It was not a precise, photographable beauty. In fact, it was brought together by strength of personality. Later it would seem to Luke that her face was a manifestation of her mind, or rather that an artist had wanted to depict the polarities at war within it and had set the strong jaw and the little girl's nose against each other. She gave over her whole physiognomy to whatever emotion she was feeling. At that moment it was to abject exasperation, which increased with each text message she received. Luke decided her impatience had a distinctly sexual quality—and then wondered guiltily if he might be imagining it.
    He decided to wait until she was free to introduce himself. He looked out of the window and saw his friend Jessica waving outside South Kensington tube station. Ludo pulled up and she got into the front beside him.
    Jessica was a friend of theirs from university and Luke was always glad to see her. She had been a sort of big-sister figure when the three of them lived together in their second and third years, even though she was actually the same age. She had prepared meals for them, since Luke had always been cooked for and Ludo had always eaten out or ordered in, neither was much use in the kitchen, and they consumed her miraculous shepherd's pies and pasta bakes like starving children. They had also left her in charge of all the bills, merely scrawling cheques absentmindedly when she asked for them. Both he and Ludo felt embarrassed and confused by all this when they remembered it. Luke had found out recently that Jessica had been working secretly at a Pizza Hut in a nearby town to supplement her student grant and pay the bills. Her two flatmates, on the other hand, had idled away their three years in hangovers and come-downs, leaving on lights and hot water and blow-heaters, carelessly squandering their parents' money.
    Jessica leant right back between the seats and kissed Arianne, whom she had obviously met before, then gave Luke a big hug. She was one of those people who always insisted on proper hugs and kisses, even if it meant climbing over a restaurant table. Her hair smelt cold and Christmassy; it felt icy against Luke's face. She smiled at him. 'Are you well, sweetheart?' He nodded and smiled back, and she began to adjust the car stereo, looking for a song she liked while she waited for the lighter to pop out. She glanced at Arianne in the vanity mirror. 'Are you
still
texting? She was texting all last night. Have you had a break?'
    'Done it,' Arianne said. 'Finished. I shall never send another text message ever, ever, ever again.' She dropped the phone casually into her handbag. Arianne was fond of absolute statements.
    They set off again and Luke felt increasingly awkward. They turned corners fast and three times his leg almost touched hers as he slid around on the seat. Why did Ludo not say
anything?
Suddenly he felt exasperated by his friend, who was just sitting there, steering with his knees, singing along to David Bowie with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. It was absurd. It was Ludo's
job
to introduce them.
    Luke clenched his fist and turned towards Arianne, wearing his best smile. Unfortunately, though, before he could say anything, a gun-metal blue jeep came out of a side street on to the King's Road and slammed into the passenger side of the car.
    The road was icy and they spun a hundred and eighty degrees through the bright, cold air and smashed into a tree.
    The first hit had taken them all by surprise, but the second came with a calm inevitability. The tree trunk loomed larger and larger in the side window until it filled the view. It felt like dancing, as if London itself had swung them out, out, out—and then snatched