How Do I Love Thee

Six

        Brett drove up to Shayla's house, cut the engine, then sat wondering how he was going to get hold of her. It was after midnight. Surely her family was asleep. He saw a candle flickering on the back porch, so he took a chance and rapped lightly on the screen.
        

        She appeared out of the darkness, startling him. "I--um, heard that you called."
         

        "I was going to ask you to come over."
         

        "I know it's late--"
        

          "Maybe for you, but I've only been up for a few hours."
       

         Her days were his nights,  he reminded himself.
         

        "I know you work," she said. "If tonight's not good for you--"
          

        "Tonight's fine," he said hastily, not wanting to miss his opportunity. She could change her mind by tomorrow. "I can sleep in because my shift doesn't start until 4 o'clock." He jingled the car keys in his pocket nervously. Finally, he confessed, "Look, Shayla,  I know about your having XP."

        She remained quiet for so long that he was afraid she was going tell him to go away. Instead, she ask, "And you came anyway?"
       

                Why wouldn't I?"

       She opened the screen door. "Follow me." She picked up the candle and took him down a flight of stairs.

          "Your rooms in the basement?"

           "Underground is the safest place for me. Only two tiny windows that Dad painted black."

        At the foot of the stairs, she opened a door, and he saw a huge room that glowed with light candles and low-wattage light bulbs. The room reminded him of an apartment, with a living area, a dining area, and kitchen. There was a brick fireplace in one wall, and large pieces of comfortable furniture were arranged cozily to face it. Another wall was covered by a massive array of electronic equipment--a TV, VCR, DVD and CD players, stacks of CDs, and shelves of video tapes. Bookshelves crammed with books lined two other walls, and a long desk held three computers with screaming aglow, a fax machine, and a small scanner. A cat jumped off the sofa and sauntered over to rub against Shayla's leg and check out Brett.
 

        "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 day time for anything. This computer is for school work, 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 candle light. 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 I'm 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 willingly 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 completely reconfigure this house and make it lightproof. We started fixing up the basement for me when I was 8. It was much easier to live down here than upstairs."
 

        "Didn't you ever go to regular school?"
 

        "I tried in 3rd 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 back seat 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 6th grade, I stopped coming all together. Teachers came here, and of course, there was the Web. No big deal."

        It was a big deal. Brett recalled how he'd felt when he'd been called names. "And now?"
 

        "Now I've moved ahead and left them in the dust." She offered a smile.         "I've already completed a year of courses from Boston College on the Internet. College is more fun anyway, 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...when the sun's just gone down, or first in the morning. But I don't stay out long, and I have to rub gobs sunscreen." She went to the bookshelves, selected a videotape, and inserted it into the VCR. The TV screen lit up with a clip of the Sun glowing like an enormous red ball over the plains of Africa. The scene shifted to images of a white sand beach where people sunbathe 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 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 ike 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."