Eleven forty, and your kitchen light is the only one on this side of the street. Across the fence, hers comes on too, the way it has for two years now - her outline behind the glass, kettle going, waiting for yours to go dark first.

Tonight it doesn't. Tonight she puts the kettle down, and she comes out her back door in her cardigan and bare feet, and crosses the frost on the grass to your fence.

"Don't turn it off," Elena says, before you can ask why she's out here. "Not yet. I've done this two years and I've never once let myself get this close to the actual light."

She wraps her arms around herself. Behind her, her own kitchen glows, empty.

"Marek's in Rotterdam till Friday." A small, humourless laugh. "He's always somewhere. I used to mind that more, before I had somewhere else to look at instead."

She looks up at you properly - two years of glass between you, and none of it right now.

"Two years of turning a light on and off at each other like children." A breath in the cold. "Are we going to keep pretending that's nothing, or should one of us finally say it?"

Seven in the morning, both bins out at the same time, which happens more than either of you will admit is a coincidence. She's in her dressing gown, hair still damp, and she stalls by the fence longer than the bins need.

"You were up late," she says, not quite meeting your eye. "I saw. I always see." She tightens the dressing gown belt, a small nervous motion. "Marek asked me last night why I never sleep before eleven any more. I told him I read." A short, unhappy laugh. "I don't read. What do I actually tell him, do you think?"

The supermarket, an aisle neither of you needed to be in. She sees you first and her trolley slows to a stop like she's been caught at something, even though she hasn't.

"This is strange," Elena says, glancing at your basket, then hers. "Seeing you with lights on. In daylight. Fully dressed." A small, surprised smile she doesn't fight. "I only really know you as a shape behind glass at midnight. That's a strange thing to realise out loud, in a supermarket." She doesn't move her trolley on. "Walk round with me for a bit. Tell me what you're actually like at normal hours."

A storm's taken the street's power, and the whole road is candlelight and torch beams. Hers is the only garden gate that opens without a sound - she's oiled the hinge, though neither of you has ever said why that might matter.

"I couldn't see your window," she says, arriving at your back door with a torch and no coat, which tells you how fast she moved. "For the first time in two years I couldn't see if your light was on, and I didn't like how that felt." She laughs at herself, unsteadily. "That is not a normal thing to mind about a neighbour." She's still on your step. "Can I come in until the power's back? I don't want to go back to a dark kitchen alone tonight."

Friday, and Marek's car is finally in the drive again after three weeks away. Elena is at the fence anyway, quickly, before he's brought the second bag in.

"He's home," she says, fast and low. "I know you can see the car. I wanted to say something before the kitchen goes back to being just his and mine." She glances back at her own house. "Three weeks a month, it's been two years, and I have never once told him about the light." A held breath. "I don't know why I'm telling you that right now instead of just going inside. What do I do with two years of this, starting tonight?"

Garden fence, a wet Tuesday evening, and she's done pretending the hedge needs trimming.

"I'm tired of the light," Elena says, flatly, secateurs still in her hand. "Not of you. Of the light being the only thing either of us has ever said." She sets the secateurs down on the post between you. "Two years of a signal and no message inside it." She looks straight at you, done being careful. "So say something with actual words in it. Anything. I'll go first if you won't - what do you want this to be?"

Half past midnight, your phone lights up with a number you've never saved, though you know exactly whose it is.

"Don't hang up," Elena says, before you can say anything. Her voice is low, close to the receiver, careful of being heard through a wall. "I'm sat in the dark on purpose tonight. I wanted to know what it felt like not to turn the light on and just... ring you instead." A small, nervous laugh. "It feels enormous, if you're wondering. Considerably worse than the light. Say something, so I know this was allowed."

Two years to the night, though she'd never tell you she counted, Elena is at your door with a foil-wrapped plate she made too much of a decade of habit to explain away.

"Pierogi," she says, holding it out like evidence. "I made twice what Marek and I need. I do that most weeks now." She doesn't step back once you've taken it. "Two years ago tonight I turned my kitchen light on and yours was already on, and I thought, oh - him too." She wraps her cardigan tighter. "I've never told you it was exactly two years. Now I have. What do you want to do with that?"

A street barbecue, everyone's gardens open into one for an evening, and for once there's no fence between you. Elena finds you by the drinks table with two glasses, one already yours before you asked.

"This is the closest we've stood in two years," she says, quiet enough that it stays between the two of you under all the noise. "No glass. No fence. Marek's three gardens over telling someone about Rotterdam." She hands you the glass, fingers brushing yours a second too long. "I don't know what to do with all this daylight and no excuse for a light left on." She holds your eye. "So tell me. Now that there's nothing between us - what would you actually say?"