Survivor - By Kaye Draper Page 0,6

Hope warred with horror as I realized I had nothing to feed a guest. “I was going to have leftover spaghetti, but if you’re staying, we could order take out or something?”

I turned to find him standing right behind me. “Good lord, don’t sneak up on me like that!”

He smirked at my startled reaction. “Sorry.” Peter gestured to the fridge. “I’m not really hungry, so you just have whatever you want.” I hesitated, but I finally pulled out a Gladware container and handed it to him.

“Are you sure? You never eat.” We had been having lunch together almost every workday for a few weeks now. He usually ate whatever I did, but he never ate more than a few bites. I let my glance travel up the lean length of him. He had a graceful, athletic build- muscular but without that body builder look. He certainly wasn’t skinny. He had to eat sometime.

He just took the leftovers from me with a chuckle. “I’m on a diet.”

I rolled my eyes and watched him put the stuff in the microwave. He punched buttons hesitantly. Geez, maybe he really didn’t ever eat. Or maybe he was just used to eating something better than microwaved leftovers. Sometimes- no, most of the time- I felt way outclassed, but he never seemed to mind.

Peter sat at the table with me while I shoveled in the leftovers. I finally got him to agree to a glass of orange juice, but that was it. I swear I never saw him drink it. One moment it was full, the next it was empty. When I was done, he put my dishes in the dishwasher then stood looking around my kitchen. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave, and I cleared my throat awkwardly.

“Uh… since neither one of us has to work tomorrow, do you maybe want to stay and watch a movie?” I looked down, nervously picking at the seam of my pants, and tried not to hold my breath.

“That would be nice,” he said with what sounded like genuine happiness.

I made my way to the living room and Peter followed. I guiltily opened the door to my massive entertainment center, biting my lip when he burst out laughing at my D.V.D. collection. I had a lot of down time these days.

“This one?” He reached past me to snatch up my favorite Jackie Chan movie.

I grinned. “Absolutely.” He didn’t say a thing about the irony of the wheelchair-bound girl loving martial arts flicks. I put the movie in and transferred to the couch. Peter watched interestedly as I positioned my wheelchair perpendicular to the sofa, moved my leg rests aside, locked the brakes, and levered myself over.

“How long have you been this way?” He perched next to me on the couch and grabbed up the remote.

I looked down at my hands. Peter and I had never really talked about the accident. He didn’t ask me the usual questions about what had happened and how I managed to go about my life. I hadn’t realized it before. He treated me as if I was just… normal. Like there was nothing different about me.

“Ah…it was about five years ago,” I said slowly. “I was driving home from work and I got into a car accident.” I shrugged. “I was eighteen.”

He pressed his lips together. “So young,” he said, after a pause.

I nodded. “That’s what everyone says; that it’s terrible it happened to me so young.” Though, I wasn’t entirely sure why that should matter. It seemed like a terrible thing to go through no matter what your age.

He looked up from his perusal of the disk menu in surprise. “No, I meant you’re so young,” he gestured toward the chair, hidden in the kitchen, “to have so much wisdom and experience.”

I frowned. Well, I guess when you put it that way- I had lived through a lot in my twenty-three years. Sometimes I felt downright ancient. Peter kept his eyes on the disc menu as he surfed through the options. “Are you angry?” He wasn’t being rude. He was just curious. As if he were asking what my favorite color was.

I’d heard the question before, countless times. I had talked to my psychologist about it every week for years. “Yeah.” I looked into his beautiful eyes. “Sometimes I’m pissed.” I shrugged. “There isn’t anything I can do about it. The guy who hit me, he was drunk. He had a couple of bruises afterward, but I was in