To Love a Spider

Chapter 6

 Peter continued to walk in the opposite direction. Elizabeth didn't want to bail on him so she followed close behind. She was extremely nervous. There was nothing weird at all about an teenage guy leading a younger girl into the dark alleys behind a sea food restaurant. Nothing at all.
The worst case scenarios kept going through Elizabeth's mind. "What if he is going to kill me? Or maybe rob me? Or worse?" Elizabeth steered herself away from those thoughts. She only had twenty buck on her so Peter wouldn't be getting much if he decided to take her money. Besides, Peter seemed like a nice guy. Elizabeth doubted that he had the heart to do something bad to someone. He was the type of guy that was the hero not the villain.
Maybe they were just going to a romantic spot Peter had set up for them.
Elizabeth paled at the thought. She was almost hoping that she would be robbed.
Peter turned a corner into another dark alley. He pulled down a set of fire escape stairs that Elizabeth had not noticed until Peter touched. It was almost too dark to see anything. Elizabeth could just make out Peter by the glint of moonlight on his hair.
Peter motioned for Elizabeth to go up the staircase. Elizabeth hesitantly did as she was told and slowly made her way up the stairs. She checked the time on her watch. 9:10. They still had plenty of time before curfew. More than enough time for something drastic to happen.
Elizabeth didn't like drastic.
They kept going up and up until they were almost to the top about fourteen stories in the air. Elizabeth was slightly panting from the exercise but it wasn't too bad. Working out and doing sports helped to keep her in decent shape. Thank gosh Elizabeth loved heights of else she would have a complete meltdown. They were so high up. Elizabeth, always a daredevil, leaned over the edge until she was almost halfway over the railing.
All of a sudden, Elizabeth felt an arm snake around her waist and pull her back. She flinched at the contact, not liking to be touched and backed away to find that Peter was staring at her. His arm was held awkwardly in front of him and his cheeks were red. "S-sorry," he stuttered.
"I-it's okay, I wasn't going to fall or anything. I was just looking," Elizabeth was also a little embarrassed with what had happened. She knew that Peter was just looking out for her like a good friend.
Almost as soon as it had appeared the blush on Peter's face was gone, replaced by a smirk. "Well, knowing you, it would be almost as easy to fall as to lean over."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Oh, be quiet, that's not true."
It was true. At least three times a day Elizabeth tripped over her own feet. She didn't know how she could even do sports without completely harming herself. Well, now she had to postpone her sports because of her new injuries from the attack.
"Yes, it is."
"No, it's not."
"Yes."
"No."
That's how it went for about three more stories before Peter finally called a truce. Elizabeth was the most stubborn person and she knew that she could have easily gone on for two more hours arguing like that with him. Elizabeth then realized they were almost twenty stories up. There was less than five stories to the top.
"How far up are we going?" She questioned.
"All the way up."
She gave out a groan and tried to run the rest of the way up to get it over with. When she got to the top she turned to find Peter behind her. He didn't have a drop of sweat on him.
"How. Are. You. Not. Tired?" Elizabeth asked, panting between breaths.
"Just lucky I guess," Peter replied. He seemed a little distracted.
"Lucky about what?" Elizabeth pressed.
"Lucky I'm so fit."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes at his childish behavior and turned around. There was the top of a skylight blocking her view from the rest of the roof. She moved to get around it. "So what did you want to show..." She trailed off.
She walked toward the edge of the roof and sat down on a ledge. Peter was by her side in an instant. "You need to be more careful," he said, "or you could get hurt."
Elizabeth wasn't paying attention to him. She was looking at the city. It was beautiful. From the rooftop you could see the whole city and because of it being night all of the lights were on. The glow from the moon caught on the water beneath the bridge and gave off a magical glow. Elizabeth had never liked the city, she was a small town live-in-the-forest type of girl, but this...this was amazing.
"Elizabeth. Elizabeth!" She had completely zoned out and didn't even realize that Peter had been calling her name.
"Yes?" she asked.
"You there?"
"No, this is an alien pretending to be her," the sarcasm dripping from her words, "Yes, of course I'm here!"
Peter put his hands up in defense, "Just making sure, you were in La La Land for a moment there."
Elizabeth turned to look at Peter and gave him a genuine smile. "Thank you for taking me here. It's beautiful."
"Yeah it is." Elizabeth was too intrigued by the sight in front of her to realize that Peter wasn't talking about the skyline. She still thought that Peter had asked her out on a date because he wanted to be friends and not anything else. She didn't believe that anyone could think of her as pretty or want to date-date her.
She caught Peter staring at her and her eyes locked with his.
For a split-second Elizabeth thought that Peter actually liked her and that maybe she truly liked him back. Not for his good looks or intelligence, but because he was nice and sweet. Because he had a good sense of humor.
But that was only for a split-second.
She turned away to look back at the city and Peter sat beside her. They sat like that until 9:45 and it was time to take Elizabeth back home. Elizabeth didn't want to leave, this had been the greatest night of her life.
On the way back down to the car Peter took Elizabeth's small hand in his big one.