Pete Jenkins spent part of his evening talking in depth with Barbara, the nurse who'd understood his situation much more than he'd given her credit for.
"I'd wanted to be an Olympic cross-country runner since I was ten years old," she confided with a soft smile. "I was eighteen, and in the best shape of my life. I'd been training night and day, for years, for my chance to fulfill my dream."
"About two weeks before the national trials that year, I was lying in bed being lazy on a Sunday morning, trying to work up the motivation to get myself up and go out for a run. I finally talked myself into it, so, I got up and put on my running gear and I went. And about three miles in, I got hit from behind by a car that was passing on the shoulder of the road around a blind curve."
Pete shuddered.
