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“How’s your dad?” Owen asked as they approached the building.
“Fine,” Nick muttered, dodging a group of late-night tourists gazing up at the skyscrapers around them. “He’s going to wake up soon, and then he’ll get to go home.”
“Yeah? That’s good. Sorry I haven’t stopped by.”
“It doesn’t matter. The room’s not very big. Not anything you could have done.”
“Still. Hospitals creep me out. I was in them a lot as a kid, and I don’t ever go back to them if I don’t have to.”
Nick stopped walking.
Owen glanced back at him. “What?”
“I didn’t know you’d been in the hospital.”
Owen rolled his eyes. “Because I never told you. It’s not that big of a deal. You coming or what?”
Nick followed him. “Why did you have to go to the hospital?”
“Maybe it was because I was crazy,” Owen said, waggling his eyebrows. “Kept me wrapped up in a straitjacket and everything.”
Nick shoved him. “The only thing that’s ever been straight about you.”
Owen laughed. “Funny guy. I forget that sometimes. I don’t know why it surprises me.”
“Thanks? I think.”
“It wasn’t anything major,” Owen said, his breath clouding behind him in a warm stream. “Saw things that weren’t there.”
Nick blinked. “Like hallucinations?”
“Sort of. They thought there was something wrong with my eyes, at first. And then with my brain.”
“What was it?”
Owen looked up, the light from his father’s building covering his skin. “Never figured it out. I got on medication, and it went away.” He turned his head and winked at Nick. “I was one of the lucky ones, I guess.”
A memory rose through the storm in Nick’s head, bright as a shooting star.
And my medicine? I need it.
Not right now. You’ve had enough for the time being. Go. You’ve already made me late enough as it is.
“That’s…” He didn’t know how to finish. He decided on, “Weird.”
Owen staggered dramatically. “Ouch, Nicky. And here I thought we were getting closer again. Why would you insult me on a date?”
Nick was scandalized. “We’re not on adate.Why would you say that?”
“I asked you out, and you said yes.”
“You told me we were going to break into your dad’s work and steal pills to make me into an Extraordinary!”
“Well, yeah. Pretty great date idea, right?”
Nick punched Owen in the arm. “Dude, not cool. You know I’m—you know Seth and me are—we’resomething,okay?”
Owen made a face. “Like I could forget that. How is dear old Seth, anyway?”
