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“You don’t have to sayanything.We’re having our first kiss, and you’re talking about your ex!”
“Whokidnappedme. I’m allowed to state the obvious. Do you know how traumatizing today has been for me?”
But Nick never got to hear what Seth’s response would have been.
Because one moment, they were together, finally together, and it was everything Nick thought it would be.
And in the next, the platform broke away from the bridge, the struts crumpling around them as a black shadow wrapped around Seth, pulling him off into nothing.
Nick didn’t have time to react, because he was falling.
It was here, then, at the end, that Nick’s life flashed before his eyes.
There was a chubby boy sitting on the swings by himself, and Nick wanted nothing more than to be his friend forever.
A girl named Gibby laughed at a joke he made, and he felt like he could do anything.
Jazz was crying on his shoulder, having fought with her girlfriend. Nick wrapped an arm around her, holding her close, his face in her hair.
Owen smiled wickedly as he reached across the table, stealing a carrot.
They walked up the stairs from the Franklin Street station, all of them bumping shoulders and laughing.
Cap grinned at him, mustache drooping.
Martha Gray kissed his forehead as she shooed him up the stairs.
Bob Gray clapped him on the back while he flipped burgers on the grill.
And there was theocean,and she was there, laying her head on his shoulder. She was telling him that she loved him, and she smiled like the sun, and he washappy,dear god, he washappybecause he was with her.
He touched her smile in the frame on his nightstand.
He had his first kiss.
Then he had the only first kiss that mattered.
And there was a man, a big man, a strong man, who lifted Nick up on his shoulders, saying how proud he was of Nick, that he was brave and kind. He said he wished Nick didn’t have to be the way he was,why do you have to be this way?He was asking Nick if he’d taken his pill. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, head slumped, and he wascrying,his whole body shaking, a frilly pink scarf clutched in his hands, and Nick knew he was trying to be quiet, trying not to let anyone hear him, but Nick couldn’t leave him alone. He sat next to him on the bed, taking his dad’s hand in his, and they stayed there for the longest time. There was Cinnamon Bread-Shaped Chomps, because that was how they apologized to each other. There was the buzzing of his phone in the middle of a school day and the beeping of his father’s heart from a machine next to his bed.
But everything faded away with the sound of Dad’s voice.
I don’t need you to be an Extraordinary, Nicky. Not when you’re already extraordinary to me.
He’d lived a good life.
He’d made his mother smile. He’d made his father proud. He’d kissed the boy of his dreams. And he did it all without being an Extraordinary. In the end, maybe that was his superpower.
Deep in his head, the ache bit down like it was alive, its teeth sharp. He was being torn apart. He didn’t like it. With the last of his strength, he pushed it away.
And for the first time in his life, it just… went.
There was a sharpcrackaround him, and everything stopped.
He opened his eyes. He stood on the bridge.
The cruisers were in front of him, lights spinning, a line of officers staring at him with matching expressions of awe.
Well, notexactlyat him.
