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.“Look at yourself, Josh.You may not be skinny, but you’re certainly not fat.Not by any means.”She was right.My sagging gut was gone, my jowls were lean -- even my lovehandles were a thing of a past.When I checked the label in the pants later, I realized they were only a 34-inch waist.“What the hell is this?”“Metabolism,” said Animan, slurping a kiwi juice.“What?” I said.“A lot of the folks in here have superefficient metabolisms as part of their powers.I figure God didn’t want ‘em looking too silly in Spandex.You copy other people’s powers.Hanging around here is slimmin’ you down, boy!” He patted my no-longer-protruding stomach.“Of course, not everyone has a super-metabolism,” said Ted, jamming this thumb towards the door.There was Doctor Noble, pot-belly and all.“Sinistah!” he shrieked in a voice so high that it bordered on the effeminate.“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”She looked over at me with a frightened glare in her eyes, but I just opened mine wider.Tell him exactly what you’re doing.I thought.“I’m congratulating my friend,” she said.“I thought I told you not to hang around this twerp anymore.”Don’t let him tell you what to do, I pleaded silently.“You can not tell me who my friends are!” she shouted.It was probably the first time in memory that anyone had yelled at Doctor Noble like that -- particularly not in front of everybody in the lounge.We were beginning to draw a crowd.“Do you know what you’re saying, little girl?”Her eyes blazed.“I know exactly what I’m doing.” She placed a single index finger on his chest and shoved him out the door.Ted, Animan and I began hurriedly looking at each other, unsure of what to do next.“She’s breaking up with him, dude!” Animan half-whispered.“Come on, you don’t know that.”“What else could she be doing out there?” Ted asked.“Tons of things.Apologizing.wimping out.”“Uh-uh.No.She’s finally had it with that walking mound of cow vomit.The three of us are gonna wait right here until she comes back.”So we did.We waited three hours.Ted and Animan repeatedly trounced me at foosball, ping-pong and multiple video games.I could feel the bile in my stomach scouting out a location for the ulcer like prospective homeowners counting the bathrooms.Finally, sullen and red-eyed, she returned.“Did you?” Ted asked.“Did you?” Animan asked.“Daaaaah?” I asked.“I did,” she said.“If you don’t mind, guys, I’d really like to be alone right now.”“Oh yeah,” Animan said.“We understand,” Ted said.“Abbahahah,” I added.“Thanks.” She turned and walked out.Then Ted and Animan, moving with the kind of precision and single-mindedness that the United States Congress can only dream of, turned to me and shouted, “Go after her!”“What? She just said she wants to be alone.”“Don’t listen to what she said,” Animan explained.“Listen to what she didn’t say.”“What she.didn’t say?”“Yeah,” Ted said.“She said she wants to be alone.”“What she didn’t say is, ‘I need a shoulder to cry on’.”“You have shoulders!”“You could be that shoulder!”At that point they began babbling incoherently about my upper anatomy and backing me towards the door.I got shoved out into the hall, where I was alone, except for Annie, leaning against the wall, arms wrapped around herself, crying.I stepped up and hugged her, and she did, indeed begin crying on my shoulder, as though she’d been waiting for me after all.“You’re better off without him, you know,” I said.“I know.”“You’re going to be fine.I swear.”She sniffled and wiped her eyes.“Oh, Josh, you’re so good to me.I’m so lucky to have a friend like you.”I held her as she said that, even though it felt like a knife between my ribs, through my stomach and arching straight up towards my heart.“And I know I’m going to be fine,” she continued.“It’s just going to take some time.”“I know.I know.”I held her until she didn’t need me anymore, and then she left to return to her quarters.I went back to the lounge, a large wet patch on my shoulder making the dark gray even darker.Ted grinned like a maniac.“So?” he said.“How would you like to thank us?”“I know precisely how to thank you,” I said, smacking him on the back of his head.EMBERSMy relationship with Dr.Noble didn’t particularly improve after that.He went from being merely surly and rude to downright belligerent.When I passed him in the hall he’d glare at me, when he walked in the lounge and found me there he’d stare until I acknowledged him and then walk away gritting his teeth.Annie didn’t stay depressed for very long, but neither did she open up to me anymore.I knew Noble was still harassing her, trying to reconcile with her, but she assured me she was handling the situation.I didn’t believe that for an instant, but at the same time I knew it wasn’t my place to interfere until she wanted it.She was hurt and angry and it was all totally justified.The only thing she wasn’t was.ready.Now that I think about it, everything got kind of tense those next few weeks.Copycat made a spectacular debut, battling Hotshot in full view of all the major networks and talking in a creepy, Bela Lugosi type of voice.I “escaped” that first night to continue my quest to find the murderous Carnival.(“Pathos!” Morrie insisted [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]