Crush Read Online Free PDF Page B

peacock unfurls its tail feathers to attract, men engage in conflict to gain attention and approval of their female counterparts. They fight and preen and pose. It is a fundamental part of the breeding instinct.
    In a species set apart by intellect, it seems odd that such base and brutal traits are still coveted or, at the very least, believed to be. Intelligence and imagination should be the aspirations. They should be the peacock’s plumageand the lion’s might in a species that claims intellectual superiority. Yet they are not. The lions still fight. The rams still butt heads.
    Isn’t that right, Toby?

4
    After dinner—another gagfest microwave nightmare from the freezer—Jonathan sat in his room, leaning over the keyboard of his computer, waiting for an MP3 file to download. His computer only had a dial-up connection, so it took forever.
    Mr. Weaver’s death was on his mind. He’d seen the teacher’s pudgy face smiling out at him from the newspaper next to an article that said almost nothing about the guy’s death. He was smothered and left in a tree. No suspects. No motive. No new information.
    Jonathan’s bedroom door cracked open, and his mother, looking exhausted and really old, poked her head in. He hadn’t seen her since she droppedthe small plastic tray holding his dinner on a plate and handed it across the kitchen counter to him. He’d retreated to his room with the meal.
    Now his mother cast an annoyed look at him, as if she’d just caught him tracking mud through the house.
    â€œI need the phone,” she said.
    â€œI’ll be done in a minute,” he said. “I’m downloading a file.”
    â€œWell, I need to speak to your aunt.”
    â€œJust one more minute.”
    â€œNow,” she said, sounding really pissed off. “This house doesn’t revolve around you, you know?”
    â€œMom, it’s like one more minute.”
    â€œRight now!”
    The progress bar on his computer still showed a quarter of an inch before the song finished downloading. That could mean another thirty seconds or another three minutes the way his machine worked. It was like in the movies where a guy was waiting for a code, and if he didn’t get it in time something would explode.
    In this case the something was his mother. He just didn’t feel strong enough to deal with it.
    â€œOkay,” he said, grabbing his mouse and dragging the cursor over the box to close the connection. He jabbed the mouse button and the window vanished. “I’m done.”
    His mother threw a final furious look at him. She backed out of the room and slammed the door.
    Jonathan hit the desk with his palm, sending a bolt of pain up to his elbow.
    Enough of this crap .
    He rose from the chair and stomped across the room, threw open the door. In the hallway, he saw his mother’s shadow shrinking on the far wall. He charged forward, chasing the ever-smaller stain on the wall, following it into the kitchen and the television room, where he found his mother lifting the phone from its cradle.
    Before she could even look up he started shouting.
    â€œWhat is your problem?” he said. His mother stared at him, total deer-in-the-headlights startled. “Your life sucks, so you figure mine should suck too? Well, forget it. You’re miserable because you let yourself be miserable. You let Dad treat you like crap. You let your boss walk all over you. You let Aunt Judy tell you what a loser you are. You take itall because you like it. If you weren’t pissed off about the world, you wouldn’t have a damned thing to talk about. So go ahead and bitch about how crappy everything is, and guzzle your gallons of Chianti, but keep me out of it. I didn’t do anything but be born. And that’s your fault too. So you stay out of my room and stay out of my life until I can bail this crap shack. Then you can have the phone whenever the hell you want, as