Crushing Crystal Read Online Free PDF Page A

was “just great” that I was “willing to go against nature.” Like I was some sort of knight suited in Styrofoam armor jousting at bluebirds.
    Most days when I’m thinking straight, I feel very comfortable with my decision not to have children. Of course I sometimes wonder if I’m missing out on something. I wonder if parents are really right and life without a child really is incomplete. Then, honestly, all I need to do is spend a little time with a kid, and I remember my reasons. When I’m with Sophie’s five-year-old twins I find them to be delightful—as long as it’s in thrifty little spoonfuls of two hours. Everyone insists that I’d feel differently about my own. I doubt it, but sometimes I still wonder.
    I waited for Cindy and Eve to tell me that they sometimes imagined what living my life would be like, but neither did. The wrath of God thing.
    Â 
    Â 
    In the morning, the three of us went to breakfast and ordered the two-dollar bacon-and-eggs special before heading over to the Mud Bowl to watch the fraternities and sororities play messy touch football before the big game. When we went to college, Matt’s fraternity was one of the houses that participated in the game every year. I loved watching his transformation from clean-cut jock to the Loch Ness monster after he spent several downs in the mud. In either state, he looked beautiful. He started out in his light blue fraternity jersey and gray sweatpants cut off at the knees. The deal-clinchers for me were the backward baseball cap and, don’t ask me why, the mouth guard he wore.
    I have never matched the level of chemistry I had with Matt. I don’t know what it was about him, aside from his athletic good looks and charming sense of humor. Perhaps it was the way he squinted his blue eyes and flashed a cocky smile when he saw me. Maybe it was how he was never totally available to me, but something about Matt penetrated my memory so clearly that my heart raced just knowing I was standing across the street from where he lived fourteen years ago.
    I was disappointed to see that Matt’s fraternity house now bore different Greek letters. The team wore green shirts with Delta Something Something on the front.
    â€œNothing like young boys in mud,” said Cindy, creating a visor with her hands. As the teams ran into the mud bowl, the smile dropped from her face. Neither Eve nor I had to ask what the problem was. “Are these? Are these?” Cindy asked, knowing that the combination of alcohol and horror could likely make her sick if she finished the sentence. “Students?” she managed to complete. Eve nodded. “ Here? Are they students here? They’re in college?!” she asked, panicked and nauseated. Eve nodded again, pursing her lips apologetically. “Lord have mercy, I can’t watch this,” Cindy said, holding one hand over her eyes.
    â€œWhat’s the problem, Cindy?” I asked. “You were flirting with two little ones at Rick’s last night. You just now noticed that we’re twice their age?”
    She nodded her head, panicked. “I don’t know, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the daylight, but they look so pudgy-cheeked now. Like fucking cherubs or something. Let’s get out of here.”
    â€œHere, here,” I seconded. “Eve, let’s go. I feel like some sort of pervert ogling little boys.”
    Eve insisted we were insane, but left anyway. As we walked away, we heard the sororities begin their house cheers.
    â€œIf they look that young to us,” Cindy realized, “we must look . . .”
    â€œOld,” I finished for her.
    â€œOld,” she repeated, not noticing herself clutch the bottom of her hair as if to check that it was still there.

Chapter 3
    T he walk to Michigan stadium was somewhat comforting as we saw clusters of sixty-year-old men wearing maize-and-blue checkered pants, with sweater vests