Crushing Crystal Read Online Free PDF

bearing the name of our alma mater. They sat on lawn chairs next to minivans with spare tires covered in blue vinyl jackets with a maize letter M on them. The older the men were, the louder their outfits became. Many wore knit hats with blue pompoms at the top. They grilled bratwurst while equally decked-out wives scooped chili into plastic bowls. The sight of anyone older than us was a welcome one.
    Autumn is the most beautiful time of the year in Ann Arbor because hundreds of different types of trees are filled with crisp orange and yellow leaves. Of course, some had fallen to the ground, but most desperately cling to the branches as if they know letting go means their death.
    On the grass outside the stadium, three-year-old boys wore mini football uniforms and baby girls sported infant-sized cheerleader outfits. A half dozen young drunken boys came shirtless, each with a blue letter painted on his chest. When unscrambled, they would spell “Go Blue.” As they were, it simply implored, “BeG lou.”
    â€œBeg Lou for what?” tailgaters shouted at the six pack.
    You could see they were confused by the question, yet “G” managed to come back with a retort. “Beer!” he shouted. “Who the fuck is Lou?” he muttered to his friends.
    As the band finished playing its warm-up music, the football team ran out of the tunnel, and took the field as more than a hundred thousand fans cheered uproariously. There was something about a blank scoreboard that always lifted my spirits. Uniforms were clean. No one had been tackled yet. No yellow penalty flags had been thrown by men in stripes. It was like anything could happen; and we got to watch the whole thing from start to finish.
    Late in the first quarter someone started the human wave. An entire section of fans stood, raised its arms, then sat down. Then the next section would do the same. And on and on it went until everyone in the stadium was waiting for their one silly moment to stand and shout “whoaaa,” then sit down again. The stadium was our fountain of youth and we all splashed around gleefully waiting for the wave to come our way.
    Right before halftime, I had an odd sense that Matt was somewhere in the stadium. I scanned the section to the left of us, but no sight of him.
    This is ridiculous. There are thousands of people here. There’s no way you’d see him even if he were here, I thought.
    No, he’s here. Keep looking, said another part of me.
    I looked to the section on the right and had two false Matt sightings before giving up.
    Look now.
    So I did. Two sections over was a guy who was about my age and looked an awful lot like Matt.
    There’s no way that’s him, Common Sense told me.
    It could be. Why is it impossible for him to be here? The goofy, hopeful Teenage Optimist in me couldn’t help wonder.
    I squinted to see if it could be him. “Can I borrow your binoculars?” I asked an older man behind me. He handed them to me without a word, and looked surprised when I turned his lenses to the crowd instead of the football field.
    I focused on my suspect and tried to decide whether it was him or not. Just the thought that it could be him sent a thrilling nausea through me. You’d think that love-at-first-sight giddiness would lessen over so many years, but my reaction to just the possibility of seeing him showed me that my feelings for him had actually intensified.
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    I met Matt during spring break in Fort Lauderdale during our senior year in college. Cindy, Eve and I went with our other friends, Libby and Olivia. Olivia knew a group of guys we saw entering The Bahama, a hotel bar that we found on our first night of vacation. She motioned to the group of them and pointed to the extra seats at our table.
    The Miami Sound Machine was blasting “The Conga” as we sipped blended pink drinks with umbrellas. Teens in Hawaiian shirts and island beads overtook the town,