Read Online Bruiser by Neal Shusterman - Free Book Online Page B

couldn’t. “Are you being sarcastic?” I asked. “Because it’s not funny.”
    â€œNo,” said Tennyson. “I mean it. If you care about him, then you should keep on seeing him. Do you care about him?”
    I didn’t answer right away. I’ll admit that Brewster had started as a project, but he had quickly become more than that. The question wasn’t whether or not I cared about him; the question was, how much? I’m glad Tennyson didn’t ask that , because then I’d have to ask myself; and I already knew the answer. I cared far more than was safe.
    â€œYes,” I told Tennyson simply. “I do care about him.”
    Tennyson nodded and, without an ounce of judgment, said, “Good. Because he probably needs you. And I think you’re going to need him, too.”
    I didn’t quite know what he meant by that last part, but Iwas still processing the fact that Tennyson felt this was good.
    â€œI thought you hated him….”
    â€œI did,” Tennyson admitted, “but if I wanted to keep hating him, I needed a good reason; and I couldn’t find one.”
    This was not the Tennyson I knew. It’s amazing how people can surprise you. Even brothers. “So, now you’re friends?”
    â€œI wouldn’t go that far.” Then Tennyson lifted his hand and made a fist. I thought he was making a point; but no, he just studied his knuckles with a creepy kind of intensity. “Tell me something, Brontë by any chance did you hurt your foot last week?”
    It threw me because I didn’t expect him to know about that. How does he find out these things? “Yes,” I said. “I mean, no. I mean, I thought I sprained my ankle, but I didn’t.”
    â€œAnd the Bruiser was with you?”
    â€œWere you spying on us again?”
    â€œNo, I just had a hunch.”
    â€œSo, then, he told you about it?”
    â€œNope.” And then he added with a grin, “Maybe I’m just a mind reader.”
    Now this was more like the Tennyson I knew. “The only thing supernatural about you, Tennyson, is your body odor.”
    He laughed at that. It eased the tension, but only a little. Then he got serious again. “Just promise me that you’ll stay away from his house and from his uncle…and if things start to get weird, you’ll tell me.”
    â€œWhat do you mean by weird ?”
    â€œJust promise,” he said.
    â€œOkay, fine. I promise.”
    Then Tennyson leaned back into the man-eating sofa and turned on the TV, signaling the end of the conversation.
    I left feeling more unsettled than before. It was easier to deal with Tennyson when he was fighting me; but having him on my side was frightening, because now I didn’t know who the enemy was.

18) PERIPHERALLY
    In horse racing they put these slats on either side of the horse’s head, blocking the creature’s peripheral vision. They’re called blinders. They don’t actually blind the horse, but they allow the horse to see only what’s right in front of it; otherwise it might freak out and lose the race.
    People live with blinders too; but ours are invisible, and much more sophisticated. Most of the time we don’t even know they’re there. Maybe we need them, though, because if we took in everything all at once, we’d lose our minds. Or worse, our souls. We’d see, we’d hear, we’d feel so deeply that we might never resurface.
    So we make decisions and base our lives on those decisions, never realizing we’re only seeing one-tenth of the whole. Then we cling to our narrow conclusions like our lives depend on it.
    Remember how they imprisoned Galileo for insisting the earth revolved around the sun? You can call those people ignorant, but it was more than mere ignorance. They had a lot to lose if they took off their blinders. Can you imagine how terrifying it must be to suddenly realize that