Read Online Tracers by J. J. Howard - Free Book Online Page B

objectionable-looking mattress up and laid it under the tarp.
    Now, as darkness was falling on another crappy day, he was enjoying his penthouse view.
    The accommodations were pretty rough, but he figured this place would do until he could figure something else out—or until he got caught squatting there. He might have a couple of months or just one more day. Spotting the place to begin with had been dumb luck, random chance.
    He was beginning to think that was all there was to life: dumb luck and random chance. Up to now, nothing anyone had ever tried to teach him had done him any good.
    His life up to this point had been an extreme waste. That much was clear.
    He lay back, crossed his arms, and looked up at the sky. Up this high, he could see a handful of stars. He spotted the Big Dipper—or maybe it was the little one? And that bright star might be Sirius, the Dog Star. Cam remembered when he was in grade school his class would go on field trips to the planetarium down the street. They’d lean back in their seats and gaze up at the fake stars glinting in the fake-sky ceiling. The guy who ran the place would teach them about the constellations, and tell stories about them. He remembered the man promising them that they could all be astronauts when they grew up, if they worked hard enough.
    Cam closed his eyes, shutting out the stars. He’d worked hard ever since his mom had gotten sick, and look where it had gotten him. All the other useless things they’d tried to teach him in school—algebra and world history and Shakespeare—what had any of it been for? His tenth-grade girlfriend, Melina, had been obsessed with
Romeo and Juliet
—she’d made him watch the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio over and over before she even let him get to second base. She used to walk around quoting the lines all the time—telling him he was her Romeo. Cam knew what had become of Melina. He sure as hell hadn’t turned out to be her Romeo, and neither had anyone else. All her faith in true love hadn’t gotten her anything but pain and trouble. The boyfriend after him had gotten her into drugs; last he’d heard, she was serving a ten-year stint upstate for felony possession.
    His parents had been the same, Cam mused—believing in fate and love and all the rest. He remembered his father taking him for a drive one night. They’d lain across the hood of the GTO, looked up at these same stars, and his father had explained to Cam how he would know when he’d met the right girl.
    â€œIt’s magic, Cam,” his father told him. He handed Cam the bag of Cheetos they’d been sharing, and wiped the orange dust from his hands. “That’s what happened with your mother. She was manning the counter at her dad’s place—remember the shop he had over in Elmhurst? Anyway, I took one look and
boom.
A goner. Got hit with Cupid’s arrow, right between the eyes. I knew right away we’d be together forever. Magic, I’m telling you. It’ll be just the same for you someday.”
    Forever got a lot shorter a few months later when his dad got sent to prison. Cupid’s arrow had blinded his mom to his dad’s faults until it was too late; all their money was gone and they were alone with his debts. And then she got sick.
    So Cam was glad he’d learned so much valuable crap about love and sonnets and the freaking stars. It was all proving super useful.
    The worst part: it seemed pretty clear now that Cupid had had the nerve to shoot
him,
two weeks ago. Except instead of an arrow, he’d gotten hit with an actual girl falling out of the sky.
    Now Cam knew what he hadn’t understood on that night long ago with his dad. Even if there
was
such a thing as love at first sight, the world was still going to tear the two of them apart, because that’s what the world did. And he knew from watching that stupid movie with Mel where Romeo’s love had gotten