Shooting for the Stars Read Online Free PDF Page A

Bear had never taken her seriously about anything, it was perfectly safe to send it. In fact, she could have the sentiment sky-written over Lake Tahoe by a pair of crop dusters, and Bear would assume it was all in jest. She could even have the words I LOVE YOU BEAR tattooed across her boobs and flash him. If she thought she had a prayer of getting him to see her as a woman and not the kid sister of his best friend, she might actually try it. But Bear would probably just roll his eyes and grab a couple of cocktail napkins off the bar to help preserve her modesty. Funny little Stella. Such a kidder .
    She’d been friend-zoned since childhood. It wasn’t exactly news.
    Stella had been in love with Bear since the year she was eight and he was ten. That had been the unfortunate year when she’d had to spend too much time indoors. She’d been ill a lot that fall with a fever that never seemed to go away. Her frantic mother had taken her from one doctor to another asking for tests.
    Stella was a brave girl even then. So the blood tests didn’t scare her as much as they inconvenienced her. Winter had just arrived, and she ought to have been playing with Hank and Bear on the snowy slope between their homes, not sitting in waiting rooms.
    But one awful afternoon her father came home from work early. From behind their bedroom door, she heard her parents’ anguished voices. A chill settled over Stella, and she went into her bedroom, climbing on the bed and pulling her favorite stuffy into her lap. Eventually, her tearful parents came in to tell her that the doctor had figured out what was wrong with Stella. It was something called leukemia, and she was going to have to get very strong medicine that might make her sick.  
    “Everything is going to be fine ,” her mother had promised, dabbing the corners of her eyes.
    Of course it was. Stella wasn’t a worrier. And at eight, she didn’t know anybody who’d died, especially not a child. Her mother told her that she was going to miss some school, and that her hair might fall out. “But it will grow back,” she promised.
    It was all very confusing, and Stella began to get a bad feeling about what winter held. She was supposed to compete for the very first time in a juniors snowboarding contest in December. The way her mother fussed, it sounded as if she’d never be allowed outside again.
    The Lazarus home became horribly quiet. There were more whispered discussions behind closed doors, and Stella had the sinking feeling that they were talking about her. Even Hank had acted weird. He was too nice to her, bringing her things and watching her in a funny way that made Stella uncomfortable. So she did the obvious thing. She punched him.
    “Ow!” Hank yelled. He gave her a firm pinch in return.
    “Stop!” their mother wailed. “She’ll bruise easily!” The ever-present tears appeared in her eyes, and Hank looked stricken, slipping away, hanging his head.
    Sheepishly, Stella retreated to her bedroom, taking up a position in the middle of her big purple bedspread. She was bored, and everyone was acting freakishly. But twenty minutes later, Bear turned up, banging into Stella’s room with a frown. “It’s raining ,” he complained.
    Stella shared his disgust with this development. He and Hank had been building a jump from the early snow in the yard, eager to have their own practice spot for aerials. Rain would melt their efforts.
    “Where is everybody?” Bear asked. And by “everybody” she knew he meant Hank.
    Stella just shrugged.
    Bear looked around for a second. Then he went over to Stella’s bookshelf and grabbed the Uno cards. “Play you for a quarter a game.”
    Her heart lifted then. Finally . Here was someone who wasn’t acting strangely. “Fifty cents,” she’d countered. (She’d loved risk, even at age eight.)
    “Fine.” He dropped his coat on her bedroom floor and climbed onto the bed. “But no whining when I win.”
    That winter, they played a lot of