Colorblind (17 page)

“You’re a good girlfriend, Harper.” I could hear the smile in her voice, and the sleepiness. She yawned again. “Well, I should probably get some shut-eye. Text me tomorrow? Bright and early, before you get distracted by the free resort pool?”

“Okay. I will.” I didn’t want her to go, but I knew I couldn’t keep her on the phone forever. “Every hour again.”

“Sounds perfect. I love you, Harper.”

“I love you too, Chloe.”

The call ended with a click, but I kept the phone against my ear. I felt like crying all over again.

Dad was still oozing tension beside me, but it dissipated somewhat when he heard me sniff.

“It was just one weekend, Harper,” he sighed out. “It would’ve been fine.”

I didn’t have the willpower to argue with him. I couldn’t.

We drove on, and I stared down at my phone as the minutes ticked by. Eight thirty passed. Then nine o’clock. Then nine thirty.

Our drive progressed in complete silence. I felt the pressure in my stomach build, and my heart was pounding like it had right before the drop on the roller coaster Chloe’d forced me onto. I scrolled through photos on my phone, my ears ringing. We’d taken so many over the summer.

I settled on one of the two of us by the lake and stared. I looked distracted in the picture because I’d been taking it. Chloe was kissing my cheek. I swallowed hard.

At just past nine forty-five, we turned into our neighborhood and drove down the winding road that housed both my place and Chloe’s. I forced myself to look up. I saw the blue lights before Dad did.

“What the…?” he murmured next to me. His car slowed to a stop in front of a crowd of our neighbors. They stood near three police cars, directly in front of Chloe’s house. A teenage boy who looked absolutely distraught and a mother who clutched him like he’d break if she let go were standing between a four-door car with a shattered windshield and the crowd, but Chloe and her parents weren’t there.

The first tears swelled in my eyes and began to spill down my cheeks, and, completely numb, I flung open the passenger’s side door with my seatbelt still on and vomited out onto the street.

Chapter Thirteen

I sat in the car while Dad got out to go talk to our neighbors. I felt incapable of doing anything other than staring straight ahead. My body wouldn’t react to my head, and my head couldn’t form coherent thoughts. I managed to glance down at my phone and saw the hand clutching it was trembling. Chloe’s picture was still up, and I let my phone slip through my fingers and onto the floor in front of my seat. Then I raised my hand to my mouth and let out a sob.

That was how Dad found me when he came back to the car. He got in without saying anything, immediately slammed the door shut, and threw the car into reverse. Seconds later, we were speeding out of the neighborhood. I didn’t know where we were going. I couldn’t think.

“It’ll be okay, honey,” he said to me, as though that was supposed to mean anything to me. I already knew it wouldn’t be okay. I’d known it wouldn’t be okay from the moment I’d met Chloe.

I found the strength to retrieve my phone somehow. I’d thought of Robbie. I sent him a text that I wouldn’t remember sending later. There were misspellings, but I’d meant to say “hospital”. I knew without Dad having to tell me that that was where we’d be going.

He let me know I was correct sometime later, while we were still on our way, though not directly. He called Deborah. His voice was shaking, but I picked out bits and pieces. “Accident.” “Headed to hospital.” “Only ten minutes ago.”

He hung up and took my hand in his. His palm was clammy and he was trembling. I knew I was, too, but I couldn’t feel it. I felt like I was watching all of it happen to someone else. I no longer felt like throwing up because I could feel myself shutting down. I didn’t want to feel what I’d felt when I was twelve again. I didn’t want to ever feel anything at all again.

We parked near the emergency room at the hospital. Dad turned the keys and shut the car off, but left them in the ignition, he was so distracted. He hurried over to my side of the car and opened my door, then leaned over me to unbuckle my seatbelt when I didn’t move. When I still didn’t get out of the car, he knelt next to me and took my hand again. “Harper, look at me. She’ll be alright.”

I pressed my lips together and felt more tears come. I hadn’t realized I’d had any hope left at all until he confirmed right to my face that it was Chloe.

“I don’t want to go in,” I tried to say, but my mouth wouldn’t move. Dad kept urging me on, but he was speaking faster than my brain could process.

“Harper, please. Harper,” he kept saying, until at last he gripped the car door and pressed his forehead to it, squeezing his eyes shut tightly. “Harper, we have to be there.”

I recognized those words. I hadn’t wanted to go inside with Mom, either. I wondered if he was thinking of her now. If this was even about the girl I loved for him, or if he was just reliving losing the girl
he
loved.

I turned and slipped out of the car, then stood on shaky legs. Dad collected himself and helped me walk across the parking lot. I’m not sure how I stayed up, but I did.

Chloe’s mother and father were alone in the lobby, clutching each other. I saw her father’s hands before I could look away, and knew instinctively that this was the moment I’d see over and over again, every night when I closed my eyes. His hands were stained with dried blood.

My stomach started working again and I stumbled to the nearest garbage can to wretch for the second time. Dad was there, at my back, and then Chloe’s parents were looking at us, their cheeks stained with tears even worse than my own were.

“There’s no news yet,” was all her dad could muster up the energy to say. I was glad he seemed unable to spare us any more detail. I couldn’t know any more about what had happened. I didn’t want details. Ever.

We waited there for what felt like hours for good news I knew wouldn’t come. I thought of all the things I hadn’t done right. I wished I’d given her everything she’d wanted from the very beginning. I’d conquer every fear I had now just to see her smile.

A nurse came to take Chloe’s parents away to a different waiting room sometime later. I learned that Chloe was in surgery, then, and wished I hadn’t.

Robbie found us not long after that. He didn’t know what to say any more than my dad did. He sat beside me in one of the chairs, ran a hand through his hair, and then placed his face in his hands. Maybe later on I’d just appreciate that he’d been there, but I didn’t then. Dad paced back and forth not far from us.

There were people in and out as we waited, but I didn’t look at any of them. I pulled my knees up to my chest, eventually, and pressed my face against them, closing my eyes and swallowing back more nausea. I thought I’d be more angry at myself than I was, but it wasn’t me I was angry at. I was just angry that things were the way they were, and I didn’t know how to focus that. How could I be angry at a force? How could I let that out?

I squeezed my eyes shut tighter and mumbled to Robbie, “Everything’s pointless.
Everything
.”

He turned his head to face me, and then shook it. “No.”

I pulled back to stare at him, stony-faced. “This wasn’t worth it.”

“It just feels that way now,” he told me. He was quiet, but I sensed it was because he was worried he was upsetting me. And he was.

I swallowed hard, all too aware the tears were going to come again. “My girlfriend is in another room dying-” I stopped, choking on the word, and then stood. I needed to get out.

“Harper?” Dad called out from across the room when he noticed me heading for the door. “Harper-!”

“I need some air,” I managed to say, and when I glanced back and saw him starting after me and Robbie getting to his feet, I turned away and sprinted.

I was faster than Robbie, I knew, and Dad was too far away to catch me before I got to his car. I clambered in and shut the door behind me, then locked the doors and started the car up with the keys he’d left in the ignition. Robbie reached me before Dad and yanked at the door handle, then banged on the window.

“Harper!” His voice was muffled. “Harper, don’t do this.”

I didn’t even look at him; just shifted the gear into drive and then pealed out of the parking lot, tires squealing. Behind me, I saw Robbie rush for his car. My phone rang and I ignored it.

I wasn’t sure where I was going at first. I just knew that I didn’t want to be around when the bad news came. I couldn’t take another second in a waiting room when I already knew what I was waiting to hear. Why bother? Why bother with anything if this was always going to be the result? Every life ended with a group of hysterical people in a waiting room. Hell, life
itself
could be measured in how many times we’d stood in a hospital room and waited for bad news. I didn’t know the number on my forehead – the one that told me how long in years I’d be around – but I had a second number that could tell me how long I’d
been
around. Long enough to outlive two loved ones. Long
enough
.

In the end, we’d all just wind up being reduced to a number one way or another, and no amount of emotional attachment could change that. Even a person like Chloe was only going to live on as a memory. The memories would fade, and we’d age, and soon there would be no one left who knew her. My mother had been fading for years now, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. All I wanted was some semblance of power. Just some sign that I had some control. That was all I’d ever wanted.

I wound up at the place my parents had used to go to be alone when they’d been younger. Where Chloe and I’d had our first kiss.

I left the water alone and stopped by the cliff, then sat down on the grass just a few feet from the edge. I wondered about my own number. I wondered if it was 20, or 30, or 40. It wasn’t seventeen; that was the only thing I was certain of. The only thing Robbie’d ever confirmed for me. Fate had determined I wasn’t going to die tonight.

I stood up and looked over at the cliff’s edge again, but before I could even consider moving, I heard footsteps and panting as Robbie approached behind me.

“Harper, don’t,” he warned, watching me turn to face him. “Don’t be stupid.”

“How did you know I was here?” I asked him.

“Sped like hell to keep up with you,” he breathed out, taking a step toward me. Instinctively, I stepped backward, and he immediately stopped. “
Harper
.”

“I don’t want to die,” I clarified, glancing over my shoulder. The drop was steep, with rocks at the bottom. There was no way I’d survive it. “But my number isn’t seventeen. All I wanted was to know that I could beat the numbers. Maybe this is how I do it.”

“That’s not how it works, Harper, and you know it,” he said. “It might look impossible to survive, but you aren’t meant to die tonight, so you won’t. No matter what you do.”

“That’s not true!” I shook my head. “What if I were to get a gun-”

“Then you won’t be able to get one. That’s not how it works,” he repeated. “You’re not going anywhere, and as much as it might hurt right now, this isn’t the solution.”

“How can you say that? After what happened to your sister, how can you say that? They didn’t deserve to die.” I pressed my lips together and wiped at my eyes, trying to stop myself from crying again. “If we can’t beat this, then what’s the point?”

“Maybe there is no point. I don’t know. But we go on anyway because we have to. There are people who love and care about you. There are experiences you’re going to have that you’re going to be glad you were around for. And yes, there are going to be things that’ll tear you up on the inside and make you wish you’d never been born. That’s a part of life. But it’s not ever going to be enough to risk your life trying to prove a point. Look at yourself! You’re a step away from using yourself to test fate when there’s a girl at a hospital who needs you right now. What if she wakes up and she’s got another few days? What if she’s up right now and she’s got an hour left? And you’re out here doing this.”

I opened my mouth to suck in a breath, feeling my vision go blurry as tears welled up in my eyes again. This time I couldn’t stop them from falling. “I don’t know how to live with this,” I told him. “Not this, too. I thought I was stronger but I’m not.”

“You have me. You have your dad. Maybe that can be enough. I know we’ll do everything we can to make it enough. Chloe wouldn’t-”

“Don’t use her,” I interrupted. “I don’t want you to use her.”

“Then…” He hesitated, and then took another step toward me. “Then let us be enough. Your number won’t be coming up for a while, Harper. I know we can be enough. Maybe this is as low as you get, and if you can get through this, then you can get through anything. This is a bad start, but give life a chance to prove it’s worth it.”

“You’re too cynical to believe any of that,” I shot back. “I know you are.”

“Well, maybe I’m starting to. You saw a girl like Chloe and wondered how she could wind up with the life she got. You hoped you were wrong and that somehow she could beat her number. Now give me a chance to hope that this isn’t it for you.”

“Look at how Chloe turned out,” I pointed out. I closed my eyes and tried to keep my voice even. “Look at where she is tonight.”

“She might not be gone yet,” he said. “Come back to the hospital. Come see this through.” He stepped closer and offered his hand to me, and I blinked out a few more tears as I stared. I knew, ultimately, that I couldn’t ever step backwards. Not after my mom, and not even after this.

“Okay,” I said, and took his hand.

“I’ll drive,” he replied, and pulled me into him.

* * *

Dad gripped me so tightly when we returned to the hospital that it hurt. “Thank you,” I heard him say to Robbie while my face was buried in his chest.

We waited, then. I didn’t leave the room again. I didn’t speak. I closed my eyes and remembered Chloe: every moment of her I could think of. The day we’d met, the afternoons in my room, the trips to get ice cream and play laser tag. I seared it all into my memory. I made sure I’d never let her slip away.

Dad’s phone rang several hours later, when my own phone said it was just past four in the morning.

“Thank you,” he said as he ended the call, and then he walked to me and Robbie and told us, “That was Kent. The surgeon told them that she’s better than when she came in but it still doesn’t look good. They’re still not sure how she’ll do overnight. Kent and Hayley are going to stay but-”

“I want to stay,” I demanded immediately. Dad looked like he wanted to protest, but I cut him off. “You would’ve stayed with Mom.”

He fell silent at that. He had no argument for it.

“I’ll go pick up some food and some pillows and blankets,” Robbie offered.

“I won’t eat,” I told him, but Dad nodded at him nonetheless.

“Thank you, Robbie.”

Robbie left, and Dad took a seat next to me, letting out a deep sigh. After a moment, he opened his mouth to speak.

“You know, when your Mom…” He paused and closed his eyes, letting out a slow exhale. Then he shook his head. “It still hurts to think about, but, um… Eventually you start remembering the good times rather than the one really bad time. And it aches, kind of like a fading bruise, but it doesn’t have that sharp sting anymore. If Chloe-”