Colorblind (3 page)

Both of her eyebrows shot up at the sight of me, and I was suddenly wide awake. And beyond embarrassed. She looked really cute in her pink V-neck, cut-off jean shorts, and navy blue Converse, and I looked like I belonged under a bridge.

“Whoa,” she said at last, speaking first. I could see her trying to fight off an amused grin. “Not a morning person?”

I blinked at her, silently hoping my cheeks didn’t look as hot as they felt. “Hi. Can you give me like two minutes?” I asked her.

“Sure.”

“Okay. Thanks.” I debated for a moment whether to invite her in or just leave her on my front porch, and, after an uncomfortable pause, I left the front door open, gestured awkwardly to the living room, mumbled that she could come in, and then left, taking the stairs two at a time back to my bedroom.

I changed quickly in front of my bathroom mirror and tried my best to clean myself up. Chloe probably didn’t like girls, and I had no intention of developing an interest in her, given the number on her forehead, but she was still a cute girl, and cute girls made me self-conscious.

A few minutes later, I was headed back downstairs with my hair in a messy bun and with clothes on that were actually appropriate for the public: a long T-shirt and athletic shorts. Chloe was in the living room. She’d shut the front door behind herself and was playing with Baxter on our living room couch. When she heard me coming, she took him into her arms and tried in vain to get him to settle down. Once it was clear he couldn’t calm himself, she sighed and set him on the ground. As she straightened up, her gaze shifted to me and she smiled.

“So, hey,” she said.

“Hey,” I said, and we stood in silence for a long, uncomfortable moment. I made myself focus on her face instead of her forehead.

She cleared her throat before things could get too awkward, and then gestured to the front door. “Well, I just thought that since it was the weekend and you don’t have to work, you’d maybe wanna take a walk with Baxter and me? I don’t really know the area. If your offer still stands, I mean.”

“Okay.” I nodded, feeling flustered. It seemed like the longer I stood in her presence, the more nervous I became. It’d been a while since I’d had any sort of extensive social interaction with someone other than Dad or Robbie, let alone a pretty girl. “Just let me tell my dad I’m going out.”

I left in a hurry, my cheeks mildly hot, and burst into my dad’s office. It was starting to sink in that Chloe had shown up at my house unannounced twice now, asking for my company. She was
really
set on spending time with me, which either meant that she was desperate to make a friend… or something more. I didn’t have much of an ego, so I assumed the former, but both options were still terrifying.

“Give me an excuse to stay home. Please?” came bursting out of me before I could think about it. Dad spun around in his chair, an eyebrow already arched in questioning amusement. “I’m too nervous to do this.”

“Is your friend back again?” he guessed.

“She’s not my friend.”

“Well, it seems like she wants to be.” I pursed my lips together, and his amusement only grew. He spun away from me, facing his computer again, and casually tossed out, “Have fun. Be back before dinnertime.”

“She could be a serial killer. Or the bait for a serial killer.”

“Then I will miss you dearly. Goodbye, Harper.”

I let out a sigh and spun on my heel, marching out of his office. By the time I was back with Chloe in the living room, I’d plastered a polite smile onto my face and the color had drained from my cheeks. She was cooing at Baxter, distracted, and gave a small start at the sound of my voice.

“Dad says I have to be back before dinnertime.”

She recovered, reddening slightly, and smiled. “Cool.”

* * *

I took her around the neighborhood first. We walked quickly to keep up with Baxter, who pulled heavily at the leash in Chloe’s hand and refused to let her rein him in.

“So what do you do for fun around here?” she asked. “I bet there’s a lot to keep you busy.”

I realized pretty quickly that I wasn’t going to make the best tour guide. “Oh, uh… I mostly just stay pretty local. There’s a movie theater down the street, near where I work. And Robbie’s got this place he really likes a couple miles away; it’s basically a video game arcade with a whole special section for laser tag. They also have really good pizza.” I felt like a dork as soon as I was done talking. Laser tag? Video games?

“Is Robbie your boyfriend?” she surprised me by asking. I laughed.

“Oh. No. He’s, like, twenty-two.”

“Ooh, an older boy.” She grinned at me. “What’s he like?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I insisted, and she laughed at my reddening face. “Seriously. He works with me; he’s a cook at this fast food place where I work the register. He’s a great guy, but… not my type.”

“Because of the age or the geekiness?” she teased.

“I don’t know.” I avoided the question, shrugging. “He just isn’t.” I changed the subject. “So what do you wanna know about San Francisco? What are you into? Art? Music?” Glancing to Baxter, I added, “Animals?”

“All of the above. And I’ve never tried laser tag, but I bet I could be into it. I just wanna see everything. I’ve wanted to live here for so long.”

I remembered she’d said that on the day we’d met, too. “Why?”

She shrugged, but I could tell she was the one avoiding my question now. “It just always looked fun and sunny and free. I grew up watching a lot of
Full House
. I don’t know.”

“Ah.” I nodded, feigning understanding. “I watched a lot of
Spongebob Squarepants
as a kid. Must be why I have this strange urge to live in a pineapple under the sea.”

She shot me a look, biting on her lip to hold back a smile, and I was momentarily pleased with myself. “Very funny. I just wanted to, okay?”

We reached the end of the street that led to the front of the neighborhood, and I glanced up and down the street. “Hmm. If we take a left here, the movie theater’s about a mile up the road. We can’t take Baxter inside, but we could grab, like, tiny five-dollar ice cream cones from the concession stands inside. Or, alternatively, we could take a right and risk our lives when the sidewalk dead-ends in about five-hundred yards or so.”

“So my options are death or inhumanely expensive ice cream?” She frowned. “Alright. Ice cream it is. But only ‘cause I brought money and you’re pretty.” My lips parted in surprise as she veered left and let Baxter tug her along down the sidewalk. She glanced back at me and winked, then called back, “Are you coming, or do you have a boyfriend you should be with right now?”

She turned around and continued on without waiting on my response, and I glanced down to her left arm; the one not outstretched and gripping Baxter’s leash. It hung at her side, swinging with every step she took, and as my gaze reached her forearm, I saw what I’d missed when I’d first taken in her appearance at my front door: a thin handmade bracelet encircled her wrist, repeatedly bearing, in order, the six colors of the rainbow.

I blinked a few times, sure I was imagining things. And then, when I was finally done and the bracelet hadn’t vanished, I swallowed hard.

This was going to be a long summer.

Chapter Three

Once we had our ice cream, we sat together at a picnic table outside a restaurant next to the movie theater. Chloe licked at her chocolate cone and I tried not to stare as she declared, “You can totally tell a lot about a person by the ice cream they like.” She eyed the vanilla cone in my hand judgmentally. “I have this theory that people who like vanilla ice cream are super safe and unadventurous.”

I had no idea what to say to that. I was just allergic to chocolate. At last, I settled on, “Oh. I’m sorry to disappoint you…?”

“I forgive you. Would you ever go skydiving?”

“No,” I answered instinctively, cringing at the thought of my parachute failing. She grinned.

“See? I’m right.”

“What, you would?”

She nodded. “Of course. In fact, my dad says he’ll take me soon. I’m a total adrenaline junkie. My parents took me bungee-jumping once when I was ten and it was amazing.”

“Your parents trusted a springy cord with your life when you were
ten
?” I asked, appalled.

“I think the professional bungee-jumper that helped us might’ve taken some of the responsibility,” she joked. “But yeah, my parents are pretty awesome. They’re super into, like, the whole living your life to the fullest thing. They watch a lot of ‘inspirational’ documentaries, which is totally cheesy, but I can appreciate the sentiment. We’ve lived in six different states and two different countries since I was born. We’ve gone on vacations to Europe every summer up until this one, and my dad’s got this long bucket list with every roller coaster he wants to ride before he dies and—” She paused, cringing. “God, I sound really obnoxious and pretentious right now, don’t I?”

“I’m just listening,” I told her idly. “It sounds interesting, actually. My life’s pretty boring.”

“I don’t believe that. You live
here
.”

“San Fran’s not that exciting if you don’t let it be,” I told her. “My dad and I have a routine, and we follow it. There’s not that much to share, I guess.”

“What about your mom; where’s she?” she asked me curiously. I stiffened, and, thankfully, she picked up on it. She immediately looked mortified.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry, Harper. I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s okay,” I said. There was a long silence as we awkwardly finished our ice cream together. I wanted to move past it, but I didn’t know what else to talk about. So I elaborated instead. “She, um… died in a car crash four years ago.”

Chloe let out a deep sigh and bit at her lip. “That’s awful; I’m so sorry. I need to think before I speak a little more often.”

I knew that this particular topic of conversation wasn’t exactly first hangout material, but Chloe was easy to talk to. She talked a lot; she was all energy and earnest pseudo-rambling, at least around me, and for a moment I could only attribute to temporary insanity, I guess I thought it’d be a good idea to open up to someone other than Robbie. Or maybe I just wanted to open up to
her
.

“We were really close. She went out to have dinner with a friend and just… never came back.” I shook my head, gaining a sudden sense of clarity. This was way too much too soon. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be talking about it.”

“I wanted to be your friend,” Chloe insisted. “You can talk about anything you want. Especially someone you love.”

I offered her a weak smile, and then bent down to feed the remnants of my cone to Baxter. “Thanks. It’s okay, though. What’s your favorite movie?”

She studied me carefully, and I kept my expression neutral. “You sure?” she asked.

“C’mon.” I reached out to nudge her hand with mine, and her eyes jumped to the contact. I felt embarrassed that I’d opened up to her about my mom. Sure, Chloe was nice, but that didn’t exactly make it natural to start discussing my dead mother the first time we hung out together. Especially given that hanging out with her was almost certainly an awful idea in the first place.

I could tell she was still stuck on the subject, so I reached out with my index finger and ran it along her pinky before withdrawing my hand. Her eyes flew to mine and, almost microscopically, her eyebrow rose in a silent question. I cleared my throat uncomfortably, already regretting touching her at all, and then repeated, “Favorite movie?”

She blinked twice, and then, to her credit, recovered quickly. “
Charlie’s Angels
.”

I laughed despite myself, caught off-guard. “No it’s not!”

“Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, and Cameron Diaz beating up bad guys? What more could I want?”

“Fair enough. Okay. Your turn.”

“My turn to what?”

“Ask me something,” I insisted.

“Like what?”

“Like… my favorite food, favorite color. I don’t know. Anything.”

“Okay. Let me think.” She furrowed her eyebrows, staring hard at me for a moment and then, straight-faced, declared, “Your hair’s in like a super messy bun right now, but it looks amazing. How do you do that? Seriously. I look like an ogre if I don’t spend half an hour in front of the mirror.”

I laughed at her and turned my nose up. “That secret stays with me.”

“No! Please? I’m jealous.”

I felt a flush creeping up my cheeks and saw her grin. She knew she was making me nervous. That only made me
more
nervous. “Thanks,” I mumbled.

“No problem, Harper,” she said. That sly, amused look from the day I met her was back. My gut told me the way she was looking at me was a good thing, even if my head disagreed. “Okay.” She cleared her throat and wrapped the remnants of her cone up into a napkin. “A real question: where do you work?”

I forced a laugh. “God. It’s this fast food place called ‘Daily Fries’. It sucks. We serve clogged arteries on buns, pretty much. I mean, I’m all for high-calorie, tasty food, but the stuff
we
make is toxic.”

“You hate your job?”

“Loathe it, ugh.” I wrinkled my nose and shook my head. “Who
likes
working in the fast food industry?”

“Why don’t you quit?” She asked the question like she genuinely didn’t know the answer. I thought it was obvious.

“Because I need the money. My dad wants me to start saving up for when I go off to college. I can’t quit.”

“Well, you could get a job you like,” she suggested.

“It’s not that simple.”

“It could be. You won’t know unless you try.”

I laughed and joked, “Can you sew that inspirational quote onto a pillow for me so I can look at it every day before I wake up?”

She pressed her lips together like she was trying not to laugh and then tossed her balled up napkin at me with a pouty, “Don’t make fun of me.”

I grinned a grin I couldn’t make go away, and for another moment, I forgot what I knew about Chloe’s fate. That was something no one had ever managed before. It’d taken less than a couple of hours, but just like that, I was officially invested.

I should’ve aborted my idiotic non-plan right then and there, gone home, and saved myself the heartache. But something kept my brain from working properly and kept me there with her outside the theater.

Maybe it was the same omniscient power that had given Chloe her number. Maybe, just like there wasn’t a way to stop the numbers, there also wasn’t a way for me to come to my senses and leave Chloe alone.

At least, if there
was
… I’d spend months struggling to find it.

* * *

I’d always imagined that my first real crush would be like it was in the old movies my dad and I watched together. Love was Robert Walker as soldier Joe Allen running after Judy Garland’s bus, calling out to her to meet him under a clock tower, or it was Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer swaying together in the moonlight, or Claudette Colbert tearfully telling Clark Gable that she couldn’t live without him. It was foreign: unattainable. I mean, I couldn’t really even let myself get close enough to a girl to start to like her as a
person
, let alone as a friend or anything more.

Chloe shattered that image with a smile and a laugh, and after just a day together, I was wondering why I’d chosen now to let my guard down. Maybe a part of me really liked the attention: the way she was obvious about wanting and enjoying my company. Probably a part of me really liked
her
, and liked the way she so clearly liked me back. Liked me
first
even, because it was fairly obvious after just a few conversations that she hadn’t been so pushy about hanging out with me without a reason. When I watched romances or read stories, I inserted myself into the main character’s dilemma. I was the piner: the one loving someone and waiting for them to love me back.

But this was real life. And in real life, I was the love interest.

Chloe was interested in trying out laser tag, as it turned out. I took her a week later. And although Robbie came along, I offered to pay for her, since she’d paid for ice cream the week before. She let me.

Even with Robbie there, it still felt like a date from the moment it began. Maybe it still was. We were two girls who liked girls, even if Chloe didn’t know that I was gay, and she certainly didn’t
mind
not knowing it, because she flirted with me anyway.

The night before we went out, she called me at ten o’clock. I paused
The Wizard of Oz
to answer my phone, surprised to see her name on the screen. We’d exchanged phone numbers after ice cream, but had only texted a few times since then. She always initiated contact, and I couldn’t force myself to ignore her messages.

“Hello?” I wasn’t sure how casual I could be. We weren’t really friends, and she was definitely more comfortable around me than I was around her.

“Hey, what are you up to?” she asked me. “Busy with your boyfriend?”

“This obsession has got to stop,” I joked, taking a cue from her tone. “I can’t tell if you’re teasing me because you think I’m dating Robbie or teasing me because I’m
not
dating Robbie and therefore am single.”

“Maybe it’s both?”

“
The Wizard of Oz
.”

“Huh?”

“That’s what I’m watching.
The Wizard of Oz
.”

“Oh. That witch terrified me as a kid.” I heard a crunch on the line, and furrowed my eyebrows.

“What are you doing?”

“Eating a carrot. Gotta make sure my vision’s at its best for laser tag, obviously.”

“So you like carrots,” I observed. “Mental note taken.”

She laughed. “What, just in case you need ideas for birthday presents?”

“No,” was all I said. I didn’t want to think about when her birthday was. I didn’t want to know at all.

“So what kind of movies do
you
like? I’ve seen a lot of action flicks, but only because I mostly hung around guys back where I used to live.”

I shifted my phone to my other ear as she bit down on another carrot. Then, before I could stop myself, I declared, “You’re gay.”

The crunching stopped. There was a short pause. And then, “Was that a question?”

“I’m sorry.”

“For… pointing out the obvious?”

“I don’t think it was obvious,” I half-lied.

“Sure it was. I’ve always wanted to live in San Francisco, and I wore a rainbow bracelet the other day.”

“The true reason you moved here comes out,” I joked, trying to ease some of the tension. She ran with it, mercifully.

“Ah, yes. I definitely got my parents to pack up and relocate just so I could pick up girls more easily. The new puppy is also a ploy. It reels them in, you see?”

“Makes sense.” I nodded and smiled, though she couldn’t see it. There was another pause, and then she cleared her throat.

“Alright. Well I was just bored, so I thought I’d call my new friend. We
are
still on for laser tag tomorrow, right?”

“If you really want to.”

She groaned. “Oh my God, I do! I knew I shouldn’t have worn pink on our walk. I’m totally a dork, I swear. I mean, I’ve never shot a laser gun before, but I’ll learn. Do you want to invite your other ‘friend’?”

My gut reaction was to say no. I didn’t want Robbie there. But I also realized, deep down, why I didn’t want Robbie there, and so I agreed. “Sure. I’ll text him about it.”

“Cool. Pick me up at two, right?”

“Right.”

“And my little dog, too,” she croaked. “Not really though. I was just quoting your movie. Sorry. I’m dumb. Okay, bye.”

“Bye.” I forced a laugh, and she hung up. Then I pressed the phone to my chest, squeezed my eyes shut, and let out the deepest sigh of my life, mentally cursing myself.

Robbie came over the next day about half an hour before I was due to pick up Chloe and hung out with my dad for a while, who seemed a little wary of him. I saw Robbie’s eyes glance to my dad’s forehead when they first greeted each other and was already expecting a comment on it once we were alone, especially given that we’d never explicitly discussed my dad’s number before.