Colorblind

by Siera Maley

‘Please don’t all off yourselves; we promise you’ll get rewarded for dying unwillingly instead as long as you aren’t a murderer. Or a homosexual.’” I laughed again, harder this time. “So I’m screwed then?” “I knew it! I knew you’d killed,”

“You have the power to see when people will die, and you met someone and didn’t immediately look to see?” “She had nice eyes,” I mumbled, and only felt dumber when he raised an eyebrow at me.

“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.”

“Alright. Ice cream it is. But only ‘cause I brought money and you’re pretty.”

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.

“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.”

It’d be a lot like how coming out had been. Sharing it with other people; saying it aloud… that made it exist in a world outside of my mind. That made it real.

Chloe didn’t know anyone in San Francisco. She had no friends. And she didn’t deserve to die feeling alone in a new city. I couldn’t fall in love with her, I knew, but trying to help her was the only real option I had. I couldn’t just ignore her now, and if I couldn’t keep her alive, I could at least be there for her when she died. The last months of her life being happy ones were more important than anything I’d go through while helping make them happy. That was the right thing to do, even if it would be hard. And besides: maybe, by some miracle, I’d do something to keep her alive in the process.

August. She was turning seventeen in August. That meant that Chloe didn’t have twelve months to live. She didn’t even have six. She was going to be dead by the end of the summer.

“I thought San Francisco was going to be this constant gay pride parade,” she told me abruptly. “Like, hot lesbians everywhere. I’ve gotta say… this is better.” “A seventeen-year-old socially awkward virgin with a job at a fast food place. And I’m refusing to date you. You sure hit the jackpot,” I joked.

Have you ever considered the fact that maybe the goal of life isn’t to get through it as painlessly as possible?”

Life isn’t about the pain. It’s about the good parts.

like instead of being a fleeting streak of color in my black and white world, Chloe’d started a new era where I could see more than just a few different shades. I considered giving up old movies. I considered kissing her the next time I saw her.

And that was how five minutes later I found myself sitting on a stool in my bathroom with Chloe’s face inches from mine and an eyeliner pencil pressed to my eyelid. “This seems unnecessary. We’re going camping,” I pointed out. “Don’t complain; I’m doing it for you,” was all she said. I closed my mouth and let her finish. Her face was far too close to mine for me to truly be complaining, and to be honest, I kind of liked the attention.

“We should make sleeping side by side our thing,” she told me, her voice muffled by her sleeping bag. “Like, forever.” “I think they call that marriage,” I laughed, my voice a whisper. “I’m okay with that,” she mumbled sleepily. Her eyes fluttered shut, and I brushed my thumb back and forth along her cheek, just watching her.

Before that it was cartoons and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” “Why?” “Uh… because I was eleven and Sarah Michelle Gellar plus lesbians is a winning combination?”

“You could kiss me now,” I finally murmured. “I’m not the one scared to love someone,” she said. “I can wait.” She shifted closer to me, then, but didn’t kiss me. Instead, she nestled into me, her front pressed into my side and her face tucked between my shoulder and neck. Her arm slid over my stomach and her right hand found my left as it rested limply at my side. She interlocked our fingers and squeezed my hand, and my gaze flickered up to the stars overhead.

if I could just, like, press up super close to you and just kind of merge and be this hybrid person I still don’t think I’d be as close as I wanna be. And sometimes, like camping day, you’ll admit you feel the same way, but I hate how things can never just be easy. We met and we got along great and you like girls and I was like, this is gonna go so well, this is everything I wanted, and you really are. I just wanna be happy and I don’t want you to be unhappy, so if I make you happy then why can’t we just be happy, you know?”

Chloe saw my gaze flicker to her lips, and something changed in the way she looked at me. Her lips parted, and I watched her glance down to mine. My heart began to beat heavily in my chest, pressed up against my ribcage. I looked into Chloe’s eyes, and then closed my own and moved in closer before I could overthink it.

She reached out to cup my cheek with one hand, and we kissed slowly, gently, until I felt the warmth of her body pressing into mine. She shifted, half-leaning over top of me, and we broke apart as I pulled away to lay flat on my back. I stared up at her and held my breath. Her blue eyes were a darker shade as she leaned down to kiss me again.

For a moment, I forgot about the heartache that came with loving Chloe, and when it finally did begin to come creeping back into the recesses of my mind later that night, when I was alone in my bed, I ignored it. Some things were worth aching for.

hair, and took my breath away. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” I breathed out between kisses, and that made her giggle against my lips, stilling our kissing for a second. “Shut up, nerd,” she demanded, and reached down to hook her fingers through the loops of my jeans so she could gently tug me closer.

“I’d marry you, if we were together for long enough,” I told her at last, long after she’d fallen silent again. “I want you to know that.” Chloe raised her head to look at me, a small smile on her lips, and then cupped my cheek in her hand and kissed me softly. “Me too,” she murmured against my lips, and my heart only sank further.

Sex was hyped as this massive, life-changing experience, but I didn’t feel any differently afterward. Just more attached to Chloe, if that was even possible, and maybe a little more prone to let an “I love you” slip out any day now. And just more scared to lose her.

“I… end word. L…O…” I paused, and then rolled over to face her. She offered me a gentle smile. “Me too,” I told her. She arched an eyebrow, her demeanor changing instantaneously. “You love chocolate? I thought you were allergic.” “That wasn’t what you were going to spell out,” I said. “No,” she agreed, leaning in to kiss me. “It wasn’t.”

“I’m sorry I’ve been awful. I’m sorry I didn’t smile enough and that I wouldn’t ride roller coasters with you and that I didn’t let you kiss me that first weekend when I knew I liked you too. I was just scared.”

“I love you.” “I love you, too.” I could feel tears welling up in my eyes again, and struggled to fight them off. She pulled away from me just enough to kiss me. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life to pull away from her and walk away, but I did it. I walked backwards for the first few steps, eyes on her as she smiled at me and gave me a small wave goodbye. I glanced up at her forehead, felt myself fall apart all over again at the sight of the sixteen that still rested there, and then looked back down into her eyes. It was the first part of her I’d ever seen, and I wanted it to be the last, too, if this was the end for us.

The number rested there, clear as day, as though it had been there all along. 84.

THANK GOD

I had no way of knowing what or who decided how we lived, or how long we lived, or what the consequences of our actions and decisions were. I would almost certainly never know. When I died, I wouldn’t know what chain of events had led directly to my death, and I wouldn’t know what I would’ve been able to do to change it, or even if it ever could’ve been changed. Bad things were inevitable. Death was inevitable. But maybe the reverse was true: that good things were equally inevitable. And maybe sometimes inevitability liked to take a back seat to second chances.