Colorblind by Siera Maley

bit at my lip. “I’m just not looking for a relationship.” She opened her mouth and I added, “And I’m not looking for something casual, either. You’re nice, okay? I want you around for a while.”
    She studied me for a moment, her mouth falling shut, and then, slowly, a smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “Okay. But I’m still going to flirt with you. Does this mean we can have sleepovers and pillow fights in our underwear?”
    “You haven’t had many female friends, have you?” I guessed, half-kidding.
    “I used to call the girls that slept over at my house my friends back when I was in middle school. I’m not sure that counts, though. We probably got a little too friendly.”
    “Oh my God.” I shook my head. “We are polar opposites. I have pretty much no experience with girls, and I’m older than you.”
    “That could change,” she pointed out, winking. “And not much older, I bet, unless you’re, like, eighteen. You’re what, a senior next year? I just finished up my sophomore year, but I barely missed the cutoff to be in your grade; I’ll be seventeen in August.”
    I’d realized what she was about to say just before she said it, but I wasn’t quick enough at tuning her out. It took everything I had to keep a practiced smile on my face at the realization that she was only three months younger than me. 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.
     
    * * *
     
    Chloe left without coming inside after our conversation on the porch. I think she was more put off than she’d seemed by my rejection, and as I took the stairs up to my room, I wondered if I’d have been better off letting her think I was straight. Now the idea would always be in the back of both of our minds, even if I never let us actually go there.
    I was upset with Robbie, but I knew I had to call him now. He was the only one I could talk to about Chloe.
    I used my house phone, but he had the number saved and knew it was me. He seemed hesitant when he answered. “Harper?”
    “Forget about last night,” I told him. “I was pissed off and emotional. It doesn’t matter anymore. Chloe turns seventeen in August.”
    He was silent for a long time. I picked at the comforter of my bed as I waited for his thoughts. “…How are you?” he asked at last.
    “That’s it?” I countered. “No advice? No telling me I should’ve known better?”
    “It’s not your fault you like her,” he murmured. “Sometimes that stuff can’t be helped. It happens. Against our better judgment.”
    “I guess.” I let out a breath. “The only good thing about this is that it has to be an accident. Right? I mean, barring the infinitesimally small chance that she has some rare brain tumor that’s suddenly going to kill her, it has to be an accident.”
    “Another car accident,” he mused quietly. I felt my heart clench in my chest.
    “Well… I can watch out for that.”
    “How? By making sure she never uses a vehicle over the summer?”
    “I don’t know. I could drive her everywhere, maybe…”
    “No,” he cut in, so forcefully it startled me. “If it really will be a car accident, you shouldn’t get into a car with her, Harper.”
    “Unless my age of death is 17, I think I’ll be alright, Robbie.”
    “You can still get seriously injured,” he reminded me.
    “So if I can’t stop an accident by driving her myself, how do I stop it?” I asked, realizing too late that his answer would be indicative of his usual philosophy.
    “Harper, I don’t think you can.”
    “I’m going to try,” I insisted. “Even if I have to be her chauffer all summer and spend every hour of my spare time being with her and checking up on her.” I set my jaw. “Everything I didn’t and couldn’t do for my mom.”
    Robbie didn’t respond, but I knew what he was thinking. He didn’t believe I could do