Colorblind by Siera Maley Page A

has you. You have a mother’s approval.”
    I raised a hand to my head to scratch it, but that was only so I could use my palm to hide the eye Hayley could see. I was, very suddenly, a little teary-eyed. “Thanks,” I mumbled, hoping I didn’t sound choked up and that my voice wasn’t shaky. “I haven’t heard that one in a while.”

 
     
     
     
    Chapter Seven
     
     
     
    Chloe rested her head on my shoulder and slept during our ride home. I was exhausted, too, after such a long day. Too exhausted to go camping, especially given that I’d only agreed in the first place after a lot of convincing from Chloe.
    When we got home, I nudged her awake while mid-yawn myself, and then admitted, “I just want to go to sleep.”
    “I know, right? I didn’t expect it to be so draining.”
    “Maybe Dad will let us take a rain check,” I suggested. That woke her up pretty quickly. She looked concerned.
    “Oh, no, you can’t cancel on him. It’ll hurt his feelings.”
    “What if I promise to let him take us next weekend?” I suggested. “We can spend the whole day at the camp ground instead of just an evening. And we won’t just be sitting around yawning the whole time, wishing we were back home in our own beds.”
    She let out a sigh, like she knew I was just making excuses, but that sigh soon morphed into another yawn and she shrugged her shoulders. “Just try to be nice to him when you tell him.”
    “I will,” I insisted. “I feel bad. But who knows? Maybe they’ll want the quality time anyway.”
     
    * * *
     
    As it turned out, Dad and Deborah did not want the quality time. As Deborah sat quietly beside him on the couch, Dad folded his arms across his chest and said stiffly, “First you didn’t want to go. Then you told me you would go if Chloe could come along. And now you’re telling me that we’re supposed to be leaving in ten minutes and neither of you want to go?”
    “We do! Just… not tonight,” I mumbled. “We’re tired. We spent all day walking around. We thought we could handle it and we couldn’t. I’m sorry. You should go without us.”
    “We will,” was all he said. He wasn’t as angry as I thought he’d be, but I had a feeling that had something to do with Deborah being in the room. She wouldn’t look me in the eyes as he added, “We’ll talk more tomorrow. Go to your room.”
    I did. And once I was safely inside, I pulled out my new cell phone and texted Chloe an update. She sent back a frowny face, but I knew she was just as relieved as I was. She’d had even more of an eventful day than I had, thanks to our trade-off and the resulting time she’d spent going on rides with her dad. The two of them were cute together. Kind of the way I wished my dad and I could be, were we both not such homebodies.
    It occurred to me, then, as I sat on my bed, that maybe Dad saw some of the same things in Deborah that I saw in Chloe.
     
    * * *
     
    I made plans with Chloe and Robbie the next day, and made sure to leave the house before Dad and Deborah were back. Robbie picked both Chloe and me up and drove us out to my parents’ old secret spot by the cliff and the lake-like body of water. We brought bathing suits this time, but I laid out on a towel in the sand with a comic book while Robbie swam around. Chloe stood at the water’s edge, clearly antsy, and kept glancing up to the top of the cliff.
    “Don’t even think about it,” I reminded her. “Rocks.”
    “Yeah, I know,” she sighed out, and then waded out into the water. “Come in with us!”
    “I’m reading!” I called back.
    Once she was deep enough to immerse herself, Chloe flipped herself onto her back and breast-stroked away from me. I felt her judgmental gaze on my face even when I looked away from her.
    “What are you reading?” she eventually asked me.
    “A comic book Robbie loaned me,” I told her.
    She laughed. “You guys read comic books?”
    Robbie swam toward her and stopped just a few feet from her