Colorblind by Siera Maley Page B

head, treading water. “It’s Batwoman. You might like it.”
    She scoffed. “I didn’t know I was hanging out with nerds . Jeez.” She flipped around and immersed herself in the water, then swam away without resurfacing. Robbie arched an eyebrow at me.
    “She’s kidding,” I elaborated.
    “If you say so.”
    Chloe came back up for a moment, and I called out to her, “Hey, don’t go too far, okay? We don’t have life jackets.”
    “Life jackets and comic books: you’re super cool, Harper,” she joked and dived down again.
    “I can see why you like her,” said Robbie.
    “She’s kidding! Again.”
    He swam toward me, leaving Chloe behind, until the water was at his knees. He stopped there and sat down on the rocks, relaxing with the water halfway up his stomach. “So, how have you been? Really?” he asked me.
    I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m alright. Not great… but alright.”
    “You can always call me,” he reminded me. “I’m just… socially awkward and shit. You know that.”
    I forced a laugh. “Yeah, I know. I’m glad you made me leave work early the other day. I needed a break.”
    “Are you still thinking about quitting?” he asked me.
    “Yeah. If I had another way to make money, I definitely would, but as of right now, I don’t.”
    “What about your dad’s new girlfriend?” he suggested. “If they get married, your family income just doubled, you know.”
    I gaped at him. “Oh my god, that’s awful. And besides, they definitely aren’t getting married any time soon.”
    “That’s probably true.” He paused, and then lowered his voice. “So…” Then he turned and looked over his shoulder in a move I instinctively knew was to make sure Chloe wasn’t close enough to overhear.
    Except Chloe wasn’t there at all. The water all around us was calm and flat, and she was just… gone .
    I tossed Robbie’s comic book onto the ground beside me and raced into the water. “CHLOE! CHLOE!”
    Robbie was already two steps ahead of me, swimming with everything he had toward the last place we’d seen her. I could only watch helplessly as he pulled ahead of me, arms and legs pumping furiously. I kept my eyes on him as I tried my best to follow, but I felt like my arms and legs had turned to rubber.
    “CHLOE!” Robbie screeched ahead of me, but we both knew by now it was no use. She was underwater.
    I scanned the surface desperately, trying to see something, anything , but I didn’t know what I was looking for. Bubbles? Was that something people just looked for in the movies?
    Half of a palm and a few fingers splashed out of the water just a few feet ahead of Robbie, and he surged forward and then dived down. The seconds that passed felt like hours.
    Later, the only thing I’d remember was how utterly useless I’d felt from the moment I splashed my way into the water.
    Robbie came up with Chloe in his arms. Her hair hid most of her face, but she was already coughing up water. I started to head toward them, but Robbie called out, “Just go put out a towel for her to lay on. I think she’s okay; she wasn’t under long enough.”
    I trembled as I did what he’d asked. He carried her all the way out of the water, even as harsh coughs wracked her body, and as he laid her out on the towel, he asked her, “Chloe, you can breathe, right?”
    She nodded feebly, but she was trembling even worse than I was. I fell to my knees beside her and brushed her hair out of her face, hands shaking. Another series of coughs expelled more water from her mouth, but the ones after that were dry. As she slowly got her breathing back, I kept a hand on her forehead, my thumb moving back and forth over the center. I didn’t realize until she spoke that I’d been covering the number on her forehead with my palm.
    “Got my foot stuck on something,” she managed to get out, and then let out another series of short coughs. “Tangled, I think. I’m okay.”
    “We should think about taking her to a