The Heart Ring

Chapter 2 – Brush of Feeling

The second morning. Abby promised herself: eyes on floor tiles, eyes on doorknobs. Colors couldn’t jump if she didn’t give them anywhere to land.

They landed anyway.

By the time she made it past the office, glowing outlines appeared around people, faint and blurred like watercolor halos. Someone’s laugh sent a burst of orange light darting out before fading. A yawn released a soft, pale yellow that flooded out and disappeared. A boy muttered into his hoodie, and a sluggish blue settled around him like pooling paint. The ring felt cool and certain against her skin; it was as if it refused to let her believe it could ever be just a normal piece of jewelry.

At her locker, Kimi popped up. “You’re doing the Mars-face.”

“I am not,” Abby said, spinning the dial and missing the last number twice.

“You are. You look like you’re listening to music nobody else can hear.”

Abby almost said I am, because that was closest—except it wasn’t music, and it wasn’t kind. “I’m fine.”

“Cover word,” Kimi muttered, but she grinned and bumped Abby’s shoulder with hers.

The bump did something.

It was small—sudden heat pressed in Abby’s palm where the ring sat, and in her side vision the world brightened. Kimi’s chest glowed as before—blue woven with green and faint gold—but for a moment the colors snapped into sharper focus, closer than before. Abby felt the warmth the way she might pick up the scent of baking bread wafting from an open door.

She startled and dropped her binder.

Kimi scooped it up before it hit the floor. “Okay, that was not Mars-face. That was planet-falls-out-of-orbit-face.”

“I’m just tired,” Abby said quickly, and tried to keep her hands to herself the rest of the morning.

It didn’t help. Passing periods became obstacle courses. Each brush and jostle connected her more closely to people’s colors. When a backpack grazed her shoulder, she saw a sudden flash of anxious blue that then disappeared. When a sleeve slid against her wrist, an orange spark jumped and vanished. She even learned by accident that not touching—just focusing on someone—was a kind of touch that made the colors feel louder and more intense.

By lunch, she felt like a crowded antenna. Overloaded. Humming. Straining in every direction.

---

The cafeteria overwhelmed her. The air was sticky with pizza squares and the harsh tang of cleaning bleach. Trays banged against metal rails, voices bounced around, and chairs scraped tile with shrill, violin-like screeches. Layered over everything, the colors pulsed—sudden spikes of red, bubbly yellow highlights, and dull, heavy gray as dense as lead.

Kimi waved her over to their usual spot, but Abby’s steps slowed.

Near the windows, a girl sat alone with a book and an untouched apple. Her braid drooped, hair falling forward like a curtain. Abby knew her name from roll call—Marcy Hinton—but nothing more. Marcy’s glow drew Abby’s focus, moving like a strong riptide: blue-gray, thick and low, not destructive but deeply settled—the color of sky that had forgotten how to brighten after a long night.

Don’t, Abby told herself. You’ll make it worse. You don’t even know what you’re doing.

Her feet moved anyway.

“Hi,” Abby said, hovering with her tray. “Can I sit?”

Marcy blinked up, startled, like she’d forgotten the cafeteria had doors. “Um. Sure.”

Abby sat. The air here felt cooler. Up close, the blue-gray had layers—not one color, but many pressed together. Abby kept her hands in her lap.

“You’re in Mr. Callahan’s for history, right?” Abby asked.

Marcy nodded. “Second period.”

“Did you understand the thing about tariffs? Because I didn’t.”

That earned the smallest corner of a smile. “No. He talks like he swallowed a dictionary.”

“Right?” Abby said, grinning. “Like a dictionary that hates us.”

The smile flickered wider, then dimmed. The glow didn’t change.

Kimi was still waving from across the room: Coming? Abby raised a finger: Wait.

“Your book any good?” Abby asked.

Marcy looked at the cover like she’d just remembered she was holding it. “It’s… okay.”

A shaky silence hung between them. Abby’s heart pounded in her ears. The blue-gray glow around Marcy seemed to weigh down, intensifying. Panic fluttered in Abby’s chest—if she didn’t say or do something, she felt the colors would all slide back and become that heavy, flat blue-gray.

“Sorry,” Abby blurted. “I just—” She winced at herself. “I like your braid. It’s cool.”

Marcy reached for it as if she hadn’t noticed it coming loose. “Thanks.”

The glow changed, just a little. The dense gray edges faded, growing lighter, and a softer blue trickled in at the borders. Abby felt her shoulders relax, relieved by the shift.

She spotted a fleck of glitter on Marcy’s sleeve, probably from art class. “Here,” she said before thinking, reaching across the table.

Her knuckle brushed Marcy’s wrist.

The ring warmed.

The gray divided like thin clouds separating, and for an instant Abby saw a clear, open blue underneath—the color of early morning sky before sunrise decides its hue. It wasn’t joy, not yet. But it was fresh air after being shut in.

Marcy breathed deeper, as if reminded she could. “Thanks,” she said, and the word had a little weight now.

“Anytime,” Abby said, meaning it more than she understood.

They ate in silence after that, but it wasn’t the same silence. When Abby stood, Marcy shut her book and said, almost carefully, “See you in history.”

“Yeah,” Abby said, her chest warming, relief unfurling gently beneath her ribs.

---

Kimi intercepted her halfway across the cafeteria. “So you have a new table now?”

“I sat for a minute.”

“A minute that looked like twenty.” Kimi’s eyes flicked to Abby’s hand. “You’re doing something with that ring, and you’re not telling me.”

Abby’s breath caught. “I’m… trying not to.”

“Trying not to do a thing is still doing a thing,” Kimi said. She wasn’t teasing. “Is it bad?”

Abby thought of the blue thinning, the breath Marcy took. She thought of the warmth that wasn’t pain, of how helping felt different from pushing.

“It can be,” she said honestly. “It can also… help.”

Kimi studied her face. “Do you need me to tell you to stop?”

Abby shook her head. “I need you to stay.”

“Okay,” Kimi said simply. “I can do that.”

---

The afternoon rolled on. Abby kept her hands flat on her desk, eyes on equations and worksheets. Still, contact happened: a pencil passed palm to palm, a worksheet brushed across a desk. Each small touch sparked a truer color—sometimes brighter, sometimes rawer, always real.

On the bus, Abby sat by the window, temple pressed to the cool glass. She hadn’t drowned today. That counted.

At home, the air smelled of coffee and warm laundry. Mom glanced up as Abby walked in, and the crease in her forehead softened.

“How was it?” she asked.

“Okay,” Abby said, and this time the word didn’t feel like a lie.

Upstairs, Abby took off the ring and set it on her nightstand. The world dimmed, colors folding back like birds to roost. The quiet wasn’t flat. It was rest.

She stared at the little red heart in the silver band. Touch mattered. Not prying, not forcing—touch. And not just skin to skin. Something about being with someone had eased the blue.

Grandpa’s voice echoed steady in her memory: That’s not a toy, girl.

“I know,” Abby whispered into the empty room, and for the first time, she almost believed it.