When I first met Apollo, I was seventeen. We were all smoking in someone’s backyard at a bonfire, and I remember when he came around the corner of the porch and I saw him for the first time. He had curly hair and bright eyes and a navy blue t-shirt on. I wanted him the minute I noticed him staring at me- his hazel eyes wide and then crinkling into a slight smile before he looked down at his shoes. As if the grass could distract him from the way I was staring at him, too.

Now I’m wide awake the night before we’re supposed to leave. I’m lying on Apollo’s chest, feeling it rise and fall beneath my cheek, listening to his steady heartbeat. We’ve rented a hotel room for the first time in our lives and the bed is soft and bends beneath us. Ordering room service for the first time was fun. The dim light from the city outside casts long, shifting shadows across the ceiling, dancing with the barely perceptible flutter of his eyelashes against his skin as I lay pressed against him.

The hotel room is tastefully understated, a stark contrast to our previous lives. The walls are a dove gray, with a piece of art in cool blues and greens hanging above the headboard. A small, polished dark wood nightstand holds a simple glass of water and a Gideon's Bible, while a single, unlit lamp with a ceramic base sits quietly on the other.

He grips my fingers and crushes them gently against his palm, and kisses the bridge of my nose where my tattooed freckles are. “You’re scared about tomorrow?” he asks.

I shut my eyes and bury my face in the crook of his arm. His skin is soft and I like the way he smells. “It’s like…I don’t know who I’m going to be. Who I’m supposed to be. Now that my whole life has changed like this.”

“You’ll always be a beautiful person.”

I sit up in bed and let the blanket slide off and run my hands through my hair. “No I mean- I feel guilty that some people have nothing. Like if I was a better person, I’d just give all the money away. Divide it up fairly for the people that really need it.”

I glance at him and those moss eyes hold mine steadily. 

“Let go of that,” he says after a minute. “Look- you love it. You love finally having access to a world that is filled with luxury and opportunity. I mean, yes, be grateful and don’t let it go to your head…but it’s your money now, and it’s absolutely okay to enjoy it.”

“What do you think it’ll be like, to travel to an alternate dimension?”

“I think it’s going to be amazing.”

I must drift off to sleep, because the next thing I know, the clock says it’s 4 in the morning. Time to get ready to leave this world behind- for now. Apollo is still sleeping, his black t-shirt crooked and revealing the bottom of his belly just above his boxers. His face is beautiful when he sleeps- relaxed. I roll out of bed and throw on a sweater and start getting ready. He doesn’t get up until the alarm starts beeping, and then he buries his head in the comforter and groans.

“I had the wildest dream…”

“What happened?”

“I fell from space and the stars into a city that was constructed out of this, like, beating heart…The buildings were made out of arteries and I realized I was standing in a puddle of blood. And I buried a knife right into the center of the city and it collapsed. Like it never existed.”

Now he’s squinting at me through the first rays of the sunrise. “What do you think it means?”

I assess him coolly and then shake my head. “Get ready. We have to leave in five and meet Violet at the Port.” What I don’t say is that I know what it means- it means he has a dark side to him that could break my heart. A side I’d like to get to know better, but we’re running late to travel to an alternate dimension for the first time in our lives, and I want to be on time. 

I steal a look at his body as he gets dressed, strong arms, flat stomach, sharp jaw- and when I remember that we’ll have to hide our relationship in World 1, I step over my suitcase and press a kiss to his cheek. He starts beaming.

“I love you, Maddy.”

Just an hour later, we’re stepping through a portal of shimmering energy, arriving in an alternate dimension. 

A bridge stretches before me, with more water than I've ever seen lapping its edges. I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and take my first step, and it ripples outward on the reflective surface beneath me, bringing me closer to a place that both scares and excites me. It’s blasphemous but I feel like a miracle is occurring. The beauty of it is shocking like a punch to the gut. 

Tight, honeycomb-like buildings are built above the silvery water and bound by tree branches and vines, as if the rooftops are chained together. The paths built between them are made of some kind of pale concrete rising out of the lakes. 

The people milling about in this new place don't acknowledge us. Their clothes are simple and beautiful- lots of sundresses made out of a shimmering fabric that swishes across girls' thighs, and white t-shirts and jeans are the common looks for the men. In the distance, a city rises up, with an elevated temple at the center of it. It has spindled spires like human fingers reaching up to claw at the sky and grasp at the clouds. Gardens and orchards float around it, their flowers glowing softly in the dawn of the two reddened suns hanging in the sky. The air smells like clean laundry and sunblock. The way you imagine summer to smell.

“Where are we going first?” Violet asks. 

“To register at the embassy.”