In my origin universe, there’s no such thing as the Department of Children and Families. People abandon their children at places like the grocery store, and the children just live on the streets and make it work. When my dad hurt us, there were still ways to fight back. But eventually my mom had nothing left to give. 

It was late one night. Raining. Cold. I was five. My mom had said everything was going to be fine. Parents lie. It was like the heat wave of the past few months had cracked open, like a dragon’s egg, and just like that summer was over. Some parts of the sky looked black with pinpoints of lights for stars but the moon was hidden by the tumultuous clouds that shattered with lightning, followed by the deep rumble of thunder that gave me goosebumps on my arms and an impending sense of doom. I watched the torrential rain fall at a slant against the car window. 

“I’ll be right back,” my mom said, but she didn’t meet my eyes, and somehow even at that young age I knew what that meant. After she slammed the door shut, I remember gripping the edge of the car door and watching her back as she jogged into the grocery store. She was wearing a black tshirt and leggings and looking back, her abandonment was rather anti-climactic. 

After a few hours of waiting in the car it really sank in that I was on my own. I climbed out of it and left it behind, too. 

After a few years, I had made my own family out of a collection of friends. So I wasn’t the only one. I didn’t have to be alone anymore. So why did I feel so disconnected?

Now, that’s all fading into the past- who I was, who I could’ve been. Because I’m standing in the center of a friend’s lake cabin, cheeks flushed, skin rough from my boyfriend’s hands, I smell like a campfire, and I’ve just been gifted 91 billion dollars by a stranger. As a child, I went thirsty.

Now it’s right there, on my phone screen, in my checking account.

I shut my eyes for a moment to keep from screaming with excitement, the back of my eyelids indigo, and savor the feeling of elation. I never dreamed something like this would happen to me- I mean, an anonymous benefactor chose me to inherit his fortune. A trafficked street rat without a talent or a skill or a penny to her name until now. I wonder who it was. One of my clients from when I was selling my body at fifteen, or a long-lost love from some past life, who recognized in me some sort of potential? My fantasies and delusions run wild for a second, because my brain can’t quite make sense of why this would happen to me. I shut it down and let out a hysterical “thank you” to the universe.

Someone comes up behind me and I sense them and quickly tuck the phone into my pocket, flying around to see my boyfriend’s puppy-like eyes. I drink him in for a moment, wanting to hug him, to feel his soft brown leather jacket crushed against my cheek. My heart pounds wildly. Can I tell him? Or will all my friends treat me differently after this, like when people win the lottery and their whole family becomes sadistic?

“We’re going for a night swim,” Apollo says. “You coming?”

“Absolutely.” I shrug off my sweater, toss it on a nearby chair, and clasp my hand in his. I’m still in a daze as we make our way through the front door. The yard of our friend’s house sprawls all the way down to the lake. It’s the only lake in the state, one of the few bodies of water I’ve seen in my life. I remember when I was invited to come here, I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world. Now I really am. With its gently lapping water against a rocky shore lined with oak trees, it’s the perfect summer seclusion. The sky is deep and filled with radiant starlight and I can smell the barbecue from the campfire. Bugs chirp in the tall grasses. Laughs from our friends echo from down by the beach. Soon sand gives way beneath my feet and I slide my shorts off to reveal my bikini.

Before we’re in earshot of my friends, I can’t contain it anymore.

“Apollo-”

“Yes, Madeline?” He bites his lip.

“I’m rich now.”

He does look like he’s judging me for a second. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I just received a deposit into my account from someone I don’t even know. And it’s a lot of money.”

“How much money?”

“Billions.”

His eyes went huge and his nostrils flared. “Is it a mistake?”

“It’s not. It’s already in my checking account.”

The laughter of our friends sounds distant now. My vision starts to swim as I register the look on his face- disbelief, awe, jealousy in the way his lips twitch at the corners. My heart is still pounding. Then his eyes flood with light, and I don’t know whether or not to trust it.

“Let’s go abroad.” He says.

“What?”

“Let’s travel. Book us a flight.”

Us. I think back on our memories and slide my hand into his pocket so that I can feel his body’s outline, and I meet his eyes, my own half-lidded, and I know my lashes are casting pretty shadows on my burning cheeks. His eyes are black.

Apollo tangles his fingers in my dark hair and kisses me deeply and the world melts. I’ve always known he was my soulmate, but I’ve always had a feeling deep down that things wouldn’t work out, too. I push up against him and taunt him with the way I kiss, and then slip quickly out of his grasp. I still haven’t opened up fully to him. I feel like I’ve known him forever, but my heart takes a long time.

 When his eyes meet mine again, they’re glittering with need in the moonlight. I turn away from him and wade into the lake in my bikini, and leave him behind, making my way over to my best friend, Violet.

“Hey,” she says. “I was wondering where you were.”

I lower my voice as our other friends splash in the water nearby. “I have to tell you something.”

She lowers her voice, too. “Have you and Apollo… ya know… yet?”

“God, no. I want to take things slow.”

“Is he treating you right?”

“Vi- I don’t care about that right now. Just listen.”

“You have my full attention.”

“I just inherited 91 billion dollars.”

Silence falls. She’s staring at me with wide eyes and her lips slightly parted. “Wh- oh my god, you’re serious. Oh my god. What happened? I mean…How?”


 “I don’t even know who left it to me.”

“Well…Holy hell. What are you going to do with it?”

This is a good question and I look down at my hands, resting on top of the water, and swirl them around. When I look back up at her she looks like she could kiss me she’s so happy for me. Violet pulls me into a sudden hug instead. Her skin is wet and cold from the lake, her soaked strands of red hair catching in my lips.

“You deserve this. Really. I’m so happy for you.”

“Thank you.” I don’t quite know what else to say and neither does she. When she lets me go I tilt my head back to look at the sky. And sink slowly down until I’m immersed and water floods over my head and hides me from the world in a silken wrap of ice-cold freedom. I open my eyes and see nothing but moonlight shafting through the deep liquid that cocoons my skin.

What am I going to spend it on? What have I always wanted to try? I think back to the news from last night, when they were talking about the latest discoveries of interdimensional travel. Instead of a flight to London, why not check out the alternate dimensions?

When I come up for air I can hear my friends talking and laughing again, and doves cooing softly in the trees, and wind in the marshes. I can do this, I tell myself, wondering if this amount of money is going to make me famous, happy, or ruined forever with greed.

Apollo swims over to us and tosses his floppy brown curls out of his eyes. 

“I still can’t believe it,” he says to Violet. I hate when he talks to her that way- with me in the third person, like they are both looking out for me. Like they’re my parents discussing my future options. Makes them seem like partners. “I think we should all go to Japan.”

“Screw what you think,” I say quietly, floating on my back to look up at the stars. 

He sounds injured but patient. “Well, where do you want to go?”

“Do you remember last night when the news was talking about the other worlds?”

“In the alternate dimensions?”

“I think exploring them would be an amazing opportunity for us. We should all go.”

Violet clasps my fingers in her small hand. “I would love to come, Maddy.”

I can feel Apollo’s eyes on my face, like I always can- hot and scathing, like all my defenses are obvious and transparent to him. Butterflies erupt in my belly. And then his eyes flicker lower, and I sigh in frustration and dunk underneath the surface again.

The bottom of the lake is soft and sandy. I sit cross-legged there for a moment, in the silent night, to compose myself. I remind myself that I’m capable of anything. And if tonight is real, anything could happen.