The first week following Oliver's move to her realm is the best of Avie's life.  Oliver is even happier than she imagined he would be.  He doesn't mind all of the crap Marcella makes him do.  Whatever she throws at him, he does without complaint.  He can't get over how short his workday is.   Avie cannot relate.  She's working as a maid now that she's graduated and her workday seems to drag on forever.  Still, they do have plenty of time alone together in the evenings, time that Marcella does not begrudge her or even ask her about—that's something to be grateful for.

A little over a week after Oliver's arrival, something shifts.  His smiles become fleeting and his shoulders hunch as though he's again carrying the burdens of his home realm.  He might as well have never left the orchard, for all the good her realm seems to have done him.  This goes on for several days: Avie constantly asks him what's wrong and Oliver constantly tells her that nothing is. 

Avie has had enough.

"Look, Oliver, either tell me what's going on with you, or I'm opening the Fold and plopping you back in that apple orchard of yours in the middle of the winter."

Oliver, who had been studying a brochure for a nearby waterpark, looks up at her, his eyes filled with both surprise and sadness.  "You would do that?"

"What?  No." Her tone softens.  She sits on the edge of the bed next to where he's stretched out.  "Not really, obviously.  I'm just frustrated.  We need to be able to talk to each other, you know?"

Oliver nods.  "Well if that's the case then, I guess I should say that I'm kind of angry with you, Avie.  Not really angry, cuz I think you did it to protect me, but still, I deserved to know."

Avie crinkles her nose.  "Just what did I do?"

"It's actually what you didn't do.  You didn't tell me about the contamination and what the authorities are doing to people who test positive for other realm matter."

"Oh."  There's not much more that she can say.  She knew about Josef Reyes' disappearing act and the ensuing crackdown before bringing Oliver to this realm, yet she'd told him nothing about it.  She'd brought him through the Fold anyways.

"I live here, Avie.  Did you think I wouldn't find out about it?"

Avie sighs.  "I know I should have told you a long time ago, before you stepped through the Fold.  It's just that... you were so excited to come here.  Every time I warned you of the risks, you found a way to dismiss them.  I didn't think the whole 'other realm contamination crackdown' would be any different."

Oliver props himself up so that he's resting against the padded headboard.  "Maybe not, but it should have been my choice to dismiss this risk.  You should have told me."

Avie shifts towards him until their shoulders touch.  She gives him a little nudge.  "Do you...do you want to go back to your home realm?  Not during the winter, of course.  I mean, I can bring you back when your family will be there again."

Oliver remains silent for a long while—so long, Avie's heart speeds up and her palms begin to sweat.  Is he really considering leaving her? 

"That might be the wise thing to do." He grabs her hand.   "But I ain't given over to wisdom, I guess, cuz this is where I'm at and this is where I'm staying."

Avie bites her lip and squeezes her eyes shut, letting the relief flood through her.  "I'm so sorry I didn't tell you, Oliver."

 "I suppose everyone keeps things from the people they love because they think it's in their best interest."

He curves his head towards her neck and kisses her from her jaw all the way to the divot where it meets her shoulder.  She shivers at the sensation and then twists her body, sliding it down the length of the bed so that she's underneath him.

Avie pretends she's so lost in the moment, she can't be bothered to think about the last sentence of his, or the fact that when he said it, it seemed he was speaking more of his own actions than of hers. 

No, she will not think about that at all.

  ***

Oliver is floating. 

The sky is blue above him.  It's the only thing he can see.  Avie is there with him, her hand gently pressed to his lower back to reassure him that he can't sink.  Oliver's ears are barely submerged below the surface of the water.  The not-so-right hum of this not-so-right reality filters through him, somehow both dulled and sharpened by the water.  The constancy of sound is reassuring, even though it also reminds him that he doesn't belong here. 

This pool is the first place in which he's felt at ease since learning that he is in fact a bundle of contaminated energy matter.  The water seems to cancel out enough of the negative to make this peculiar condition bearable.  It's cleansing.  Everything is washed away here, even his own incessant fears.

Naturally, this cannot last. 

Avie's oval face inserts itself into his sky view.  "You're doing it Oliver.  You're letting yourself float."  Slowly she eases her hand away from him.  "You don't need me anymore."

Her head disappears again as she takes a step back towards the pool's edge. 

Panic strikes.  Was he really keeping himself afloat or was it Avie?  He doesn't know.  His body goes ridged, and he flails his arms in a failed effort to keep his head afloat.  His nose burns as he breathes in water.

"Just put your feet down!" Avie rushes back over to him.

Her words are filtered through the not-so-right hum of the pool.  It takes him a moment to make sense of them.

"Oliver!"  She tugs on his shoulder.  "Feet down!"

He flails one more time and then something finally snaps into place.  He lowers his feet and stands.   The water comes up just past his waist. 

"I thought I was going to drown."

"It was only a thought, Oliver." She wraps her arms around him.  Water drips from her hair onto his chest.  "A thought can't harm you."

Oliver would have agreed with her on this point just a few weeks ago.  Now he believes quite the contrary.  Thoughts are the cause of everything.  There are realms upon realms upon realms, each separated by a traversable Fold.  But there are other realities as well: the ones people create for themselves.  In Oliver's reality, thoughts can cause a person to float or sink.  They can cause great happiness or unparalleled anxiety.  They can make you love someone else so much that you would give up everything for that person. 

Oliver's realm is at the bottom of that pool, where the water can wash away enough of the hums and fears and harm-causing thoughts until what is left is something tiny enough for him to hold on to.  

It is unfortunate that the one thing that can save him from himself will also drown him.

A/N: I think Oliver let Avie off pretty easy, don't you? Meanwhile, things are still feeling "not-so-right" for Oliver, who, aside from briefly believing he was about to drown, seems to take great comfort in the pool.  UNSEEN readers... sound familiar?

Today's dedication is for @Red_Harvey a wonderful Horror and SpecFic writer as well as a strong advocate for supporting diversity within literature, especially speculative fiction.  She is also the co-founder of Nuff Said Publishing.  Be sure to check out her profile as well as her awesome stories!