The walk home felt longer than usual.
Not because the distance changed — but because I had.
Something about leaving that classroom made everything look older. Like the trees had been waiting for me to notice them. Like the sky had always been this wide and I'd just never had time to look up.
There were kids at the corner store arguing over who got the last ice pop. A woman in pink rollers waved from her porch like she always did. Same town, same faces — but none of it felt the same anymore.
I kicked a small rock all the way to my front door.
Mom wasn't home. She'd left a sticky note on the fridge:
"Left early for work — clean your room. We'll talk later about your next steps."
Typical.
I dropped my bag, grabbed a glass of cold water, and went straight to my room.
Door closed. Curtain halfway open. The smell of lavender from my pillow spray still clinging to the air. Safe.
That's when I pulled out the book —
the one I don't let anyone touch. Not even Maya.
And that's saying something, because Maya's basically seen me at my worst —
crying over math homework, falling asleep on video calls, throwing up that one time we ate gas station sushi just to say we did.
She's bold like thunder but soft where it matters.
Still, I don't think I'm ready to let anyone read the things I write in here.
I flipped to a blank page, uncapped my pen, and let it out.
June 15
First Day of Freedom (or whatever)
I don't know who I am without routine.
Without bells, schedules, uniforms,
without someone asking "Where's your homework?"
Everyone says this is the part where we bloom.
But blooming's scary.
No one tells you how heavy petals feel
when you're still learning how to grow from a seed.
I'm scared.
Not the monster-under-the-bed kind.
The quiet kind — the "what if I don't become anything" kind.
They say I'm eighteen now.
Like I'm supposed to be ready.
But I still double-check if I locked the front door
and I still forget how to breathe when someone looks at me too long.
I don't feel grown.
I feel like a hallway.
I stared at the page for a while after writing that.
The sun was already softening into gold. Outside, I could hear someone mowing their lawn. Somewhere far away, a dog barked once — then silence.
I lay back on my bed and looked up at the ceiling, arms behind my head like I was trying to hold the weight of the world up myself.
That was Day One.
And I had no idea where the summer would take me.
But something inside me — maybe the poet, maybe the girl, maybe both — whispered:
Just keep writing.
Even if no one's reading yet.