Juliet grew up in Hawaii, surrounded by warm air and the sound of the ocean. She was a Black little girl who had been homeschooled for as long as she could remember. Her world was small, even if it didn't feel that way at first.
Her parents taught her everything, or at least they tried to. Most days, school meant sitting with her siblings while videos played on a phone or laptop. "YouTube has all the answers," her parents would say. "You can learn anything." But Juliet never knew what she was supposed to learn. There were no classrooms, no bells, no teachers who didn't already love her, and no grades to tell her where she stood.
That scared her.
Somewhere in the back of her mind lived a quiet doubt. Maybe this wasn't how the real world worked. Maybe public school—the real world—was what actually taught you how life was supposed to be. She taught herself most of the time, clicking through videos without knowing what came next. Sometimes it felt like she was learning the wrong things, or not enough of the right ones.
Still, she held onto one thought: whatever happened, she would learn. Even if she turned out to be behind. Even if everyone else seemed smarter than her—which they usually did. Whenever people found out she was homeschooled, their faces changed. "Oh… you're homeschooled?" The word followed her like a label. Weird. Different. Not one of us. Some days, it didn't even feel human.
That was her life in Hawaii, until she moved to the US.
Her first day of public school fell on a Monday morning. It wasn't the first day for anyone else—the semester had already started—but it was her first day, and that made it feel heavier. The building was huge, the hallways loud, and she got lost more times than she wanted to admit, clutching her schedule as if it might disappear. Everything was new: the accents, the cultures, the rules she didn't know yet.
Before she could fully process it, she was sitting in a classroom that felt nothing like home. Desks replaced couches, whiteboards replaced screens, and the teacher didn't know her name. People tried to talk to her, and she realized how hard conversation could be when the only people you'd truly spoken to your whole life were your siblings.
As the day went on, something surprised her. Teachers explained lessons before testing them. They started from the beginning. School wasn't a trap; it was structured. Clear. Maybe even manageable.
Then she met Sarah.
Sarah spoke easily, laughed easily, and made Juliet feel noticed. On her first day, Sarah leaned over and whispered that they could just skip school. Juliet knew it was wrong immediately, but she didn't know how to say no. At home, you didn't say no—you laughed, nodded, adjusted. So she laughed. She brushed it off, not agreeing, but not refusing either.
Sarah didn't stop. "What are you, some kind of good girl?" she teased. "What does school even have for you anyway? This is your first day in Canada. Have fun. You only have one life." That was Sarah's favorite line. You only have one life.
Juliet kept pushing her away gently, saying she had class, that it was her first day. She said it again and again until the bell finally rang. Relief washed over her as she escaped into the hallway. She hadn't gone with Sarah. Not today.
But as she walked to her next class, her heart still pounding, she knew one thing for sure.
This wasn't over.