The first pale fingers of dawn slipped through the slats of the cheap plastic blinds, striping the cracked ceiling of Jeremiah's bedroom in soft gray and gold. For a moment, he didn't move—just lay there on his twin mattress, the springs digging into his ribs, listening to the familiar hum of the city outside: a distant siren, the low thrum of a bus engine, a dog barking three streets over. His phone, wedged between the mattress and the wall, read 6:14 AM. September 12, 2017.
He sat up slowly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The room was small—just enough space for a secondhand desk piled with textbooks and loose-leaf paper, a rickety dresser with one missing drawer, and a corkboard where he'd pinned a faded map of the University of California system. He traced the outline of UCLA with his eyes, the way he did every morning. One day, he thought. One day, you're out.
The house was quiet. Too quiet. That meant his mother had already left for her first shift—housekeeping at a downtown hotel, then an evening gig bagging groceries at a Ralph's two bus transfers away. Sometimes she left a sticky note on the fridge, but this morning there was nothing. Just the faint, lingering smell of burned coffee and her cherry-vanilla lotion.
Jeremiah swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. The floor was cold linoleum. He shuffled to the bathroom, careful not to look at his reflection yet. He knew what he'd see: the same soft jaw, the same wide brown eyes with lashes too long for a boy, the same full lips that the boys in the locker room called "pretty for a nigga." He hated that word when they said it. Hated the way they laughed. Hated the way his stomach dropped every time they cornered him by the bleachers.
But first: teeth. He squeezed a thin line of toothpaste onto a worn brush and scrubbed methodically, two minutes exactly, counting in his head. The mint stung his gums. He rinsed, spat, and finally—finally—glanced up.
Same face. Same shame.
He dressed quickly, pulling a random T-shirt from the pile on the floor—a faded gray thing from a school fundraiser three years ago—and then yanked his hoodie over it. The hoodie was black, oversized, a hand-me-down from a cousin who'd grown out of it and into county lockup. It swallowed him whole, sleeves dangling past his knuckles, the hem brushing his thighs. Good. The less of him visible, the better.
Sweatpants next, the elastic at the ankles loose but functional. Socks with a small hole near the left big toe. Sneakers—white Chucks, scuffed and grayed from a thousand walks to school, the laces tied in double knots because he hated when they came undone.
He ran his fingers through his hair. Short, but soft, with a slight wave that he'd spent too many nights trying to flatten. He didn't have product, didn't have money for product, so he just wet his hands and smoothed it down as best he could. It curled at the edges anyway. It always did.
And then—quickly, guiltily, even though the apartment was empty—he reached for his mother's perfume bottle on the bathroom counter. A cheap glass thing shaped like a flower, the label half peeled. Vanilla Dream. He lifted it to his wrist and sprayed once. Twice. The scent bloomed warm and sweet, like sugar cookies in December. He didn't have cologne. He'd never owned cologne. But this smelled like home, like the rare evenings when his mom would hug him before falling asleep on the couch. He lowered the bottle and hurried out before he could talk himself out of it.
In the kitchen—a galley of stained counters and a humming refrigerator held together with duct tape—he made his sandwiches. Two slices of slightly stale wheat bread, a thin spread of generic peanut butter, one sad banana sliced into rounds. He wrapped each sandwich in a napkin, then tucked them into his backpack next to his binder and a single working pen. He wasn't one of the kids who left campus after lunch. He never was. While half the school trickled out to the parking lot—some to gangbang, most just to smoke or go home to empty houses—Jeremiah stayed in the library, hunched over his homework, trying to carve out a future sharp enough to cut through South Central.
He checked his phone again. 6:52. Time to go.
At the front door, he paused. The lock was tricky—you had to jiggle the key just right or it wouldn't catch. He jiggled. It caught. He pulled the hood up over his head, the fleece soft against his ears, and stepped outside.
The air was cool but promised heat by noon. A group of older men already sat on milk crates outside the corner bodega, nursing tall cans and not looking at him. He kept his head down, unlocked his bike—a dented purple Huffy with a bent fender and a seat that wobbled if you didn't lean right—and swung one leg over.
The ride to school was fifteen minutes if he pushed. He pushed. Past the liquor store with the iron bars on the windows. Past the laundromat where the neon sign flickered "24 HOUR" with the 'R' burned out. Past the memorial of white teddy bears and melted candles on the corner where someone had caught a bullet last spring. Jeremiah pedaled harder, his breath shallow, the vanilla on his wrists mixing with the smell of diesel and hot asphalt.
When he reached Crenshaw High, he dismounted a block away. He always did. Gave himself a minute to breathe. The building loomed—beige concrete, chain-link fences topped with razor wire, a flagpole with a frayed American flag. Kids milled around the gates in clusters, laughing, shoving, trading vape pens and handshakes. Jeremiah scanned the crowd automatically. Where are they?
There. Near the bike rack. Marcus and two of his boys, leaning against the fence with their backpacks slung low, phones out. Marcus was big—not fat, just solid, the kind of thick that came from lifting cinder blocks for his uncle's construction crew. He had a gold tooth that caught the light and a laugh that sounded like rocks in a blender.
Jeremiah's chest tightened. He waited until they turned away, then hurried to lock his bike, fingers trembling as he threaded the cable through the frame. Don't see me don't see me don't see me.
He made it inside.
First period was English with Ms. Chen, one of the few teachers who didn't look through him like a window. The classroom was hot—the AC had been broken since May—and smelled of floor wax and cheap air freshener. Jeremiah slid into his usual seat, third row, by the window, where he could watch the parking lot instead of the back of someone's head.
"Alright, alright," Ms. Chen said, clapping her hands. She was young, maybe late twenties, with hoop earrings and a perpetual coffee stain on her blouse. "Page forty-two. We're continuing with The Great Gatsby. Who can tell me what the green light symbolizes?"
A few hands went up. Jeremiah knew the answer—he'd read the chapter three times, highlighted passages in his book with a pink highlighter he'd borrowed from the library—but his throat closed up the way it always did when too many eyes might turn his way. He pulled his hoodie sleeves over his hands and stared at his desk.
"Jeremiah?" Ms. Chen's voice was gentle. She always called on him, not to embarrass him, but like she knew he had something to say.
He looked up. The class turned. Some faces were bored. Some were curious. Marcus, slouched in the back row, smirked and whispered something to the boy next to him.
"I—um." Jeremiah's voice came out small. He swallowed. "I th-think it's… it's hope? Like, he's r-reach-reaching for something he c-can't ever… touch."
Ms. Chen smiled. "Good. That's exactly right. Gatsby reaches toward the light the same way we reach toward our dreams—always just out of grasp."
The bell hadn't even rung yet, and already Jeremiah felt the weight of the day pressing down. He lowered his gaze back to the page, but the words blurred. He could still feel Marcus's eyes on the back of his neck. Could still smell the faint ghost of vanilla rising from his wrists.
Just get through today, he told himself. Just get through, and then the library. And then home. And then one day, UCLA.
He pulled his hood lower and waited for the second bell.