The first time they see me, I look like a runaway hamster rolling down a shiny American high school hallway.
Fluorescent lights, lockers in Bookside blue, a poster for the homecoming game peeling on one corner—and me, a sixteen-year-old girl sealed inside a clear, inflated bubble suit that whirs softly as the built-in filter hums. Phones lift before faces. A few kids blink like they’re not sure if this is a prank, a TikTok challenge, or an alien invasion.
“Yo, is that… NASA?” somebody whispers.
My bubble bumps a trash can.
“Sorry,” I mutter automatically, nudging it back into place with the rounded edge of my plastic shell.
Hi. I’m Juniper Reed. Yeah, the girl floating around like a lost turtle. And no, it’s not a cosplay, or a viral prank, or a Hollywood stunt. It’s my life.
I was born with something called severe combined immunodeficiency—SCID for short. Basically, my immune system is on permanent vacation. Germs that would just annoy other people could end me. For most of my life, “outside” has meant the view from my bedroom window overlooking a quiet Southern California street: palm trees, mail trucks, kids biking to school past the “Welcome to Bookside” sign like it’s no big deal.
I used to watch them like a princess locked in a tower, forehead pressed to the glass, trying to imagine what it felt like to line up at metal detectors, cram for midterms, complain about cafeteria pizza. Normal things. Messy things. Dangerous things, according to my mom.
We’d had the talk more times than I could count. The You-Can’t, I-Won’t, It’s-Too-Risky talk.
“I want to live a little,” I’d say, my voice bouncing off the four safe, sterilized walls of my room. “I want to see something that’s not the same ceiling fan and the same livestream of everybody else’s life.”
And Mom would sit down on the edge of my bed, her eyes tired in that way only American single moms seem to master, and remind me that the world out there is a minefield. That a crowded hallway in a public high school was basically a biological war zone for a girl like me.
So I became an expert at living in a gilded cage.
When your world shrinks to one room in a small California house, you get creative or you go crazy. I drew. I sewed. I wrote. I watched every high school movie ever made and treated them like research documentaries. Mean Girls, Clueless, anything set in some version of an American school where kids had lockers instead of air purifiers mounted above their beds.
I turned my journal into a blog, The Girl in the Glass Tower. I wrote about fashion I would never get to wear, hallways I’d never run down, crushes I’d never have. Apparently, a lot of lonely people on the internet related to that.
And that’s how I met him.
“My little bubble queen,” a new comment had said one day. “You make isolation sound like a fairytale and a horror film at the same time.”
His name online was Augustus. We started messaging. He lived “not far,” he said. He liked graphic design, movies, and the idea of leaving this little California town as soon as he graduated. He said my words made him feel less alone. I said he made my tower feel less like solitary confinement.
I never told him my real name. He never told me his. It felt safer that way, like two anonymous stars sending signals across the internet sky.
Then my brother Drew decided that safe was overrated.
“Ready for your first day of school ever?” Drew calls from the doorway of my “tower”—which is really just a corner bedroom with a HEPA filter and too many pillows.
He leans into the frame, tall and lanky in a faded Lakers hoodie, his curly brown hair shoved under a cap. There’s a silver hoop in his ear Mom still pretends not to see. Mom and Drew are… not on the best terms. Mostly because of me.
“You’re actually going to do it?” he says, eyes flicking to the bubble suit lying deflated on my bed like some transparent sea creature. “You’re not chickening out on me now, right?”
My heart beats so hard I can hear it in my ears. “What do you think about my outfit?” I ask, trying to sound casual as I shove my arms into the built-in sleeves.
The suit inflates with a soft hiss as my portable filter unit whirs to life. The clear shell rounds out around me. I feel the familiar, faint pressure of the air inside, the whisper of the filter.
“A little… spherical,” Drew says, grinning. “But you’re definitely styling. California’s first bubble fashion icon.”
“Maybe I’ll start a trend,” I say, even though we both know I won’t.
Mom appears behind him, still in her navy scrubs from the night shift at the clinic. Her hair is pulled back in a messy bun, her face pale with worry. She looks from me to Drew and back again, eyes already glassy.
“Seat belt goes over the harness,” she says, voice brisk to hide the shake. “You remember the emergency protocol? If the seal tears, what do you do?”
“Hit the internal patch kit, call you, avoid panic,” I recite. We’ve gone over it a hundred times.
“And you keep the hood zipped,” she says. “You don’t open it. Not for anything. Not for anyone.”
“Yes, Mom,” I say softly.
Her hand lingers on the plastic near my shoulder. “We’ll stay for homeroom,” she says. “Just to make sure everything is okay. That was the deal.”
“Mom,” I whisper, heat creeping up my neck. “Please don’t hover where everyone can see—”
“I’m your mother,” she says. “Hovering is in the job description.”
Drew grins. “You heard the queen. Now, my little bubble princess, allow me to escort you to your glorious chariot: the 2009 Honda Civic with questionable brakes.”
He opens the front door.
Sunlight slams into me like a physical thing.
The outside air is filtered before it reaches my face, but the world still feels louder, brighter, sharper than it ever did from behind my bedroom window. It smells like cut grass and car exhaust and something sweet from the bakery on the corner.
For a second I just stand there on the front porch of our beige stucco house, both of them staring at me, and think, I’m really doing this. A real American public high school. Lockers. Bells. People.
Then Drew bumps my bubble gently with his hip. “Let’s roll,” he says.
Literally.
Bookside High looks exactly like a hundred movies and nothing like I expected.
Instead of glittering teen drama sets, there’s peeling paint on the handrails and a “Go Bobcats!” banner so sun-bleached you can barely read it. The air smells like cheap cologne, pencil shavings, and industrial cleaner. A palm tree in the courtyard leans at a weird angle, as if it’s tried to escape and given up.
Drew guides my bubble down the main hallway, steering like he’s pushing a giant shopping cart.
“Eyes up,” he mutters. “You’re gonna want to see this.”
Kids stop mid-conversation as we pass, jaws slack. A girl with perfect braids elbows her friend and whispers something, eyes raking up and down my plastic shell. A boy in a varsity jacket actually drops the football he’s spinning.
I feel like a parade float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, except nobody asked for this, least of all me.
“Hey, Juny,” Drew says, using the nickname he invented in elementary school and never let go of. “Remember what you told me you wanted?”
“I said I wanted to be… normal,” I whisper.
He grins. “Nah. You said you wanted to be seen.”
He leaves me at the door of my homeroom with a quick, awkward half-hug that slides off the plastic. “Text me if they suck,” he says. “I can break you out at lunch.”
We both know he means it.
Inside, desks scrape. My bubble bumps the doorframe, then pops through, making three kids jump.
“Uh,” I say. “Hi.”
Thirty sets of eyes stare back.
“Hi, I’m Juniper,” I say, trying to inject my voice with the cheerful confidence I practice on my blog. “Yes, like the tree. Or the berry. Or the essential oil. And no, I’m not auditioning to join the Avengers. I promise there’s a reason I look like an off-brand hamster ball.”
A snort cuts through the room.
At the back of the class, a girl leans in her chair, sneer already in place. Blonde waves, perfect eyeliner, latest sneakers. There’s a tiny rhinestone “T” dangling from her necklace.
Tori, my brain supplies. I know her type. Every high school movie has one.
“Juniper or Jupiter?” she calls. “’Cause the fit’s kind of giving planet.”
A few kids laugh. My face burns, but I lift my chin.
The teacher—Ms. Hilton, according to the dry-erase board—taps her pen. “Okay, settle down,” she says. “Juniper, please continue.”
I steady my breathing, listening to the soft whirr of the filter. “Three things about me,” I say. “One, I’m really into fashion and creative writing. Two, I run a blog where I over-share my feelings like a millennial in a Gen Z world. And three, the biggest thing about me… is that I really love helping people.”
“How can you help anyone when you’re in a literal ball?” Tori mutters.
Ms. Hilton shoots her a look. “Quiet, Tori. Super.”
I swallow, force myself to keep going.
“It’s important for me to tell you I have SCID,” I say. “Severe combined immunodeficiency. It’s a rare immune disorder. My body doesn’t fight infections like yours do. This suit filters the air and keeps germs out. I know it looks weird. But it’s what lets me be here instead of stuck in my room forever.”
The room is dead silent.
“I have a few boundaries,” I add, hands inside my plastic gloves clenching. “Please don’t touch the suit. If it gets torn, that could put me at risk. And please don’t be offended if I don’t hug or high-five. I’m not trying to be rude. This is me trying to be normal.”
Tori rolls her eyes. “It’s cute how you think you could ever be normal,” she says. “Last time I checked, bubble suits aren’t in style.”
“Last time I checked,” I say before I can stop myself, “bullying people for being different wasn’t either.”
A few kids snicker. One girl near the window lets out a low “oof.” Even Ms. Hilton bites the corner of her lip to hide a smile.
“Why don’t you take your seat, Juniper?” she says.
As I roll toward the empty desk she points to, my mom appears at the door like a looming ghost in scrubs.
“What happened? Which one of you did this to my little girl?” she demands, eyes wild.
“Mom,” I hiss, mortified. “Can you please leave?”
“Not until after homeroom,” she says. “That was part of the deal.”
Thirty teenagers watch my mother argue with my teacher while I sit in a bubble, trapped between childhood and the real world. I close my eyes and imagine myself anywhere else. New York. Paris. A planet where this isn’t my life.
Eventually, Mom leaves. Eventually, everyone stops staring.
But Tori’s gaze stays hot on the back of my bubble like a laser.
It isn’t the fairytale I imagined. But it’s real. And for the first time in my life, I’m in it.
If my life were a movie, this is where a montage would play: Juniper Navigates High School in a Bubble.
In real life, it’s less glamorous and more exhausting.
In Biology, a boy in a faded Spider-Man shirt named Cedric unfolds a crumpled sketch of the stage for the drama club’s fall play. “Uh, Ms. Hilton,” he says. “Here’s the mock-up for the set…”
A guy behind him snickers. “Bro, did you get dressed in the dark too?” he says. “Those pants belong in 2008.”
Cedric’s shoulders hunch like he’s trying to fold himself up too.
“Enough,” Ms. Hilton says. “Focus on your work.”
I roll my bubble up beside him. “Hey,” I say. “Do you mind if I…?”
He blinks at me. “Uh. Sure?”
Inside my bubble, I press gloved fingers against the drawing. “You’ve got good bones here,” I say. “But your lines are fighting each other. Think symmetry. Flow.”
I sketch a quick curtain, a slightly different arch. “See? It frames the lead better. And by the way, your outfit?” I add, nodding toward his mismatched plaid shirt and graphic tee. “Honestly, you picked up some nice pieces. Just needs a few tweaks.”
“What, like a blind raccoon tweaks?” he mutters.
“Do you have a shirt underneath?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says cautiously.
“Unbutton,” I say. “Trust me.”
The class goes quiet. He hesitates, then shrugs and unbuttons his plaid shirt, revealing a simple black tank. I nod. “Tuck it in,” I tell him. “Higher on the waist. Now roll your sleeves. There. Streetwear. Intentionally messy instead of… accident.”
He glances at his reflection in the window. Something like pride flares in his eyes.
“Okay,” he admits. “That… doesn’t totally suck.”
“Fits fire,” the boy who mocked him before says, grudgingly. “I take it back.”
“Thanks,” Cedric says, cheeks pink. “And, uh… thanks, Juniper.”
Helping people. One outfit at a time.
In English, a quiet girl named Nicole hands her boyfriend Ethan a folded poem like it’s a piece of her heart. I watch from my bubble as he reads two lines, snorts, and crumples it up.
“You need to stop writing this cringe stuff,” he says loudly. “What is this, Hallmark? I can’t date a girl who thinks in rhymes.”
The paper bounces once, twice, skittering to a stop near my bubble.
Later, outside on the track, I find Nicole sitting alone on the bleachers, staring at that same crumpled ball.
“Can I?” I ask.
She shrugs.
I unfold it carefully.
The words are raw and earnest, a little dramatic, sure, but who isn’t at sixteen?
The way your eyes, like twin galaxies, pull me in. I orbit you with every glance across the cafeteria. You don’t even know the gravity you hold.
I read it out loud, softly. “This is beautiful,” I say. “I mean it. He doesn’t deserve this. You have a gift. Don’t let some guy in a Letterman jacket take that away.”
“You really think so?” she asks, eyes bright.
“One hundred percent,” I say. “You should keep writing. Maybe start a blog.”
She smiles a little. “Like The Girl in the Glass Tower?” she asks.
My heart stops. “You read that?”
“Um. Yeah,” she says. “I read everything you post.”
I want to tell her that I’m me. That I’m the one who wrote about tower windows and California sunsets. But I don’t. Not yet.
Some things are easier to confess to strangers than to classmates.
At lunch, Tori and her crew sweep into the cafeteria like they own it. They march straight to the table where Nicole and her friend Maxine are unwrapping turkey sandwiches from home.
“Oops,” Tori says, “this table’s reserved.”
She plucks Nicole’s sandwich off her tray, takes a bite, and then, bored with that, tosses the rest in the trash.
“You’re such a—” Maxine begins, then clamps her mouth shut.
“Language,” Tori sing-songs. “Come on, Augustus,” she adds, tugging on the letterman sleeve of Ethan’s friend. “Our court awaits.”
I roll up just as Nicole stands, face flushed, lunch gone.
“Hey,” I say. “If you don’t eat that, it’ll go to waste.”
I extend my tray toward her, watching her expression flicker between pride and hunger.
“Thank you,” she says finally, taking it. “You’re a lifesaver.”
“Basic ham and cheese,” I say. “But it wants to be a charcuterie board when it grows up.”
She laughs, a tiny burst of sound. It feels like winning.
Tori watches from across the cafeteria, lips curling.
Coming from a girl in a bubble, I bet anything looks good to you, she mouths.
It stings. But it also pushes something stubborn in me to the surface.
If I can help kids with clothes and food and words, maybe I can help with something bigger too.
Maybe I can change things.
Which is how the wild idea starts.
“I’m just saying,” Maxine says that night on video chat, lying on her bed under a tapestry of the Hollywood sign. “If there’s anyone who should run against Tori for class president, it’s you.”
We’ve somehow ended up as a little friend group: Nicole with her notebook of poems, Maxine with her endless memes, Cedric sketching in the corner of the call, and me, lit up in my bubble like a strange lantern in my bedroom. The glow of my laptop reflects off the plastic.
“Yeah,” Nicole says, balancing her phone against a stack of textbooks. “You literally gave me your lunch. You helped Cedric. You talk to everyone like they matter. That’s more leadership than Tori’s shown in three years.”
I snort. “I’m the girl in the bubble suit,” I say. “Nobody wants a turtle for class president.”
“Who says?” Maxine challenges. “I’m serious, Juniper. We’re tired. Tori runs half the clubs, the prom committee, student council… and everything she touches turns into a nightmare unless you’re one of her fangirls or your parents donate to the PTA.”
Nicole nods. “Even the yearbook quote is going to be ‘Tori is life’ if she stays in charge.”
I think about all those high school movies I watched, where losers become leaders after a makeover and a training montage. I think about my blog comments, people calling me inspiring from behind anonymous usernames.
“It’s a ridiculous idea,” I say.
“So?” Cedric says, surprising me. “So is wearing a bubble suit to a public school. And yet, here you are.”
A notification pops up in the corner of my screen.
NEW MESSAGE: Augustus.
I click it open.
He’s sent a link to a clip.
It’s me, from that first day, rolling into the hallway, the caption: “This girl showed up to my school inside a protective bubble today. She’s braver than I’ll ever be.”
My heart trips.
He’s here.
Somewhere in this school full of faces I haven’t matched to usernames yet, he’s watching. He sees me.
So maybe it’s not ridiculous.
Maybe it’s destiny.
Or maybe it’s just exactly what California needs: a girl in a bubble suit on the ballot.
Before I can decide if I’m going to actually do it, Tori finds out anyway.
She corners me near the lockers the next morning, her perfume sugary and sharp.
“What does that freak think she’s doing trying to take my spot as class president?” she snaps to her entourage. Then, to me: “You need to drop out of the race if you know what’s good for you.”
“I didn’t even accept the nomination yet,” I say. “Also, democracy is kind of built on having more than one choice.”
“You think people are going to pick you over me?” she scoffs. “You can’t even climb stairs.”
“Ramps exist,” I say. “Welcome to the twenty-first century.”
Her eyes narrow. “You’re not the only one who knows how to use the internet,” she says. “Let’s see how your little fairytale blog looks when the whole school’s laughing at you.”
My blood runs cold.
The Girl in the Glass Tower.
She found it.
Later that day, I sit in the library, working on a short story at one of the computers. It feels strangely safe here, surrounded by books and quiet. My fingertips tap the keys inside my bubble gloves.
You can’t leave your life if you’re not even alive, I type. Her tower is made of glass and good intentions. The bars are invisible, but they still cut.
“Juniper,” Ms. Hilton says, appearing beside me. “You’re a prolific writer. You really should be an author one day. I bet you’d be a New York Times bestseller. In fact, I want to be the first to get your autograph.”
She leans over my shoulder, smiling.
Her elbow “accidentally” knocks my cup of water off the desk.
Time slows down. The cup arcs through the air, water flying. It hits the side of my bubble suit with a loud, sickening thwack.
Plastic gives.
There’s a high, horrible hiss.
The world narrows to that sound.
Kids gasp. Someone laughs. Someone else screams.
My heart lurches into my throat. I slam my palm against the emergency patch kit on my hip, feeling it deploy and seal. The filter whines as it struggles to compensate.
“Why would you do that?” I whisper, my voice shaking.
“Oh my God,” Ms. Hilton says, hand to her mouth. “I am so sorry. It was an accident. I’m going to have to report this to your mom.”
Of course she will.
If my mom hears this from someone else instead of me, I’m done.
The patch holds. I’m okay. But the message is clear.
This world is not built for girls like me.
Not yet.
Mom doesn’t yell, which is somehow worse.
She sits at the kitchen table that night, hands clasped around a mug of chamomile tea, staring at me with a look I can’t decipher.
“We tried it your way,” she says finally. “We tried. And someone still put you in danger.”
“It was an accident,” I say. “The suit worked. I handled it. I’m fine.”
“Until next time,” she says. “Until something hits harder. Until the seal doesn’t hold. Leaving your room wasn’t a good idea. I was stupid to agree to this. I should’ve listened to my instincts.”
“Your instincts or your fear?” I shoot back, my own voice rising. “You’re not keeping me safe. You’re keeping me captive.”
Her face twists, like I’ve slapped her. “You can’t leave your life if you’re not even alive,” she says. “Do you understand that? I watched you almost die once, Juniper. I watched doctors pump medicine into your tiny veins and I swore I would never put you in that position again.”
“So you locked me up,” I say. “Like a villain in a kid’s story.”
“Like a mother who loves her daughter,” she says, every word trembling. “I’m calling the school. You’re done there. You’re not going back.”
“I hate you,” I say before I can stop myself.
It lands in the space between us like a broken plate.
I don’t mean it.
But I say it anyway.
I disappear.
At least, that’s what it feels like from the outside.
Maxine and Nicole text. I don’t answer. My blog goes dark. My bubble sits deflated on my bedroom floor like a shed skin.
Outside, the Southern California sky clouds over. It rains for the first time in weeks, droplets streaking down my window like the tears I won’t let myself shed where Mom can see.
I stand there, palm pressed to the glass, wondering what rain feels like on skin instead of plastic.
On the other side of the street, Booker Avenue looks the same as always. Kids on skateboards. A mail truck. A guy in a hoodie with his hands shoved into his pockets, staring up at my house like he’s trying to see through walls.
Drew’s been banished. After the first jailbreak, when he’d helped me climb out my window and down a ladder in a makeshift bubble suit we’d built from online tutorials, Mom had lost it.
“You put your sister’s life at risk,” she’d said, voice shaking. “She could’ve died today. And you didn’t care. Get out.”
He’d begged. Pleaded. Then bargained.
“It’s fine,” he’d finally said. “I’ll move out on one condition: you let her go to school.”
They’d fought like something out of a daytime drama. Mom threatening to call the cops. Drew daring her to, saying the whole neighborhood could watch. In the end, she’d given in.
Now he sleeps on a friend’s couch.
And I’m back in my tower.
It would be easier to accept it if I hadn’t tasted the real world. The scent of the cafeteria. The sound of laughter echoing down a hallway. The feel of everyone’s eyes on me, yes—but also the feel of being there.
I’m not sure which hurts more: that she took it away, or that I let her.
I’m not the only one who’s angry.
In the Bookside cafeteria, Maxine slams her tray down next to Nicole. “Have you heard from her?” she demands.
Nicole shakes her head. “Nothing. She just… vanished.”
A familiar voice cuts in. “Uh… Juniper’s not attending Bookside anymore,” Tori says, strolling past with her tray. “I heard her mom pulled her out. Guess the castle walls got too high.”
Maxine jumps to her feet. “Do you have her number?” she asks. “Her address? Something?”
“Why do you even care?” Tori says, bored.
“Because she’s our friend,” Nicole says. “That bubble girl? She’s kind of the reason I still write.”
Tori rolls her eyes. “Okay, girls,” she says to her friends. “Here’s the plan. We need to take the freak down. Ideas, go.”
Leah, one of her followers, bites her lip. “I don’t know if I’m… totally cool with the whole ‘downfall of Juniper’ idea,” she says. “She’s actually been really nice to me.”
“Nice?” Tori scoffs. “The girl is literally a walking gas bubble. Whatever. Forget it. I’ll handle it myself.”
Across town, a boy named Augustus stares at the blank message window on his phone.
He knows now. That the bubble girl at his school, the one he filmed on her first day, is the same girl from his favorite blog. The same anonymous friend who wrote about towers and windows and longing.
He knows because Cedric told him. Because Maxine, desperate and out of options, tracked him down in the art room and said, “You’re Augustus, right? The one from her comments?”
He can’t explain to them why he needs to talk to her.
He just knows he does.
“Do you have her address?” he asks Maxine.
She hesitates, then pulls out her phone. “I found her diary,” she says. “She left it in the library. I promise I didn’t read it. Not all of it, anyway. But I saw her last name. I can look it up.”
Ten minutes and one Google search later, Augustus is standing on a quiet Bookside street in front of a beige stucco house with bars on the bedroom windows.
“What the heck?” he mutters, staring up. “She wasn’t kidding about the castle.”
“Hey!” a voice snaps behind him. “What are you doing sneaking around my sister’s house?”
Augustus spins. A tall guy in a Lakers hoodie glowers at him. For a moment, they square up like this might turn into something else. Then the guy squints.
“You’re the kid who filmed her,” Drew says slowly. “On the first day.”
“Uh… yeah,” Augustus admits. “I’m Augustus.”
Drew blinks. Then laughs. “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he says. “Of course you are.”
He takes a step closer. “You hurt her, I swear—”
“I’m not here to hurt her,” Augustus says. “I’m here to see if she’s okay.”
Drew studies him for a long moment, weighing something invisible between them. Finally, he sighs.
“Come on,” he says. “But if Mom sees you, pretend you’re a missionary or a census guy or something.”
He leads Augustus around the side of the house, keeping low.
The window above them is partially open. A familiar voice floats down, soft and tired.
“I don’t really feel like talking right now,” Juniper says.
“That sucks,” Augustus calls up before he can think about how absurd it is to shout through barred glass. “We were really looking forward to hearing your voice.”
There’s the sound of a gasp, then the rustle of plastic as she moves closer.
“What are you guys doing here?” she asks, breathless.
“We came to see you,” Maxine says, appearing after jogging from the corner, cheeks flushed. Nicole hurries behind her.
“Yeah,” Augustus says, smiling up into the dim rectangle. “Besides, it’s about time we met in person.”
Juniper presses her hand against the glass. On the other side, his palm meets it.
“You always make things sound like a fairy tale,” he says. “Calling this your castle and all.”
“Well,” she says, the ghost of a laugh in her voice, “if the glass door fits…”
“You’re my pen pal,” he says, the words tumbling out.
“You’re Augustus,” she says. “I should’ve known.”
“I hate seeing you behind those castle walls,” he says. “What do you say we go on an adventure?”
“My mom will kill me,” she whispers. “She’s barely letting me breathe.”
Drew steps into view behind Augustus. “You need to stop worrying about Mom,” he says. “This is your life. What do you want to do? If staying in bed is what you want, then fine. But if it’s not…”
He glances at the ladder still hidden under the deck, the same one they used last time.
Juniper looks at the bars on her window. At the sky just starting to clear after the rain. At the three faces below, tilted up toward her like she’s a star they’re waiting on.
Her heart pounds in her ears.
This might be my only chance, she thinks.
“Okay,” she says. “Let’s do it.”
It’s easier the second time.
The suit inflates. The harness clips. The emergency kit hangs heavy at her hip.
Drew steadies the ladder. Augustus holds the bottom. Maxine and Nicole hover, whispering prayers and curse words.
Juniper swings one leg over the windowsill, then the other, her bubble pushing through the bars like a soap bubble squeezing between fingers.
“Take good care of my sister,” Mom’s voice says from the lawn.
Everyone freezes.
She stands there in her scrubs, eyes red, phone still in her hand from the call she’d just gotten from the clinic. She looks older than she did a week ago. More scared. More tired.
“Mom,” Juniper says, throat dry. “I—”
“Move away,” Mom says to the ladder. “Let her climb down.”
Drew blinks. “What?”
“Listen,” Mom says, voice breaking. “She’s going to be okay. She’s young. She’s stronger than I gave her credit for. I can’t keep her in that box forever. Even if it kills me.” She looks at Juniper. “But, baby… she could die.”
“She’d rather die than spend the rest of her life in that box,” Drew says softly. “Just because you’re scared doesn’t mean she has to be.”
Mom covers her mouth with her hand.
Something shifts in her eyes.
She nods once.
“Fine,” she whispers. “But take good care of my girl.”
The ladder steadies. Juniper climbs down, bubble squeaking against metal. At the bottom, Augustus catches the side, like he’s afraid gravity will betray her.
She laughs nervously. “That was… intense.”
“That was a start,” he says.
“Anywhere you want to go in particular?” he asks as they wheel her into the street, the late-afternoon sky painted pink and gold like every California dream sequence ever filmed.
“Anywhere I can see the stars,” she says.
They drive.
Out of the neighborhood with the identical houses and the quiet lawns and the bars on her window. Past the strip mall with the nail salon and the grocery store. Past Bookside High, its lights off, its flag flapping lazily in the breeze.
They keep going until the city thins and the hills rise and the sky opens up.
They park on a dirt turnout overlooking the valley, the glow of Los Angeles faint in the distance like a smudged constellation. Above them, the sky is a black velvet blanket punched full of pinpricks of light.
“Wow,” Juniper breathes. “It’s even more incredible than I imagined.”
The rain has cleared, but the air still smells fresh, washed, like the whole world took a shower and put on new clothes.
She hears a soft patter on the plastic.
“What are you doing?” Augustus asks.
She’s unzipping the hood.
“Wait—” Maxine says. “What if you get sick?”
“I just want to feel it,” Juniper says. “The rain. The air. Something that isn’t filtered. I might not get another chance.”
She peels the hood back.
Cool air kisses her cheeks.
A drop of water hits her forehead, then another. It feels like tiny, soft fingers tapping hello. She tilts her head back, eyes closed, letting them land on her lashes, her nose, her lips.
It’s like a baptism. It’s like waking up.
“How do you feel?” Augustus asks, voice tight.
“I think…” she says slowly, opening her eyes. “I think I’m good.”
Her phone buzzes inside the suit. She fumbles it out with wet fingers.
“Mom?” she says when she sees the caller ID. “Is everything okay?”
On the other end, her mother is crying.
“I haven’t been completely honest with you and your brother,” she says. “When you were three, you got a bone marrow transplant. It was supposed to fix your immune system. But even then, I was too scared to see if it worked. I never let them do the full follow-up testing. I just… kept you inside. I told myself I was keeping you safe. But I might have just been keeping you small.”
“So all these years…” Juniper says slowly. “You’ve been keeping me locked up like—”
“Not for no reason,” Mom cuts in. “Because I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you again. Because you’re my little girl. Because in my head, letting you outside was the same thing as putting you in danger. But it wasn’t fair. To you. Or to Drew.”
Juniper looks up at the sky, at the stars, at the droplets on her arms. “Okay,” she says. “I get it. And… I forgive you. We can talk more when I get home. I love you.”
“I love you too, June bug,” Mom whispers.
Juniper hangs up.
“I think I’m okay,” she says again, this time with more certainty. “I mean… I might not need this thing anymore. Not like before.”
“Really?” Maxine asks. “Like, really really?”
“There’s one more test,” Juniper says, a wild grin spreading across her face. “To be sure.”
She unclips the harness.
The bubble deflates around her feet like a collapsing balloon. The plastic crumples. Air rushes in, cool and real.
For the first time in her life, there is nothing between her skin and the world.
She takes a breath.
Then another.
The stars don’t fall. The sky doesn’t crack. Her throat doesn’t close.
She laughs, the sound ringing out over the dark hills.
“I’m sure now,” she says.
She’s alive.
She’s outside.
She’s not a girl in a bubble anymore.
The next week at Bookside High, kids stop mid-gossip as a girl walks down the hallway in a denim jacket and a floral dress, no plastic in sight. Her curls bounce freely. Her eyes are bright.
“Is that…?” someone whispers.
“She’s out of the bubble,” another murmurs.
Juniper smiles as she passes them, her sneakers squeaking just like everyone else’s.
She walks into the auditorium without the soft hum of a filter behind her and steps up onto the stage where the candidates for class president are waiting.
Tori stares, mouth open.
“What happened to your suit?” she blurts.
“I don’t need it anymore,” Juniper says. “Turns out I’ve got more fight in me than anyone thought.”
Murmurs ripple through the student body, filling the air like static.
The principal clears her throat. “And now,” she says, “your new class president…”
The drumroll on the metal bleachers is deafening.
“…Juniper Reed.”
The gym erupts.
Cedric whoops. Nicole screams. Maxine jumps up and down until her bun falls out. Augustus claps until his hands hurt.
Juniper steps forward, heart pounding, rain and stars and hospital rooms and tower windows swirling behind her eyes.
She takes the microphone.
“Hey,” she says. “I’m Juniper. You might know me as the girl in the bubble. Or the girl who writes weird fairytales on the internet. Or the girl who fixed your outfit that one time. I’ve spent most of my life watching everyone else live from behind glass. But I’m done with that.”
She looks out at the sea of American teenagers—athletes and artists, kids from every corner of town and every kind of family, all mashed together in one slightly run-down public school gym.
“I love helping people,” she says. “I always have. And I know what it’s like to feel stuck. To feel small. To feel like everyone else is living and you’re just… existing. So if I can make Bookside a place where we listen to each other, where we look out for each other, where we realize that the weird kid in the corner might be braver than all of us put together… I’m going to do that. With or without a bubble.”
She grins.
“The truth is,” she says, “you don’t need glass walls to feel trapped. And you don’t need perfect health to make a difference. You just need to love yourself enough to step outside, even when you’re scared. And maybe a few idiots crazy enough to climb ladders and steal you from your own tower.”
The crowd roars.
Somewhere in the bleachers, Drew wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.
Mom clutches a tissue, her face wet and proud.
Augustus catches Juniper’s eye and winks.
Later, outside under a sky that’s just beginning to darken, Juniper stands with her friends by the bike racks.
Augustus leans closer. “So,” he says. “Madame President. How does it feel to finally be out of the bubble? Metaphorically and literally.”
“Like everything is possible and nothing is guaranteed,” she says. “Which is… terrifying. But good.”
He laughs. “Very on-brand.”
“Hey, Juniper,” Maxine calls. “Sign my notebook before you get too famous?”
“You’re going to be a New York Times bestselling author one day,” Nicole adds. “I want the first autograph.”
Juniper takes the pen, her handwriting looping across the page.
“Love yourself first,” she writes. “Everything else will fall into place.”
She hands it back, feeling the truth of it settle over her like the rain did on that hill.
For the first time in her life, the world is bigger than her room.
The tower door is open.
The bubble has burst.
And the girl who lived inside it is finally, gloriously, impossibly free.
