Jasmine Lewis entered America with dirt already under her fingernails.
She was a six-year-old girl with a smaller stature, she had watchful brown eyes that missed nothing, and a voice that rarely rose above a hush. The journey from Jamaica with her family had been long and stressful. The planes, the buses, and the unfamiliar air that bit through her skin weren't much to think about, but what stayed with her most during the travel was the silence that greeted her and her family when they reached their destination in America. Their residence was an isolated farming settlement far from highways and cities, with few neighbors and land that stretched endlessly.
This realization didn't make Jasmine cry, rather, when she saw it, she took it in quietly with the hope that things would get better.
Her parents, Samuel and Marlene Lewis, had left Jamaica with little more than faith. Back home, they had survived on seasonal work and borrowed favors, always facing one bad harvest and loss, and narrowly escaping hunger and poverty. They were told America offered opportunities that could pull them out of poverty, but unfortunately for them, the farm they arrived at was not the America they had hoped for. It was a place of long days, early mornings, and fields that demanded tedious work, but to Jasmine, this place was her first place of knowledge.
Jasmine had been born in a small village in Jamaica, where the ocean wind carried salt off the shore. And this was where her grandparents used to say that intelligence was a blessing that required humility to live and survive. Jasmine remembered those words, even after her grandmother stayed behind and bid her goodbye from the roadside as the bus pulled away, and that memory was one Jasmine often returned to, especially when the world felt too large and unfamiliar for her.
On the farm, Jasmine was a good observer and learner. She watched as her mother woke early to do the daily chores, and her father farmed and tilled the soil with his bare hands. She noticed patterns of how the sun touched certain rows first in the fields, how birds scattered before rain started, and how silence often said more than complaints ever could.
She learned diligence not from instruction but from example. By seven, she was helping where she could, she would carry small buckets to water the plants with her mother, sort produce, help fold clothes, and still never complained. She didn't complain because she understood intuitively that survival depended on contribution and joint work, and Jasmine wanted to be useful and productive. And what set her apart wasn't just her willingness to work but also the way she stayed active even when she was tired.
The nearest school she attended was not too far, it was a small building with old paint and limited resources. Jasmine walked there every day with dust on her shoes and curiosity buzzing in her chest. She was a fast learner and a diligent student who stunned her teachers with how easily she grasped ideas that others struggled with.
At the Lewis home, evenings were quiet and slow, and there was no television, no internet, no distractions beyond the hum of insects and the tired breathing of her parents, who had exhausted themselves from the day's work. Jasmine read with candlelight, tracing words with her fingers until they became familiar. Books became her refuge and shield, a way to travel without leaving and a way to imagine life beyond rows of crops.
Despite her growing intellect, humility clung to her like a second skin. She never boasted, she never corrected others unnecessarily, and when praised, she lowered her head in appreciation. Her parents noticed this, and it sometimes worried them because they thought she might take her gentleness for granted, but they also knew that humility paired with intelligence was powerful.
Jasmine carried both in her soul.
As she grew older, the farm remained the same, but Jasmine changed in subtle, remarkable ways. She became taller, steadier, and more aware of the distance between where she was and where she could be. She began translating letters for her parents, helped calculate expenses, and filled out forms with careful precision. Responsibilities were placed on her shoulders early, and she wore them with no resentment.
What Jasmine did not realize yet was that every hardship was sharpening her. Isolation taught her independence, poverty taught her resourcefulness, immigration taught her adaptability, and the farm taught her patience and endurance.
Teachers began taking special notice of her and having a deep interest in her. They started introducing her to a future of possibilities, the one that does not involve bent back and aching hands.
Jasmine never took that for granted. She listened quietly as always.
She did not announce her ambitions, but deep inside her, something was steady and unshakable. She believed her life would be larger and greater than the land she stood on.
This was Jasmine Lewis, the only child of Jamaican laborers, a student of soil and determination, a girl shaped by work and wonder in equal measure.
A smart, diligent, humble, and intelligent daughter of Jamaican descent.
Her story did not begin with privilege or ease, it began with a six year old girl stepping into the vast, unfamiliar country carrying nothing but her parents hope and a mind determined to grow no matter how difficult or isolated her world was.
And this was only the beginning for little Jasmine and her parents on their search for greener pastures in America.
It was in her senior year when she met him.
His name was Daniel Wright.
Daniel sat two rows ahead of her in class, rarely spoke, and his intelligence was not loud or competitive. It was precise, curious, and unafraid of complexity.
Their first real interaction came after school in the library. The library was unusually quiet, not the normal kind of quiet, but the kind that presses against your ears and makes every movement feel too loud. She was standing at the literature aisle, reaching out for a copy of Wuthering Heights, when another hand brushed the book at the same time.
"Sorry," he quickly said, and she just smiled. She meant to leave, but instead, sat across from him.
They didn't talk at first, just read, and minutes passed into an hour before Daniel finally broke the silence.
"You always read the last page first?"
She froze. "How did you know?"
He then finally looked up at her with curious eyes, "You flipped there twice."
She laughed softly. "I like knowing how things end, makes the middle less scary."
They both gazed at each other, and he smiled. Jasmine felt something tighten in her chest, quick, electric, and an undeniable feeling.
The love came fast, too fast to explain, not loud, not dramatic. They started meeting in the library after that, at the same table and at the same time.
Sometimes they read the same books, sometimes different books, and shared stolen glances.
One evening, the library was about to close, and they both knew it. The overhead lights dimmed row by row, leaving pockets of shadow between the shelves. The air felt heavier and warmer as the library drew dangerously quiet.
Every sound felt amplified, the soft buzz of the fluorescent lights, the distant hum of an air vent, and the slow, reckless tickling of the clock above the reference desk.
Jasmine and Daniel were hidden between the shelves where the aisles narrowed, and the shadows thickened. They sat across from each other, knees drawn close and their backs against cold metal shelves stacked with books no one has touched for years.
Jasmine could feel Daniel's presence even without looking. His warmth, stillness, and how his breathing changed when she glanced up to look at him.
"You keep staring," she whispered
"So do you," he replied.
A sudden noise came from the hallway, cutting the silence like a blade, and they both froze.
Suddenly, the noise subsided.
Jasmine's heart slammed against her ribs as Daniel instinctively reached for her hand under the shelf's shadow, his fingers warm, steady, and grounding her as everything else spun.
The silence was louder than before.
Jasmine leaned closer to him, her voice barely breath. "We shouldn't."
Daniel nodded. "I know." Still, neither of them let go. Their faces were closer and she could count his breaths, she had every chances of stopping him, but she didn't.
The kiss was quite, careful at first, then deepened, intense, as if it carried the weight of everything they'd never said. Jasmine's pulse raced as Daniel's hand tightened around her shoulders, down to her boob strap, undoing it. She wanted to stop, but she couldn't. The kissing continued, more desperate, and his hands were busy caressing her boobs and nipples, going down her waist to unzip her skirt.
Jasmine was caught up in the moment that she didn't know Daniel had undone his shorts. The first penetration on the library bench was her first, and Jasmine could not help but draw Daniel closer as she enjoyed both pain and pleasure from the thrust with the impossibility of stopping.
The intercom crackled, and they both stared at each other,
Jasmine whispered, "We had…"
" I know," Daniel said softly.
They both walked out together, heart racing, saying nothing. And neither of them would walk into the library the same way again.