Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses anti-gay bias, miscarriage, sexual assault (of characters who are minors), forced adoption, racism, and death by suicide. The text also uses outdated and offensive language to refer to Black people, including the n-word.

Chapter 1 opens in Philadelphia in October 1948. In high school student Ruby Pearsall’s first-person perspective, she recounts staying at her Grandma Nene’s house and running late to school because her cousin, Fatty, has not come back in time to relieve her of watching their grandmother. Fatty tells Ruby that Inez, Ruby’s mother, left her bus fare for school at their apartment. Ruby is frustrated because these types of situations have caused her to be late numerous times for her enrichment class for the We Rise program—a program that allows two students who meet academic qualifications to receive scholarships to Cheyney University. This scholarship is the only way that Ruby can go to college, and she wants to escape poverty and become an optometrist.

Ruby walks to her mother’s apartment, trying to avoid men’s catcalls. She enters the kitchen, but her bus fare is missing. Inez’s boyfriend Leap coerces her for the bus fare, asking for a kiss.