Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’. That’s goddamn right. For the second time in my life, I am guilty of committing a crime: Fleeing Honors-J.

Edge couldn’t have seen it coming; a good inmate like me fighting tooth-and-nail for my freedom. A simple plan:

1. Counselor meeting
2. Numerous emails to Edge
3. Receive a mildly enthusiastic “maybe” to my request to join Tower in the next semester
4. Counselor meeting
5. Send more emails
6. Meet with my counselor a third time
7. Freedom

Flooded with emails, Edge barely put up a fight; not for an old crook like me.

I beamed with joy when I walked through that wooden door the first day of second semester. Despite the numerous hours I had already spent there, at this moment I was truly seeing it for the first time.

It’s the excitement only a free man can feel, one free from NUT GRAF activities and simulated interviews. Liberated from guided notes and the fated In-Design lesson.

I look back at those in Honors-J and hope they can make it across the border. I hope they walk through that door and shake Edge’s hand. I hope they experience Tower first semester like I had dreamed I would. I hope.