The National Honors Society: A Short Story

It is 7:56 PM, I step out the bus, hopping over a mysterious liquid on the sidewalk. Speed walking my way home on the torn up gravel sidewalk. I walk by a group of fellow residents of my neighborhood. Questions immediately surface to the front of my mind, with apprehension:

“Did I stare for too long?”
“Does my walk look too flamboyant?”
“Do I look too white?”

These thoughts are key to survival for someone like me in the violent, highly gang-affiliated LIllian Wald projects.

I walk the path up to my front door; shoe lace untied, belt unbuckled. Taking my first step I am automatically smacked with the metallic scent, so peculiar to “home”. I feel my way around the built up clutter in the sala, where a group creepy crawlers feast on a piece of dry noodle

This attitude fueled me to be president of the National Honors Society, director and editor-in-chief of the school newsletter, vice president of the student council, and intern at Cleary Gottlieb, a wall street law firm.

You’d think I do all this to pad my resume, but truth be told, I simply do not want to go home.

At the end of the day, when I can no longer hide in school work and extracurricular activities, I twist the doorknob of the apartment, with the smell of metal in my nose. The same thought is always racing into my mind: I want to go to college.

College will be and will give me my escape from the projects. For the first time, I will be able to take control over my surroundings, my safety and my life (well except for the mandatory assignments and exams). But with this first step I can pursue my goal of obtaining a higher education, becoming a game designer and show my family that a Gonzalez can attend and graduate from a four year university. I want to be able to go home someday to more than a buro and instead to a place that is mine because I worked for it, earned it and cared for it. I want to be able to say, “I made it