Two weeks passed.
Jaylen checked his email every day. Every *hour*, if he was honest.
Nothing.
He started to wonder if he messed it up—if maybe that final paragraph about growing up without a father, or the one about Tyrell, was too real, too raw.
Then, on a Wednesday afternoon, while he was walking home with the sun low and the city humming like a tired machine, his phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
He almost didn't pick up.
"Hello?"
"Is this Jaylen Carter?"
He froze. "Yeah?"
"This is Olivia Cruz from the NYU Young Voices Program. I'm calling to congratulate you. Your essay—*'Where the Sidewalk Still Breathes'*—it moved our entire committee."
Jaylen's legs buckled. He sat right on the curb.
"You've been accepted with a full scholarship, travel included."
He didn't cry. Not yet.
But his silence said everything.
At home, Mama screamed when he told her.
Tyrell didn't say anything when Jaylen texted him. No "congrats." No emoji. Just a heart.
But Jaylen knew what it meant.
That night, the block felt different.
Same cracked pavement. Same old corner boys. But the weight on Jaylen's chest? It had shifted.
He wasn't free yet. But the gate was open.
He walked past the bodega where he first wrote poems in his notebook. Past the school wall where he tagged his name. Past the alley where he and Ty smoked their first blunt and promised they'd never be statistics.
He walked home under streetlights that used to feel cold—and now looked like stars.
And as he climbed the steps to his apartment, he whispered:
"One foot out. The other coming too."