Friday evening settled over Chetopa with a strange, uneasy quiet—the kind that made even the cicadas hesitate. The sky was painted in dusky purple, the air heavy with the scent of damp grass and cooling asphalt. It felt like the whole town knew something was about to change, even if it couldn’t name the shift.
Fleta walked home slow, letting the minutes stretch. Her pack waited in her room like a patient animal, ready to follow her the moment she gave the word. Tomorrow at dawn she would either step onto the road to Oswego… or she would wake up and pretend none of this had ever been real.
When she slipped inside the house, her mother wasn’t home yet—working another late shift. Her stepfather wasn’t home either. The silence felt hollowed out.
Good.
It meant she could move freely.
It meant tonight could belong to her.
She went straight to her room and locked the door. Then she pulled the pack out from under the bed and laid everything on the blanket:
- Peanut butter jar
- Two oatmeal packets
- Crackers
- Jerky
- Warm clothes
- The teal windbreaker
- Sleeping bag
- Bus money
- Map
- Connor’s carved wooden hiker
She checked each item twice, her hands steady even though her heartbeat wasn’t.
She unrolled the map and taped it to the wall again. She wanted to see the whole trail at once—its long white line drawing her out of Kansas, through fourteen states, up into the mountains that had lived inside her for so long.
It felt like saying goodbye to something bigger than a place.
It felt like saying goodbye to the version of herself that grew up in a storm.
Her breath wavered, but her hands stayed firm.
When she finished packing everything again—this time with deliberate efficiency—she sat cross?legged on the bed and took out her journal. Not for a poem. Not for a list. Not for a map.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
For a question.
At the top of a blank page she wrote:
AM I READY?
She stared at the words, then wrote underneath:
I don’t know.
But I’m going anyway.
A knock startled her.
Soft.
Gentle.
Not her stepfather.
“Fleta?” her mother’s voice floated through the door—quiet, almost fragile. “Are you awake?”
Fleta swallowed. “Yeah.”
“Can I come in?”
Her stomach twisted. She wiped her eyes quickly and opened the door a crack.
Her mother stood there in her work uniform, hair pulled back, eyes rimmed red—not from crying, but exhaustion.
“I brought home dinner,” she said, holding up a white paper sack from the diner. “Thought we could eat together.”
It hit like a punch.
Of all nights—
why tonight?
Why this sudden tenderness when Fleta was already halfway gone?
But she nodded. “Okay.”
They sat at the kitchen table, eating in soft, slow bites. Burgers. Fries. Two paper cups of lemonade. It should have felt ordinary, but the silence between them felt weighted—like both were afraid to speak.
Finally her mother said, “You’ve been quiet lately.”
“Just school,” Fleta murmured.
Her mother didn’t push. Instead, she reached across the table and brushed a piece of hair from Fleta’s forehead.
“You’re growing up too fast,” she whispered.
Fleta looked down.
Her mother added, “I know things haven’t been easy here.”
A lump formed in Fleta’s throat.
“I’m trying,” her mother said, voice trembling. “I really am.”
Fleta swallowed hard. “I know.”
But she also knew trying wasn’t enough. Not anymore.
They finished dinner, washed their dishes in silence, and her mother went to bed early. The house darkened room by room.
Fleta slipped back to her room, heart aching.
She lay down, backpack at her side like a loyal friend.
For a long time she listened to the house—creaking, sighing, settling. She memorized the shape of her room, the way the moonlight hit the peeling wallpaper, the faint hum of the refrigerator down the hall.
She didn’t know if she’d ever see it again.
Her alarm was set for 4:30 AM.
Her shoes were by the door.
Her pack was ready.
Her poem was written.
Her heart was trembling.
Tomorrow she would choose.
In the final hour before sleep, she whispered into the dark:
“Please let me be brave.”
Whether she was speaking to herself, the mountains, or something bigger—she didn’t know.
But the room seemed to hold the words gently, as if saving them for dawn.