CHAPTER 21 – The Dawn of Departure

  The alarm never got the chance to ring.

  Fleta woke at 4:12 AM—heart pounding, lungs tight, the world still wrapped in blue-black darkness. Silence filled the house, the rare gentle kind, not the dangerous kind. Outside, the wind whispered against the window. Somewhere far off, a dog barked once, then stopped.

  It was time.

  She sat up slowly, letting the moment settle around her. No storm. No shouting. No fear. Just a thin slice of morning waiting to be claimed.

  Her backpack leaned against the dresser exactly where she’d left it, the straps tucked neatly, the teal windbreaker folded inside. Connor’s carved wooden hiker pressed a small but solid shape beneath the front flap.

  Fleta touched it lightly and whispered, “Let’s go.”

  She dressed quietly—layering the thermal shirt under her hoodie, slipping on the thick socks she’d scavenged, tying her shoes with hands that shook only slightly.

  Then she opened her journal one last time and wrote:

  I choose the road.

  No turning back.

  She closed the cover with a decisive click and tucked it into her pack.

  The map stayed taped to the wall.

  A piece of her past, not her journey.

  She eased open her bedroom door.

  The hallway was dark, the air cool. Her mother’s soft breathing drifted faintly from the living room couch. Her stepfather hadn’t come home yet—thank God, thank luck, thank timing.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Fleta crossed the floor silently, the house holding its breath with her.

  At the door, she paused.

  She looked back only once.

  The small living room with the sagging couch.

  The dim kitchen with a single pot drying in the rack.

  The hallway where shadows clung to the baseboards.

  It wasn’t home.

  Not really.

  Not anymore.

  But leaving it still hurt—sharp and deep.

  She whispered into the quiet:

  “I love you, Mom.”

  Then she slipped outside.

  The morning air greeted her with a cold kiss, smelling of damp soil and fading night. The sky was just beginning to lighten at the edges, a thin ribbon of orange touching the horizon.

  She pulled her hood up and started walking.

  Down Maple Street.

  Past Walnut.

  Past the silent grocery store, the closed library, the empty school.

  Toward the edge of town.

  Toward the dirt road she had memorized step by step.

  Every sound felt louder in the stillness—her shoes crunching gravel, her pack shifting slightly, her own breathing.

  But no lights flicked on.

  No cars slowed.

  No voices called her name.

  She walked faster.

  When she reached the bridge over the creek, the sky had turned from black to deep blue. A single bird chirped sleepily from a cottonwood tree.

  Fleta hesitated.

  This was it.

  The boundary between “almost” and “actually.”

  Once she crossed that bridge, she wasn’t within Chetopa anymore. She was on the road to Oswego. On the road to the bus. On the road to the Appalachian Trail.

  On the road to herself.

  She stepped onto the bridge.

  Her breath shook.

  Her heart steadied.

  Her steps grew certain.

  Halfway across, she reached into her pocket and gripped the tiny wooden hiker Connor had carved.

  “I can do this,” she whispered. “I’m doing it.”

  When her feet touched the other side of the bridge, the sun crested the horizon—gentle, golden, quiet.

  A new day, just for her.

  She tightened the straps of her backpack, squared her shoulders, and started walking toward Oswego, the bus, the mountains, and the long road north.

  Fleta Hargrove had left home.

  Now she had to find a new one.