CHAPTER 30 – Steps Into the Green

  The visitor center smelled like pine cleaner and coffee—familiar, but not familiar enough to calm the storm in Fleta’s chest. Hikers circled the room: checking maps, tightening straps, laughing, comparing gear. The buzz of excitement felt electric. Like the air before a storm, but charged with hope instead of fear.

  Riley, Jess, and Marco headed toward the weigh?in station, groaning theatrically as they dropped their heavy packs onto the scale.

  “Thirty?six pounds,” Jess groaned. “I’m carrying a small child.”

  “You packed a whole library,” Riley teased.

  Marco rolled his eyes at both of them. “I told you to ditch the second frying pan.”

  “It’s for pancakes!” Jess shot back.

  Their bickering made Fleta smile despite herself.

  She stayed back, though. Small. Quiet. Invisible.

  Exactly how she needed to be.

  A park ranger sat behind a counter labeled HIKER REGISTRATION. He looked friendly—gray beard, sun?tanned cheeks, a ball cap embroidered with a black bear.

  “Next!” he called.

  Fleta’s heart jumped.

  Riley nudged her gently. “We’ll wait right there.”

  Fleta nodded and stepped forward, trying to keep her hands from shaking.

  The ranger smiled warmly. “Morning, young lady. Starting the Approach Trail today?”

  She nodded.

  “Great.” He slid a clipboard toward her. “Just need a name and an emergency contact. First name is okay if you’re not comfortable with the rest.”

  She froze.

  Her mother’s name hovered on her tongue—but she couldn’t write it. Not after leaving her sleeping on the couch. Not when she didn’t even know she was gone. Not when her stepfather could trace anything back.

  Her mind spun, searching.

  Then a soft answer rose.

  She wrote:

  Name: Fleta

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Contact: Connor Forquer (friend)

  She hesitated only a second before adding his number—not their house line, but Connor’s older sister’s cell, which he used sometimes for emergencies.

  She prayed no one would ever have to call it.

  The ranger scanned her form and nodded. “You’re all set. You be safe out there. The mountains are beautiful, but they’re no joke.”

  “Yes sir,” she whispered.

  He handed her a small laminated tag with a number on it—her AT start tag. The symbol of a beginning.

  She stepped back from the counter, her heartbeat loud in her ears. Riley grinned at her, Marco gave a thumbs?up, and Jess nudged her elbow.

  “You ready for the stairs?” Jess asked.

  Fleta blinked. “The what?”

  “Oh, the stairs,” Marco said dramatically. “Six hundred of them. Straight up beside the waterfall.”

  Riley laughed. “It’s kind of a rite of passage.”

  Fleta swallowed. Six hundred felt like a mountain by itself… but she straightened her shoulders.

  “I can do it,” she said.

  “Of course you can,” Riley replied.

  They walked out of the visitor center together. A cool breeze brushed through the trees, rustling leaves high above. The smell of moss and water filled the air.

  Then—there it was.

  The beginning of the Approach Trail.

  A brown wooden sign.

  A gravel path disappearing into the trees.

  The distant roar of Amicalola Falls.

  Fleta stepped toward it—and stopped.

  A familiar tug pulled at her.

  Not fear.

  Not doubt.

  A poem.

  Poems came to her like weather—unpredictable but inevitable. And she hadn’t written one since Georgia. Every three chapters. Every few steps of her heart.

  She slid her journal from her pack and opened to a blank page.

  FLETA’S JOURNAL – POEM #3

  “First Step”

  The trail waits

  like a held breath—

  quiet,

  patient,

  older than my fear.

  The forest does not ask

  who I was

  when I lived in storms.

  It only asks

  that I walk,

  and listen,

  and become.

  Maybe the first step is not a step at all— maybe it’s the moment I believe my feet can carry me somewhere new.

  She closed the journal softly.

  Riley, Jess, and Marco waited a few yards ahead, giving her space but keeping an eye on her.

  Fleta placed the journal back in her pack.

  She touched Connor’s carved hiker.

  She inhaled pine-sweet air.

  She looked at the arch one last time.

  Then—

  She stepped onto the trail.

  Her first step.

  Her real step.

  Her start.

  Behind her lay the life she escaped.

  Ahead lay the life she had to earn.

  The forest swallowed her gently, leaves whispering overhead as if welcoming her home.