CHAPTER 15 – The Poem in the Dark

  The storm left Chetopa drenched and sagging. By Monday morning, puddles pooled along the sidewalks, and branches lay strewn across Maple Street like the leftovers of a long, violent argument. The sky stayed gray—soft, tired, unwilling to brighten.

  Fleta felt the same way.

  School passed in a fog. Teachers talked, students laughed, lockers slammed, shoes squeaked across linoleum. But she moved through the day like she was watching it from somewhere far away—somewhere already halfway to the mountains.

  She kept her sleeves tugged down to hide the faint bruise she’d gotten from accidentally stepping in between her mother and stepfather the night before. A stupid move. A brave one. A useless one. It didn’t matter anymore. Soon she’d be gone.

  Connor avoided her in the hallway—not out of anger, but because he didn’t know how to be near her when goodbye hovered between them. She understood.

  The day dragged on until finally the bell rang, and Fleta was free to slip away from the noise.

  She walked home slow, kicking at pebbles, her backpack lighter than her thoughts. The air smelled faintly of mud and wet leaves. A few kids splashed in puddles, but she kept to the edge of the road, letting her mind unwind into the shape of the trail again.

  Four days.

  Just four days until the next Saturday bus.

  She didn’t know if she would leave this week or next. But the choice was nudging closer, breathing down her neck.

  When she reached the house, she paused before opening the door.

  Inside, silence. The kind of silence that was too heavy—not peaceful, just waiting.

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  She slipped in quietly and went straight to her room, closing the door behind her. Her pulse finally began to calm as she pulled out her journal—the one hidden under the floorboard with the map and the money envelope.

  Every three chapters of her life, she had promised herself she’d write a poem. A way of keeping track of who she was. Of why she was leaving. Of the girl who existed before the trail reshaped her.

  Tonight felt like a night that needed words.

  She clicked on her small desk lamp, curled her legs beneath her, and opened to the next blank page.

  She pressed the pen down.

  Ink flowed like truth.

  FLETA’S JOURNAL – POEM #1

  “Storm House”

  The house holds storms

  even when the sky is clear—

  thunder in the walls,

  lightning in the footsteps,

  rain in the cupboards where

  voices drip for hours.

  Outside storms come and go,

  wild and honest.

  They break things

  but they pass.

  Inside storms stay.

  They memorize your name,

  fold themselves into corners,

  wait for night.

  I dream of mountains

  where storms feel like weather,

  not warnings—

  where thunder is just sound,

  not fear.

  I dream of a place

  where lightning doesn’t choose sides

  and rain doesn’t bruise.

  Where I can walk straight into the storm and come out clean.

  She stared at the poem for a long time after she finished, the words settling into the quiet like stones finding the bottom of a river.

  Then she closed the journal and placed it back beneath the floorboard with the others.

  The poem didn’t fix anything.

  But it reminded her why she needed to go.

  And as she lay in bed, the storm outside finally gone, she whispered into the dark:

  “Four more days. Maybe less.”

  The mountains, though still far away, felt closer than ever.