CHAPTER 6 – The Envelope

  By the end of the week, the backpack no longer felt like a stranger in Fleta’s room. It leaned against the wall beside her bed like it belonged there—waiting, steady, patient. She had added a few small things: the rain jacket with the broken zipper, a pair of thick socks she’d found buried in her drawers, and a plastic spoon she took from the cafeteria. Tiny pieces, but each one made the dream feel heavier in her hands and lighter in her chest.

  Saturday morning arrived quiet and warm, the kind of morning that smelled like cut grass and the dust of old summer sidewalks. Her stepfather had already left—his angry muffler fading down Maple Street before she even got out of bed—and her mother had fallen asleep at the kitchen table, forehead pressed to her folded arms.

  This meant freedom. Not the big kind. The small, careful kind.

  Fleta slipped out the door with her backpack and walked toward the edge of town. She wasn’t leaving—not yet. She just needed space to think.

  The baseball field sat empty, its bleachers rusted at the edges and its grass a little too long. It was quiet here. Safe enough. She climbed to the top row of the bleachers and pulled out her notebook, flipping to the prep list.

  Backpack — CHECK Sleeping bag — Warm clothes — Money — Water — Food — Ride —

  The empty spaces made her nervous. But they also made her determined.

  She tapped her pen against the page. Today she needed to figure out one of the hardest items on the list: money. She had almost nothing left after buying the pack. And even though she didn’t need much—she wouldn’t be staying in hotels or buying fancy gear—she needed something. Enough to get out of Kansas. Enough to buy food that would last. Enough to stay alive.

  But where could a thirteen?year?old get money without anyone noticing?

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  She closed the notebook slowly and leaned back, staring up at the washed-out sky.

  She knew the answer. She had known for a long time. She just didn’t like it.

  Her mother kept a small tin in the top kitchen cabinet. A “bill money” tin, she called it, though more often it ended up empty. But every so often, after her stepfather got paid, a few bills appeared inside. For emergencies, her mother said.

  Was escape an emergency? Was survival?

  Fleta didn’t know. She only knew she needed that money more than the house did.

  Her stomach twisted.

  She didn’t want to take from her mother—not really. But her mother wasn’t saving her. Couldn’t save herself, half the time. And the house wasn’t a future. It was a trap.

  She climbed down from the bleachers, walked home slowly, and slipped back inside. Her mother hadn’t moved. A glass of water sat untouched beside her.

  Fleta opened the cupboard carefully.

  The tin sat tucked behind a stack of chipped plates.

  Her hands shook as she reached for it.

  Inside were four wrinkled twenties, folded tight as if someone had gripped them hard.

  Eighty dollars.

  More money than she had ever held at once.

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  She wasn’t stealing, she told herself. She was surviving. She was doing what she had to do.

  Still, her fingers trembled as she took only two twenties and tucked the tin back exactly where it had been. She stood still for several seconds, listening for any sound from her mother.

  Nothing.

  She hurried back to her room and slid the money into an envelope, labeling it simply: TRAIL.

  Her heart felt loud in her chest—louder than the television, louder than the creaking walls, louder than anything she’d ever done.

  She placed the envelope deep inside the new backpack and zipped the pocket shut.

  For the rest of the day, she felt its weight. Not just the twenty-dollar bills. The decision. The point of no return.

  That night, as she lay in bed with the map above her on the wall, she whispered something new. Not a wish. Not a hope.

  A promise.

  “I’m going.”