Chapter 9
1913 Words
✨The Road That Did Not Look Back✨
Flora's Pov
Flora ran the way Floyd had taught her—quiet, deliberate, never straight for too long.
She kept to the tree line first, feet landing softly on damp earth, counting her steps the way she counted her breaths when fear tried to climb too high. One hundred paces. Turn.
Another fifty. Wait. Listen.
The night wrapped around her like a held breath.
Every sound felt louder out here—the snap of a twig, the distant call of an animal, the rustle of leaves shifting in the dark. Her heart hammered so hard she was sure it could be heard from the house, even as it shrank farther behind her with every step.
Don’t rush, Floyd’s voice echoed in her head.
Panic makes noise.
She slowed when she wanted to sprint.
Forced herself to walk when her legs begged to fly.
The path curved just as the map said it would. A narrow trail hidden by brush, easy to miss if you didn’t know it was there. Flora ducked through, branches scratching at her sleeves, thorns tugging at her skirt like hands trying to pull her back.
She didn’t stop.
For the first time, no one told her where to go.
The realization hit her so suddenly she nearly stumbled.
No voice behind her. No rules waiting ahead.
No permission required.
Her chest tightened—not with fear this time, but with something sharp and bright and unfamiliar.
Choice.
She reached the shallow stream Floyd had marked with a cross and stepped through it, shoes soaking instantly. Cold bit into her skin, but she welcomed it. Water erased tracks.
Water carried things away.
When she climbed the opposite bank, she didn’t look back.
The road appeared slowly, pale under the moonlight, exactly where Floyd said it would be. Not the main one—never that—but a thinner stretch that led toward the bus stop tucked just beyond the old bend.
Flora’s breath came fast now, lungs burning, legs trembling with the effort of holding herself together.
You’re doing it, she thought, almost unbelieving. You’re actually doing it.
The house was gone from sight now. Not hidden—gone.
She stopped then. Just for a moment.
The quiet pressed in, wide and endless. No walls. No shadows shaped like people. The world did not lean toward her with expectation or threat. It simply existed.
Her knees buckled, and she sank to the ground, hands pressed into the dirt, laughing once—soft, broken, halfway to a sob.
“I’m free,” she whispered.
The word felt too big for her mouth. Too important to be said without permission.
Free.
Tears slid down her face unchecked, soaking into the earth. She cried for Cambilly waiting behind. For her mother standing still so she could run. For Floyd choosing her over himself. For the girl she had been—the one who learned silence before speech, obedience before desire.
She pressed her palm to her chest, feeling her heart still racing, still hers.
Freedom didn’t feel like joy.
It felt like standing on the edge of something vast, knowing there was no hand to pull you back—or push you forward.
Only you.
Flora stood and wiped her face, adjusting her bag the way Floyd showed her. She followed the road until the bus stop sign came into view, crooked and rusted, barely lit.
She sat on the bench, damp shoes dangling, breath slowly evening out.
For the first time in her life, the future was not a punishment waiting to happen.
It was an open road.
And Flora—shaking, scared, alive—was finally walking it on her own terms.
Flora waited patiently for the bus, foot tapping, gripping her bag like it could anchor her to the world.
The bus rumbled around the corner, brakes squealing, and she stepped forward carefully. The metal doors hissed open, and she climbed aboard, finding a seat by the window.
The bus smelled like old vinyl and damp coats.
She pressed her forehead to the cool glass, willing herself to focus on the blur of streets and shops passing by instead of the tight knot in her chest.
The hum of the bus beneath her legs like a dull drumbeat that matched the pulse in her temples. She hugged her bag to her chest, pressing her forehead lightly against the cool glass, letting the world outside blur into streaks of brick, asphalt, and fading sunlight.
She didn’t notice the people around her, didn’t hear the chatter of the driver or the squeak of the brakes. Nothing mattered except the tight coil of emotion twisting in her chest. Her fingers fidgeted with the strap of her bag, tracing the worn leather as if it could anchor her to some sense of safety.
A few tears slipped past her eyes, silent and slow, and she wiped them away quickly with the sleeve of her sweater. She didn’t want anyone to see—not that anyone was looking, not that it mattered. The tears weren’t loud, weren’t dramatic. They were quiet, the kind of tears that belonged to a body that had learned to survive by staying small.
Her breath caught in shallow hiccups, her chest tightening, but she pressed her lips together, forcing herself to focus on her book. The words on the page swam in front of her eyes. She traced the letters with her fingertip, grounding herself in the only thing that felt steady, familiar.
Outside, the town passed by in muted colors, the sunlight catching on windows and puddles, but she barely noticed. Her mind drifted, tugged back and forth by memories she couldn’t quite shake and the weight of a world she had no control over.
Flora didn’t look up when the bus slowed for a corner. She didn’t see the streetlights flicker to life. She didn’t notice the reflection in the glass that wasn’t hers.
Not yet.
She was entirely absorbed in herself, in the quiet ache inside her, in the small, silent rebellion of allowing herself a few more tears no one could see.
Flora pressed the sleeve of her sweater against her cheeks, blotting away the last traces of tears. She rubbed gently, careful not to smear the wetness across her skin, as if she could erase the moment entirely. The quiet ache in her chest remained, but her face regained its usual composure—still, careful, controlled.
She drew a slow breath, letting the chill from the window settle on her skin. Her fingers tightened around the strap of her bag, anchoring herself to the one thing she could control. The bus hummed beneath her, tires rolling over the uneven road, and for a moment she let herself sink into the rhythm, focusing only on the blur of the town outside.
Her reflection in the glass stared back at her, composed and careful. She touched it lightly with her fingertips, as if testing whether the girl she saw was still the same one who had just cried. She had shed the tears, but the tension in her shoulders and the tightness in her chest betrayed her resilience.
For now, she was herself again—small, guarded, quietly enduring.
With her hands folded in her lap, knuckles pale, afraid that if she moved too much someone would notice she didn’t belong anywhere yet. The engine groaned beneath her feet, a living thing dragging her forward whether she was ready or not.
She watched the house disappear.
Not all at once. It faded in pieces—the gate, the trees, the bend in the road—until there was nothing familiar left to cling to. Just distance.
Her chest tightened.
This is it, she thought. You’re gone.
The bus lurched, pulling away fully now.
Gravel cracked beneath the tires like bones.
Flora swallowed hard.
She had imagined this moment so many times—running, breathing, feeling light. She had imagined relief flooding her veins like warmth.
Instead, she felt hollow.
The seat beside her was empty. So was the one behind it. No Cambilly whispering jokes under her breath. No mother’s hand smoothing her hair before sleep. No footsteps she recognized.
For the first time in her life, no one was
watching her.
The thought didn’t comfort her.
It terrified her.
Her fingers closed around the strap of her bag, feeling the weight of the money Floyd had given her. It felt foreign. Dangerous. Like something she wasn’t allowed to touch.
I don’t know how to do this, her mind whispered.
The bus rumbled on.
With every mile, the quiet inside her grew louder.
What if Trump was right?
The thought came uninvited, slick and poisonous.
What if the world was crueler than the house?
What if fear had been easier because it was familiar? At least there, she knew the rules.
Knew how to behave. Knew how to survive.
Out here, she didn’t even know where to sit.
Her breath hitched.
She imagined turning back. Just for a moment. Imagined slipping off the bus at the next stop, walking back up the road, lowering her eyes, apologizing the way she’d been taught.
I was scared, she would say. I made a mistake.
Trump would be angry—but anger was known. Predictable. It had edges she understood.
Loneliness had none.
Tears blurred the window. The countryside stretched past her in soft greens and browns, too wide, too open. Freedom looked like abandonment when no one explained how to hold it.
Her body curled inward, shoulders folding as if she could make herself smaller, less visible to the world pressing in.
“I can still go back,” she whispered.
The words tasted wrong.
Her chest ached—not sharply, but constantly, like a bruise that never faded. She pressed her forehead against the cool glass and closed her eyes.
Then she saw Cambilly’s face.
Not afraid. Not crying.
Proud.
Go, her sister’s voice echoed. Please go.
She saw her mother too—Margery’s hands shaking as she held Flora’s face, the way her voice had steadied anyway.
You are not wrong for wanting to live.
Flora’s breath broke.
If she went back now, it wouldn’t just be surrender. It would be betrayal. Of Floyd’s fracture. Of Cambilly’s waiting. Of her mother’s quiet courage.
Of herself.
The bus slowed as it approached a stop.
Flora’s heart slammed wildly. Her body leaned forward without permission, fear urging her toward the door.
This was the moment.
Get off. Go back. Be safe. Be small.
Her hand twitched.
Then she felt the pendant in her pocket—cool metal, solid. Real.
She curled her fingers around it and stayed seated.
The bus hissed, doors opening. A man got off. Someone else climbed on. The doors closed again.
The bus moved forward.
Flora exhaled a sob she hadn’t realized she was holding.
She hadn’t gone back.
The realization didn’t feel triumphant. It felt fragile. Like a match struck in the wind.
She wiped her face with her sleeve and sat up straighter, even though her body trembled.
“I don’t know who I am yet,” she whispered to the empty seat beside her. “But I’m not his.”
Outside, the road stretched on.
And this time Flora let herself cry—not because she was afraid, but because she was becoming something new.
On the road that did not look back.
- Writer
