Page 42 of Untamed

We cry into each other’s shoulders, the grief bubbling up raw and ugly between us, years of shared memories and lost futures collapsing into the space of a single, broken embrace.

“I’m so sorry, B,” I choke out against her hair, my voice thick. “I didn’t mean to shut you out. I just... I didn’t know how to deal with it. How to survive it. I... I still don’t.”

“I know,” she sobs quietly. “I don’t either.”

We stand there like that for what feels like forever. Two sisters holding each other together with shaking arms and shattered hearts, trying to stitch ourselves back together with nothing but tears and the fragile, stubborn thread of love that somehow still remains.

Bianca studies me for a long, painful moment, searching for something in my face, maybe for the little sister she used to know before everything shattered.

Finally, she sighs, wrapping her arm around my shoulder and guiding me toward the window seat.

“Come on,” she says, softer now. “Come sit with me.”

We sit side-by-side, legs curled up, staring out at the manicured gardens stretching beyond the glass.

For a while, we don’t talk. We just exist in the same quiet space, breathing the same heavy air. Eventually, she nudges me with her shoulder and smirks. “Remember when we used to sneak wine out of Dad’s cabinet and drink it in the treehouse?”

A broken laugh escapes me before I can stop it. “Yeah. And you threw up for two days straight. Dad was so angry.”

Bianca grins, that first real flash of the sister I remember. “You dared me to drink it,” she accuses.

“You dared yourself,” I counter, smiling despite myself.

For the first time in what feels like forever, something small and fragile stirs in my chest, something that feels suspiciously like hope.

Maybe we’re both broken. Maybe we’re stitched together with grief and guilt and everything we don't know how to say.

But at least we still have each other.

The sun is starting to dip below the hills when Bianca appears in the doorway of my bedroom later that day, holding a small, velvet-covered box against her chest.

My heart quivers at the sight of it.

Mum’s jewellery box.

Bianca pads across the room in bare feet, sitting cross-legged on the bed beside me without saying a word. She sets the box down between us, her fingers lingering on the worn edges for a moment like she's gathering courage.

“I thought...” she trails off, swallowing hard. “Maybe we could go through it together.”

I nod, my throat too tight to speak.

Bianca lifts the lid, and the familiar, faint scent of Mum's perfume spills into the room, that soft floral scent she used to spray behind her ears every morning. For a moment, it’s like she’s here with us.

The box is full of memories. Tangled chains, mismatched earrings, delicate rings that used to glint on her fingers. Little pieces of her, frozen in time.

We sift through it slowly, reverently, the way you might handle something sacred. Bianca lifts out a chunky gold bracelet I remember Mum wearing at every special occasion, letting it dangle from her fingers. I find the pair of tiny silver studs Mum gave me when I turned sixteen.

But then my hand brushes something soft, velvet against velvet, and I lift it out carefully.

A necklace.

A simple gold chain with a small locket hanging from it. Worn smooth from years of being touched, turned, and treasured.

“I remember this,” I whisper, my voice cracking. “She wore it every day.”

Bianca smiles sadly. “She used to say it was her good luck charm.”

I run my thumb over the surface of the locket, feeling the tiny ridges. My chest aches with a bittersweet kind of longing.

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