No Bonds to Hold Me, but a Wolf to Run With Chapter 10

No Bonds to Hold Me, but a Wolf to Run With Chapter 10

The auditorium fell dead silent.

The playback of the growth montage began.

The Hartwells’ eighteen years were entirely consumed by Sienna.

In the old family videos of the Greys, however, my presence was reduced to a voice off-camera.

I had been the “mature” one since I could remember. On field trips, I was the one reminding Victor to look at the lens. During the holidays, I made sure Claire stood front and center. Even in the home video of my twelfth birthday, the frame captured only them cutting the cake while I stood behind the camera, whispering that it was time to blow out the candles.

One particular segment made my breath catch.

It was from a family hiking trip.

Claire grew tired, so I handed her my water bottle and sprinted ahead to snap pictures of them.

Through the viewfinder, she looked straight at me and said, “Stop worrying about us all the time.

Get in here.”

I called back that I would, but since there was no stranger around to hold the camera, I was left out

of the frame entirely.

When the prints came back later, Claire praised me for taking such a stunning photo of the family.

Eighteen years later, I finally understood that the word “family” in that context rarely included the person behind the lens.

Near the end of the screening, the AV tech accidentally queued up the raw, unedited strips from the

studio shoot.

The projection froze on an automatic outtake.

Six chairs, four parents glued to the lens for way too long, and two daughters who had already bolted out of the frame.

Nobody dared to break the heavy silence.

On the screen, Claire stood up first, walking over to snatch the microphone from the host.

She didn’t praise my maturity this time, nor did she make excuses for why I wasn’t there.

“It wasn’t that she didn’t need us,” she said, her eyes fixed on that frozen frame. “It was us who Rept pushing her out of the picture, and then blamed her for not finding her way back.”

A week before my nineteenth birthday, all four parents texted me independently.

No one took it upon themselves to reserve a restaurant, and there were no obscene stacks of

designer gifts.

They simply asked if I would be open to having a meal with them.

I turned them down.

Instead, I met up with my roommate and a few club friends at a cozy diner off-campus.

Sienna showed up too, walking through the door carrying nothing but a thin paper shopping bag.

On my actual birthday, four separate apologies flashed across my screen.

Claire admitted she had always weaponized my independence as an excuse to love me a little less.

Victor confessed he used to think an obedient kid would never actually walk away.

Eleanor wrote that she had been so desperate to overcompensate for the eighteen years she poured into Sienna that she treated her newly reclaimed biological daughter like someone who would wait

around for eternity.

Marcus kept it short: sorry, but whatever redemption I wanted to offer now came too late.

This time, none of them signed off with “Come home, baby.”

Claire simply wrote, “If you don’t come back, that’s a consequence we deserve.”

I read them through, didn’t delete them, but didn’t offer any absolution either.

Their remorse was real, and so was the fact that it was years too late.

I could acknowledge the roof they once kept over my head without ever gambling my future on the hope that they had magically changed.

The price they paid wasn’t just missing a dinner.

From that day on, my class registration milestones, track meets, first solo road trip, and every

major life event were strictly off-limits by default.

They had to ask permission first, and I reserved the absolute right to shut them down.

Sienna slid the paper bag across the table toward me.

There were no diamond tennis bracelets or luxury trinkets inside-just a single, unpretentious 4×6

photo.

It captured that afternoon in the autumn rain, both of us holding separate umbrellas, walking side by side down the sidewalk. Our shoulders weren’t touching, but the gap between us was narrow.

The diner owner dropped off two slices of cake, one for me, one for Sienna.

A friend jammed a single birthday candle right into the middle of my slice.

I stared down at the flickering flame, suddenly flashing back to my eighteenth birthday and that pathetic cake without a single candle.

Back then, thirty-six wrapped boxes had choked out the living room table, and I genuinely believed that being the castoff meant I was fundamentally unlovable.

Now, the table was tiny and the offerings sparse, but every single thing bore my name.

I squeezed my eyes shut and made a wish that belonged entirely to me.

When the university portal prompted me to update my emergency contact info, I asked Sienna if she was cool with being added.

She froze for a long beat before taking my phone to verify, typing “Sister” into the relationship

field.

I kept the sisterhood intact, but I refused to let it drag either family back into the epicenter of my

life.

After the meal, it began to rain outside.

I unzipped my tote and pulled out my own umbrella.

My friends were waiting under the awning, and Sienna popped open hers as well.

Behind me, my phone buzzed with four new birthday texts, but I didn’t bother checking them.

The rain beat a steady, rhythmic pattern against the canopy above my head.

This time, I stepped straight into the downpour without looking back.