Page 30 of Tame Our Wild

I’ve always been rooted here.

Can never see myself living anywhere else, despite my parents’ decision to get out and not be attached to a place that holds as much beauty as it does memories they’d rather forget.

But this place—it was always meant to be ours. I peer out over the pasture, the memory morphing the scene around me.

“Okay, ready or not, here I come,” I yell. My voice sounds so loud, I bet Mom and Dad can hear me from the house.

I try to listen for Paisley’s laugh. She always gives herself away, even when she tries not to. My sister is terrible at hide-and-seek, but it’s our favorite game to play in the field when the grass is almost as tall as we are. We may be twins, and only thirteen, but I’m starting to outgrow her. She doesn’t like it, but I do.

It gives me an advantage.

I push my way through the tall grass and sunflowers—some are taller than I am.

“Paisley,” I singsong.

She always laughs when I do that because she thinks my voice is terrible. She always yells at me to stop when I sing her “Happy Birthday” loudly, even though it’s my birthday, too. She sometimes covers her ears, but I don’t think I’m that bad.

I hear giggling somewhere nearby, and I stop, turning in a circle. The sun is less hot today, but it’s nearing the end of summer which means we will have to go back to school soon. It sucks, and I don’t want to go back, but a new school year means that Paisley and I get to start riding steers in the junior league.

Our parents took us to a rodeo in the spring, and Paisley and I were so excited to watch the bull riders. Then we decided we wanted to be like them, but when we begged Mom and Dad, they showed us a video of a bull rider getting hurt. We don’t care; we want to ride together. I get hurt all the time anyway. My scraped knee is still healing from when I was running and fell in our driveway a few weeks ago.

“I can hear you laughing. I’m going to find you!”

“No, you won’t,” she singsongs back, her voice coming from somewhere to my right.

I turn, creeping toward the direction I heard her voice. Then I see her, but she doesn’t see me, so I sneak around. I like scaring her. Her voice gets all squeaky, and she tries to beat me up, but I’m bigger than her now.

Quietly moving around the sunflowers that overtake the field every summer, I start to get closer to her. Luckily, she’s looking in the opposite direction and doesn’t see me.

Cowboy boots make tiptoeing hard, but I try.

“Gotcha,” I say, jumping at my twin.

Paisley screams and starts to run, but she steps wrong and falls to the ground. “Oww,” she cries, grabbing her foot.

I run to her, landing on my knees in the grass. I didn’t mean to hurt her. “Are you okay?” My heart is beating fast.

She shakes her head, tears falling down her cheeks. “It hurts really bad.”

Her eyes are the same color as mine, but they are red since she’s crying. I don’t like seeing her cry. I swallow, trying to think of how to help her. An idea pops into my head.

I know how to make her feel better.

“Hold on, Pais.”

“Where are you going?” She sounds scared.

“I’ll be right back.”

Paisley sniffles, her eyes like little balls bouncing between mine. “Promise?”

I nod. “Promise.”

I trace my footsteps back the way I came, tracking my steps like how Dad taught me when we went hunting. I saw something cool while I was looking for her, and I know it will make her smile. When I find it, I take out my small pocketknife and cut the stem, finding my way back to her like I always do. We’re twins. We’re never supposed to be apart for long.

Paisley and I were always going to take over the ranch when our parents decided it was time to move on. But when that time came, buying it from them instead felt like the better option. I was hoping that the money would give my parents the new start they craved. Even at fifteen, Paisley and I knew that when we had our own families, we wouldn’t be able to live in the same house, so we planned to use our PBR winnings to build a second house on the property.

My love for this land is woven through me as thickly as the roots in the forest on our property line, thriving below the surface.