He Brought Me Home, But Never Made Me Family Chapter 12

He Brought Me Home, But Never Made Me Family Chapter 12

“What you did was only to ease your own guilt. It has nothing to do with me.”

“I won’t change my mind just because you tried to make up for something. I only know I’m doing great right now.”

“Mr. Whitmore, not every relationship needs to be fixed. I don’t owe your guilt a place in my life, and I don’t owe you any part of the love I have now.”

“I don’t need more love, and I don’t want to hand myself over to anyone else again.”

“So please, stop disturbing my life. Thank you.”

I did not look at his expression.

I simply closed the apartment door.

Then I went back to my unfinished lab work.

After that, I never saw Adrian again.

But his name, and Whitmore Biotech’s name, still appeared around campus and in research groups from time to time.

Until the year I graduated undergrad and entered the graduate research track.

I received a call from a lawyer.

She said there was an inheritance in my name.

I thought it was a prank.

Until a court officer and the lawyer showed up at the lab door.

Then I knew something was wrong.

They handed me a death certificate from two months earlier.

And a will.

“Mr. Adrian Whitmore was in a car accident two months ago while visiting your birth parents’ graves. He was rushed to the ICU. The doctors fought for two days but couldn’t save him.’

“Before he passed, he made a will. Whitmore Biotech and all assets under his name are left to you.

“He was worried it would affect your final exams, so he told us not to contact you yet.”

“He said he hoped you would handle his funeral arrangements and bury him beside your birth parents.”

I froze in place.

Half my body went numb.

When I held his ashes and signed the papers, my tears fell onto the urn.

After burying him beside our birth parents, I got sick for a week.

That week, I had many dreams.

I dreamed of being little with them.

I dreamed of our short time together as adults.

In the final dream, an old me with gray hair waved goodbye to them.

Like I had truly walked them through an entire lifetime.

When I woke up, I was better.

I returned to Hawthorne Institute, continued studying, and kept doing research.

I hired a professional team to manage Whitmore Biotech.

Every year, I used the dividends to fund research projects at the school.

I also set up a charity foundation and a separate fund to support Mom and Dad’s retirement.

Many years later, I stood at the top of my field.

I kept chasing the dream I had loved my whole life.

When I looked back at the past, it had all become part of what brought me here.

I brought a bouquet of flowers to the cemetery and visited them

As I left, a breeze blew by.

Three butterflies drifted around me before settling briefly on my shoulder.

I stayed still, standing quietly in the sunlight.

Until they flew away one by one.

Then I ran toward Mom and Dad waiting in the distance.

I shouted down the empty tree-lined path:

“I’m doing great. And I’ll keep getting better.”