I Got a Second Chance, So I Stopped Saving My Brother Chapter 01

I Got a Second Chance, So I Stopped Saving My Brother Chapter 01

When Paige Bennett, my parents’ adopted daughter, fell from the third-floor balcony, my brother raced forward and tried to catch her with his bare hands.

In my last life, I threw myself at him and wrapped both arms around his waist. I knew that trying to catch her from that angle would get him killed too.

Paige survived the fall, but she broke her back and would never dance again. She locked herself in her room for a month before finally slitting her wrists and dying.

My mother clutched Paige’s framed photograph and cried until she passed out. The first thing she did when she woke up was hit me.

She said, “You may be our flesh and blood, but you’re not worth a single strand of Paige’s hair.”

My father forced me to kneel in the backyard for three days and three nights. My brother beat my legs with a heavy stick until both were broken, then forced me to crawl all the way to Paige’s grave and beg her forgiveness.

After that, they sent me back to the remote mountain town where my kidnappers had raised me. They said that hellhole was where I belonged and where I should have stayed to rot.

I was only twenty-one when a rabid stray mauled me to death.

When I opened my eyes again, I was standing in that familiar backyard.

Paige was screaming as she plummeted toward the ground, and Mason was already rushing forward.

This time, I took half a step back.

***

The day the town’s historic community theater reopened after renovations, the Bennett family sponsored a performance by a regional musical-theater troupe.

I stood at the back of the crowd and heard the faint sound of wood splintering overhead.

Paige was onstage in costume, spinning in time with the music. She had trained in musical theater since childhood and was slender and long-legged, with a strong, clear singing voice. Every Bennett relative called her the family’s golden girl.

Meanwhile, even though I was their biological daughter and they had only found me at sixteen, all I was good for was standing in a corner and clapping for her.

The next second, one of the old timber supports above the stage suddenly came loose.

Someone screamed, “Run! The beam is coming down!”

Paige froze in terror.

My brother, Mason Bennett, shoved his way through the crowd and charged toward the stage.

At this exact moment in my last life, the same thing had happened.

I had thrown myself at Mason and locked both arms around his waist, dragging him back with all my strength. I had seen how massive the support beam was, and I knew that if he rushed in from that angle, it would crush both of them.

The falling beam struck Paige and broke her back.

When she woke up and learned that she would never perform onstage again, she cried for an entire month. Later, she slit her wrist in the bathtub.

My mother clutched Paige’s framed photograph and sobbed until she lost consciousness. The first thing she did when she woke up was slap me.

She demanded, “Why did you stop your brother from saving her? If someone had to die, it should have been an ungrateful little bitch like you, not Paige.”

My father forced me to kneel in the backyard for three days and three nights without food or water.

Mason broke both my legs with an iron bar, then dragged me to Paige’s grave and made me beg her forgiveness.

He said, “You were so afraid I’d die. Why didn’t you die in Paige’s place?”

After that, they sent me back to the remote mountain town where the family who had kidnapped me lived.

They hated having me around now that I was crippled and called me a worthless burden.

That winter, they locked me inside a ramshackle storage shed. When a rabid stray squeezed through a gap in the rotting door, I could not even crawl away.

As its teeth sank into my flesh, I was still wondering what I had ever done wrong.

Then I opened my eyes again and found myself back inside the theater.

The beam was already starting to fall, and Mason had launched himself forward.

This time, I did not grab him.

I only reached out, gave the hem of his shirt a light tug, and called after him in a trembling voice, “Mason, don’t! It’s dangerous!”

The fabric slipped through my fingers.

Mason never looked back.

He charged onto the stage and shoved Paige out of the way.

Paige tumbled down the steps and escaped with nothing worse than a scrape on her arm.

Mason, however, did not have time to get clear.

The massive support beam crashed down squarely onto his back, pinning him flat against the floor as all the color drained from his fac.

For one second, the entire crowd went silent.

Then my mother screamed and lunged toward him.

“Mason!”

Paige was stunned too. She sat at the bottom of the steps with trembling lips, too shocked even to cry.

I stared at Mason’s twisted body beneath the beam and slowly clenched my fist.

Mason, in my last life, you called me heartless.

This time, I let you play the hero.

Are you happy now?