I Got a Second Chance, So I Stopped Saving My Brother Chapter 02

I Got a Second Chance, So I Stopped Saving My Brother Chapter 02

By the time the ambulance arrived, Mason was in too much pain to speak clearly.

He lay immobilized on the stretcher, his forehead drenched in sweat, and kept mumbling, “Paige… Is Paige okay?”

When Paige heard him, her tears finally spilled over. She rushed to the stretcher, her shoulders shaking with sobs.

“Mason, I’m okay. This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have frozen up like that.”

She had cried the same way in my last life.

Back then, she had lain in a hospital bed, sobbing that she did not want to live anymore. Everyone in the family had been heartbroken for her.

Not one of them had asked whether it hurt when Mason kicked me hard enough to break my ribs.

My mother rushed forward to pull Paige into her arms, but then she caught sight of Mason’s ashen face on the stretcher. Her hands froze in midair.

In the end, she did not embrace Paige. Instead, she grabbed a paramedic by the sleeve and asked through her tears, “What’s going to happen to my son? Will he ever walk again?”

“We can’t tell yet,” the paramedic said with a grim expression. “We need to get him to the ER right away.”

My father’s face went ashen.

Mason was the Bennett family’s only son.

He had always excelled in school and was good-looking, so my parents loved parading him around as proof of their success.

They had always said that the family’s building-supply company, several rental properties, and the small manufacturing plant outside town would all belong to Mason someday.

As for me, they said daughters eventually got married, so I had no business expecting a share of the family assets.

Paige was not their biological daughter, but she was sweet, affectionate, and knew exactly how to charm them. She had also won several regional performing-arts competitions.

She was the Bennett family’s pampered princess.

I was the only one they treated like an unwanted extra.

As the ambulance doors were about to close, Paige tried to climb inside.

My mother suddenly raised a hand and stopped her.

The gesture was subtle, but Paige went still.

She stared at my mother in disbelief.

“Mom?”

My mother acted as though she had not heard her and climbed into the ambulance with Mason. My father hurried to the car so he could follow them to the hospital.

I deliberately stepped back from the open doors, my voice catching as I said, “Paige, you should get that scrape on your arm checked out. Mom is riding with Mason, and Dad and I will meet them at the hospital.”

Paige’s face went pale.

Her lips parted as though she wanted to insist on coming too, but the ambulance doors had already closed.

As it pulled away, she chased it for a couple of steps, lost her footing, and fell hard on the flagstone walkway outside the theater.

The relatives gathered nearby began whispering.

“Poor Mason. Look what happened because he tried to save Paige.”

“Paige should’ve run the second she heard the stage cracking.”

“At the end of the day, an adopted child just isn’t the same as your own.”

Every word pierced Paige like a needle.

She looked up at me, panic and hurt filling her eyes.

I gazed down at her and let out a soft sigh.

“Don’t be afraid, Paige. Mason adores you. He would never blame you.”

Whether anyone else would was another matter.