The Broke, Mute Boy I Saved Was a Bored Billionaire Chapter 02

The Broke, Mute Boy I Saved Was a Bored Billionaire Chapter 02

The trial came with severe side effects and almost no chance of remission.

No patient had been willing to gamble on odds that bad.

With the enrollment window about to close, Dr. Odessa Rothwell—one of the drug’s lead researchers—was running out of options.

The moment I volunteered, her eyes lit up. Then suspicion crept into her expression.

“Why make adult adoption your condition?”

I pressed a hand against the ache spreading through my chest and forced a smile.

“My parents always chose my younger sister. I’ve never known what having a real family feels like.”

“And…” I pointed to the framed photograph on her desk. “I’ve always wanted a handsome little brother.”

Dr. Rothwell glanced at Bastien’s picture, then smiled as though she understood everything.

“Fine. Survive the three-year trial, and I’ll legally adopt you.”

Relief loosened the knot in my chest.

After I signed the consent forms and confidentiality agreement, Dr. Rothwell studied me for a moment.

“Then do your best to stay alive.”

“I will.”

Outside the window, snow dusted the bare branches.

I had expected to be dead by the end of winter. Now, for the first time since my diagnosis, I wanted to survive.

I stopped answering Bastien’s messages. Even his follow-up—Just consider it a loan for now—went unanswered.

That night, I sat on the couch and waited.

Bastien finally came home a little after nine. His expression was dark as he tossed his keys onto the entryway table with a sharp metallic crash.

Usually, I would have gone to him, tugged gently on his sleeve, and signed: [Are you mad?]

He would keep scowling until I coaxed him out of it.

Not tonight.

I stayed on the couch, slowly turning through the test results from Arborcrest.

I had never told Bastien I had cancer. He believed I was suffering from a severe case of anemia.

For one foolish moment, I wondered what he would do if he knew I was dying.

Would he regret turning me into a joke?

In the kitchen, he set a glass down hard enough to rattle the counter, then slammed the refrigerator door.

He was waiting for me to speak first. Waiting for me to give in, just like I always did.

I said nothing.

The report trembled between my fingers, the pages whispering softly in the silence.

Bastien never noticed what I was waiting for.

He only noticed that I had not come running.

When I still refused to react, he finally lost patience. He grabbed his jacket and shot me a cold look.

He signed: [I’m staying on campus tonight.]

I did not stop him.

The moment the door slammed shut, I got up and followed.

Outside the apartment building, Bastien pulled out his phone and made a call. His voice drifted back to me on the night wind, low, cool, and perfectly clear.

“Reeve, come get me.”

“Where do you think? At the cheapskate’s place.”

“Bring Veda. I have something for her.”

It was the first time I had ever heard Bastien speak.

Until then, the only sounds I had heard from him were the rough, restrained noises that sometimes escaped his throat when we were in bed.

Even those had been enough to make me wonder what his voice would sound like.

I had asked him once why he could not speak and whether there was any chance of recovery.

He had given me a bitter smile. [A fever damaged my vocal cords. A specialist in Europe might be able to repair them, but it would cost more than two hundred thousand dollars.]

Back then, I had planned to make his mother the beneficiary of everything I had.

I would sell every possession worth selling and leave Bastien enough money to pay for the treatment.

Helping him speak again had become my dying wish.

I was not even dead yet, and I had already heard his real voice.

It should have been funny.

Instead, it only made me feel hollow.