#c 2

Benjy never went far. He certainly could have. He had the grades to make money a nonissue, and he knew it was all his mom wanted for him. For a long time, it was on the short list of things he wanted for himself.

Get out of the small town, be the first one in his family not just with a high school diploma but a college one as well, and to change the world. He could admit the last one was lofty, but the first two were in his grasp. He was there.

Normally, there was no use dwelling on it. He lost two of the most important people in his world in a day without so much as a chance to say goodbye. So what? It was ten years ago now, and he made his choices. Eliza was meant to take over the farm, so he stayed. When they pushed him to go, he instead made sure he could send Arnie and Randall instead.

With Arnie barely done with vet school and Randall debating turning his agricultural degree in for the priesthood, his work was done. He never wanted the farm. He wasn't particularly good at it, and his parents had two perfectly good sons for it now. He held it together for them, so he got to move on.

Down the road, to the scrapyard that he'd single-handedly rebranded as a repair shop. Product, he supposed, of being the best mechanic in town. He was proud of that title. The differences he wanted to make didn't take with a fancy degree. They absolutely required getting out of here, but he couldn't leave his brothers to handle the finances of the farm or his parents to work alongside them until their deaths. He was fine. He was elbow deep in his engine, and he was fine.

"It'll be a day before I can take care of whatever you've got," Benjy said to the shadow next to him. "I've got to breathe life back into my truck here before I can take on anything else." He wiped his hands against each other when he reached a good place to pause, only smearing the dirt there. It wasn't like a rag was going to do any better.

"Actually," he amended when faced with his second loss. Still alive, he knew, but Regulus was as much of a ghost as his sister the past decade. Sometimes, seeing her again felt more likely. "For you, it's a week. And I'm charging double the rush rate."

This is good! I was waiting for a video like this to be made! Well done!