1
Benji
“Is that about the sparkly ones?”
Caleb’s head snapped up at the sound of my voice. In his excitement, he nearly threw the book across the room. A bright smile spread across his face, and his eyes lit up. “Benji!”
“No, it’s grandma,” I replied, returning his smile as I sauntered to the edge of the hospital bed. Up close now, I could see the dark shadows beneath my younger brother’s eyes. I tried not to let my concern show on my face. “How are you feeling today?”
Caleb shrugged. “Normal, I guess.” He lowered his head and fiddled with the edge of the paperback book in his lap. “My new normal.”
I knew ‘normal’meant ‘bad, but I don’t want to bother you about it so I’m pretending everything is okay.’
Caleb coughed, and my heart twisted. On top of the illness, his whole system was weakened from the hospital drugs and atmosphere. My twenty-year-old brother should have been outside, engaging in sports and clubbing and doing whatever it was twenty-year-olds did. Instead, he was cooped up in a sterile and blindingly white room that constantly smelled of rubbing alcohol.
“The doctors say I’m getting a bit better, with the drugs and stuff, but it’s not enough,” Caleb murmured.
My corners of my mouth tugged down, but I forced them back up. “You’re gonna be fine, Cale. I promise.”
But this time Caleb didn’t even bother to return my forced grin. “Benji…” He sighed. “That’s the thing. I don’t think I am.”
I scowled. “You’re not giving up, are you?”
“Not on purpose.” He shot me a half-hearted glare, which quickly withered away. “But it’s - ”
“Do not sayhopeless,” I warned.
He frowned now. Without his smile, he looked ten years older. My age. My chest ached again.
“I know you don’t want to hear it, but it’s true,” Caleb said quietly. “We both know that without the surgery, I…”
He trailed off, and for that I was glad. I didn’t want to hear the rest of that sentence, not ever.
I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed. He winced slightly at the pressure, and I eased up, feeling guilty. I’d forgotten that his body was sensitive and ached nearly all the time, the way it did when your body was fighting off infection.
Then I remembered the reason I came in.
“Hey,” I said, reaching into my messenger bag, “I brought something for you.”
Caleb watched curiously, forgetting his pain for a moment. He gasped as I clumsily pulled out three books, putting two on the bedside table. They were silly adult vampire books, the ones he obsessed over for a reason I could never understand. He grabbed the first one with wide eyes.
“Benji, you know I was looking for these everywhere!” he cried. He flipped through the first few pages, as if making sure they were real.
“I know,” I said. I couldn’t help grinning at his enthusiasm. “I know you don’t like to read stuff off a screen, and since you couldn’t find physical copies before you - ”before you got admitted to the hospital,“- you couldn’t find them, so I decided to buy them for you online.”
Caleb clutched the novel to his chest with a weak, embarrassed laugh. “Dude, you kill me, you know that? You make fun of these books all the time and you go and buy them anyway.”
I shrugged. “Hey, they might be dumb, but they make you happy, right?”
He smiled. “Yeah. Oh my god, look - here, come sit down.”
I sat on the stool next to the bed and leaned in to let Caleb lecture me on whatever this particular book was about.
“So what’s the big deal about this one?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes. “Holy shit, you soundsoold. Have you not heard about this series at all?Abyss Blood Saga?It’s a cult hit that only got popular again recently, because it got a TV series. Obviously, the books are better.” He glanced up wistfully. “The third book ended in a cliffhanger, and a new one hasn’t come out since, so the TV series made up a different ending, but… Anyway, that’s why it’s so hard to find.”
“That’s stupid. Why don’t they just put out more in print, then?”
