Too much too ask - reprieve
Added 2023-07-25 14:43:22 +0000 UTC-
This should technically be tagged onto the end of the short comic "Too much to ask" (I will update it with this page attached). It took a while to finalize, because I wanted to get the dialogue right. This one is based on a true-ish story, one that I had truthfully forgotten until I penned 10's character.
It was a long time ago, back when Oxycontin was still the miracle pain-management drug. This kid would come to the pool I lifeguarded at, act up, and cause a lot of trouble. After a particular incident that ended with the kid getting dragged out and crying in the corner, I met with the kid's dad, who I learned later had suffered a cervical spine break. He was a nice man that told me that he was sorry for his kid, but he was too tired to handle them and taking them to the pool was a break for him. I did my best to be nice to the kid, let them get away with some stuff instead of kicking them out of the pool, and eventually my mom and their family became friends.
Everything went along pretty okay, the kid came over a lot, broke a lot of my toys until I (illegally) burned them a couple of PC games and gave them an old laptop. They sort of chilled out a bit after that.
Then after a while, they stopped coming to the pool, and then school. And then I stopped seeing their dad around town (it was a small town and he was a hard guy to miss given his neck injury.) It was until after I went to college that I learned what happened to their family. By then I was working at a crisis helpline, and once in a while, this story would repeat itself.
Now and then, I wonder how that kid is doing.
