Saving Beck

 
Saving Beck by Courtney Cole

   The things we fear the most are things we don’t even see and then it’s too late. Sometimes those things slide in under the door and other times they ring the doorbell.  But it doesn’t matter, the outcome is usually the same.

   Beck  and his dad took a tip to visit a college that Beck wanted to go to and though he was a little bit of an inexperienced driver, coming home late at night, dad offers to let Beck drive, to get a little experience at night on the highway.  There is an accident and his father doesn’t survive.

    This sends Beck and Natalie, Beck’s mother,  into a downward spiral.  Natalie spends her time in bed, rolled up in the covers and not taking care of her younger children.  Beck assumes this role, he knows the kids need someone to care about them.  All the while he is fighting his own demons about the accident and the consequence.

   The relief for Beck comes in the form of hard drugs. With drugs he can forget the pain and that’s all he really wants to do, forget it.  As Beck sinks lower and lower into his drug induced state his hold on reality is absolutely gone. Natalie rises from her depression,  never giving  up on him and one night Beck hits bottom.

     I’m not going to tell you how this one ends because not all endings are predictable.  There are plenty of people who were once someone’s child, who spend their lives forgetting, and there are plenty of parents who live with the pain of their child’s decision.  The big question the author asks in this fictionalized true story is this.  What wouldn’t you do to save your child’s life?