This story hit me hard when I read it as a kid.

When I was young, I read another story with a similar emotional texture that I've been trying to find again for years now. It had a mentally challenged boy who worked in a restaurant with a lobster tank in the front, and the boy loved the lobster as a pet and stopped the restaurant staff from killing and serving the lobster. But one day when the boy was gone the lobster was killed.

I don't remember much but I've been looking for it for ages. I hope I can find it and read it again someday.