The Intervention

By the time I finally got into my apartment building, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep away the long, awful day I’d had at work. Or, at least it’s what I planned to do. It was a gloomy night, and going out would be more trouble than it was worth.

What I didn’t expect was to open my door and see the faces of my family staring back at me.

My dad and my sister Bianca had been chatting casually on the sofa, but grew quiet as I closed the door behind me and hung up my keys. “How’d you get in here?” I demanded, my gaze fixating on my mother. Her face was stained with tears, and her lip quivered as she quickly tried to dab her eyes dry. “What’s wrong?”

“Sorry, I let them in.” My roommate Brett walked into the living room from the kitchen and leaned against the wall near my family, followed close behind by someone I hadn’t seen in years - my closest childhood friend, a guy named Kevin. I’d still recognize that stubborn face any day. We’d been inseparable all through school, but when college hit he’d suddenly ghosted - said some vague garbage about me changing and wanting nothing to do with it, and that was that. There was no reason he should be here now, and the sight of him filled me with bitterness.

“What the hell is this all about? What’s he doing here?”

“They’re worried about you, man,” Brett said. “And so am I.”

“Seriously, dude?” I scoffed. “I’m fine!”

“Fine? You’re not fine, Malcolm, you’re sick!” Kevin snapped. “We’ve been talking. This has gone on for way too long, and you’re even worse now than you were the last time I saw you!”

“What, so you ditch me when I’m down and then waltz in here throwing accusations about my life, huh?”

“You know for a fact this is why I bailed -”

“Enough.” Mom shot us both a look, and Kevin closed his mouth irritably. “Remember what we talked about? Stick to the script. Malcolm, will you please come sit with us? We have a lot we’d like to say.”

I looked at the papers each of them was holding, neatly typed with lines that were surely pleas and accusations. “Hell no. I’m out of here.”

I could hear my mom and sister protest as I turned to go, but their words weren’t what stopped me in my tracks before I’d even made it more than a couple of steps. It’d only been six months and five days since I’d last seen her - not that I was counting - but it felt like it’d been years.

She was just as beautiful as always, wavy blond hair framing her face perfectly as she deliberately stared at her phone to avoid looking in my direction. The avoidance pained me greatly - we’d been so happy together, once upon a time. I’d really gotten my act together for her, and things were so good for so long. I would have spent the rest of my life with her. And then…

Well, things had gotten rough and I’d fallen back into my old habits. When she found out about the girl off 3rd Street, and the girl on the corner of 5th and Main, and the girl from the bar…she’d left me. She didn’t give me a chance to explain, or to apologize. She even moved apartments and changed her number. Someone told me afterward that it was for her safety, but I never could have hurt her. I thought she knew that. Even after all the pain she’d caused me, that still held true.

Or was it the pain I’d caused me?

“Tara agreed to come here and share her concerns,” Mom explained gently. “Please, give her a chance to say what she needs to. You owe her that much.”

“Five minutes,” I countered, taking a seat across from them. “I don’t owe any of you more than that.”

Mom straightened up in the recliner, looking to the paper in her hands for guidance. “You know we love you, Malcolm. No matter what you do, you’ll always be our son. But we raised you better than this. I know you’re better than this.”

“The fact is, son, that you’re going to wind up in jail at this rate,” Dad interrupted. “The statistics are plain as day. It’s astounding that you haven’t been caught doing something stupid already. This isn’t good for you, and we’re all worried. We don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“And you’re hurting other people too, Malcolm,” Bianca sighed. “We’ve seen your car…you should be in jail already, and you know it. You can’t hide what you’ve done forever.”

My heart jumped in my chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do,” she continued. “You used to be my hero, big brother. But now I look at you and I barely recognize what you’ve become. It kills us to see you like this.”

“I thought you’d been getting help, son,” Dad chimed in sadly. “Things had been looking up for a while, hadn’t they? Whatever happened to that therapist you were seeing?”

I hesitated. “I still go sometimes -”

Brett shook his head. “There’s no use in lying to them, man. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. You’ve only been getting worse since you moved in here, and at this rate I can’t imagine wanting to renew a lease with you. You’re too much of a liability. You have no control of yourself.”

“That’s not true! I can stop any time I want!”

“Malcolm.” Tara’s voice was soft as she finally looked up from her phone, and my heart skipped a beat as my name passed through her lips. “Please, I know there’s still a good man in you somewhere, and every time you…” She let the sentence trail, swallowing her nerves. “You’re killing him.”

“Tara, I’m the same man I always was. If you could just give me another -”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” she quickly interrupted. “It kills me to admit it, but I still care about you. I want you to get better. It’s still too late for us, but for god’s sake, save yourself before it’s too late.”

“She doesn’t want to stand by and watch your downward spiral,” Mom added. “And neither do we. I’m sorry, Malcolm, but if this keeps up, you’re not going to have us by your side for much longer.”

The room grew silent, and I could feel reluctant tears welling up behind my eyes as I took in all of their words. But before I could respond Kevin was suddenly towering over me, his face contorted in rage. “Why the hell are you all sugar coating this?” he snarled, pointing at me menacingly. “You’re messed up in the head! You should be locked up! I don’t care what they all say about helping you. This isn’t just about you!”

I was on my feet in an instant, my face inches away from his as I yelled back. “You don’t know a thing about me anymore, Kevin! You have no right to be here.”

“Boys, please -” Mom interjected hopelessly.

“‘Right?’ Who are you to talk about what’s right?”

“You’re in my home, you bastard. So shut the fuck up or I’ll -”

“Or what? Are you going to hurt me, Malcolm? I dare you.”

Brett and my dad got between us as I moved to swing at him, and as they pulled him away I broke free and headed for the door, my head swimming. I heard them all plead with me to come back as I grabbed my keys, but I’d heard enough. Bianca tried to chase after me, but I slammed the door in her face and fled to the elevator, a few stray tears finally rolling down my cheek.

My hands were shaking by the time I made it out to my car, and I decided then that it’d be smarter to just walk to the bar tonight. Aside from a couple flickering streetlights it was pitch black, and the streets were narrow, but I’d made this same journey too many nights before to be nervous.

I tried my best to take deep breaths and calm myself as I walked along the sidewalk, tried to think about what everyone had said. I was fine, wasn’t I? I had everything under control. I had a stable job, I had a home, I had a decent life. What harm was I really doing to myself?

But that was their point, wasn’t it? I wasn’t dense; I knew I was hurting people. But I had never considered how much I was hurting them. Mom, Dad, Bianca, Tara, even Brett…I’d never intended to hurt the ones I loved. But how would turning their backs on me now do any good?

I stopped in the last alleyway before reaching the bar, leaning against the wall pensively. The night life was alive and well, and a group of drunk women had just emerged from inside. Three of them hugged another girl goodbye before slipping into a cab, leaving her alone.

What was I doing here? Maybe they were right. I had thought I’d hidden it all so well, but from the outside, was it really so obvious how far I’d slipped? I may have hated Kevin right now, but, repeating his scathing words in my head, it was easy to see his point.

The girl from the bar stumbled closer, her eyes glazed, and my addiction took hold of me in a flash. I slipped behind her, covering her mouth with one hand and plunging my knife into her chest with the other as I pulled her into the darkness of the alleyway. As her blood poured onto me and her struggling began to cease, I felt the tension in me ease and everything they said fell away, leaving me the calm I’d been aching for.

Maybe I did have a problem. But I could stop any time I wanted.