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Malcolm was tired of it all.
The name calling, the night terrors, the constant feeling of emptiness. He was figuratively and literally exhausted.
And, to add insult to injury, his only friend, Vijay, wasn’t even talking to him anymore. Malcolm had known they left things rocky before Summer break, but he wasn’t hoping once they returned to school for Sophomore year, everything would go back to how it had been. But ever since Vijay’s father had gotten out of prison, there had been an unspoken tension in their relationship.
Things had come to a head at Jenette Phillips' end of year party. It was legendary and nearly unheard of for freshmen to get an invite. But Vijay and his new friend group had, and he was able to convince them to allow Malcolm to come.
It had been an awful experience. Malcolm spent the entire time sitting uncomfortably in a corner while Vijay socialized. Towards the end of the night, Malcolm had quietly begged his friend to let them go home, but he refused and told Malcolm to stop acting like such a baby all time and that it wasn’t his fault his dad was never getting out of prison. The last part was said loud enough for most of the living room to hear it, leading to a wave of laughter through the crowd of teens. Jenette herself loudly wondered out loud why he was even here and Malcolm had left in tears.
They didn’t talk much after that, Vijay electing to pretend it had never happened and giving Malcolm a tense “have a good summer” as the two left their last class of the day and Malcolm ignoring him completely.
Stupidly, Malcolm had thought that when they actually saw each other in person, Vijay would apologize and the two of them would go back to being the corner table boys. But he just pretended Malcolm didn’t exist. And why shouldn’t he? He had cool, new friends now.
Now, Malcolm was truly alone. He spent summer break going back and forth between visiting his father and therapy. No summer camp or pool parties or even just going to a movie. Not that he would have even enjoyed himself if someone actually invited him to do any of those things, but it was still hard watching his younger sister go over to friends' houses constantly while he had no one.
Gil and Jackie had tried to help, Gil bringing him out on stake outs and Jackie inviting him to their house to paint. And while he liked to spend time with them, and definitely preferred it to awkwardly waiting around the house while pretending not to notice his mother getting drunker by the hour, he still couldn’t help feeling like they only did these things because they were obligated to.
And that is how he found himself sitting in the bathroom with a razor blade perched on the sink counter.
It was stupid, he was being stupid. It was something he had started doing in boarding school, knowing the long sleeves of his uniform jacket would cover up any marks. He deserved it, he deserved every cut, every scratch, every scrape. It was only a fraction of the pain his father had put his victims through. And Malcolm hadn’t been quick enough to stop it.
He deserved it.
He hadn’t tried it at home yet, worried his mother would notice. But he’d just woken up from a night terror and needed something to ground him. He knew the pain was real, he knew it would make him feel in control for once in his life, he knew he deserved it anyway so what did it matter.
And he hadn’t meant to cut that deep. No one would believe him later, but he really wasn’t trying to kill himself. He just wanted something to cut through all the haze and tiredness and pain he was feeling inside already.
But his hand started shaking and there was so much blood and he didn’t know what to do. It wouldn’t stop, no matter how hard he pressed a wash cloth to the now gaping wound on his wrist. He was feeling light headed; this wasn’t supposed to happen!
He struggled to stand while still holding on to his wrist, hoping the blood would stop and no one would have to know what he had done. But it wasn’t working. He stumbled out the door, blood trailing behind him.
He didn’t know what to do. “Mom!” He cried out, terrified of her reaction but even more terrified of passing out. “Mom!”
The last thing he remembered was her screaming as he slid down the wall and onto the floor, exhaustion and blood loss taking him to a, for once, dreamless sleep.
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Malcolm needed 15 stitches and a blood transfusion. The doctors told him he was lucky; it could have been a lot worse. When he had finally come to, he’d been laying on a bed in the emergency department, his left wrist wrapped in bandages and his mother crying next to him.
He felt awful; physically and mentally. He felt guilty for worrying his family. He wanted to just go home and forget all this had happened.
He weakly apologized to his mother, Gil, and Jackie (the latter two of whom Jessica had called from the hospital and had rushed right over) and the trio quickly reassured him that it wasn’t his fault and they just wanted to help him.
“When can I leave?” Malcolm asked, still feeling like an idiot for cutting so deep. Even worse, he knew his mother had seen the scars on his wrist now that they were exposed by the hospital gown. He dreaded the conversation that was going to lead to.
Gil and Jessica looked at each other, hesitating, until Jackie spoke up. “Sweetheart, it’s going to be a few days.”
“But the doctors said I should be okay once the blood transfusion is done. I feel fine, I swear!” Malcolm insisted, even though he still felt light headed and nauseous.
“Malcolm, you tried to kill yourself,” his mother said bluntly. The tear streaks on her cheeks betrayed her true emotions, but her voice was back to the clipped and formal tone it normally took. “You need more help.”
“No!” Malcolm sat up more in bed, instantly regretting it as a wave of nausea passed over him. But he kept speaking. “No, I didn’t, I was just…I just needed to feel something. I can’t explain it, you guys won’t get it, but I wasn’t trying to…I swear. Please, I just want to go home.”
The idea of inpatient mental health care had been floated by Gabrielle a few times, when Malcolm was feeling particularly empty and hopeless, but he always managed to talk his way out of it. He was absolutely terrified of the idea of going to a mental hospital. He knew logically it wasn’t going to be a place like where his father was, but he still did not want to go. What if the doctors there realized how messed up and broken he truly was and never let him leave? He’d just be kept there forever like his dad.
We’re the same.
“Please…” Malcolm begged, tears beginning to fall. “I won’t ever do it again. I’ll go to Gabrielle every day. I can’t stay there, please.”
Gil leaned over and gave the back of Malcolm’s neck a squeeze. “Breathe, kid. Let’s just take this one step at a time. The doctors want you to go up to psych, but they’re going to reevaluate in a few days. We all just want you to be safe and feel better.”
“I won’t, I won’t feel better there.” Malcolm heard the heart rate monitor he was attached to start beeping louder and knew a panic attack was coming on. He tried to calm his breathing but it felt like the curtained cubicle they were all in was just getting smaller.
“Please,” he begged. “Please don’t make me!”
Through tears, he saw Gil, Jackie and his mother exchange mournful looks.
Gil continued to rub Malcolm’s back. Jackie reached out and squeezed his hand. His mother dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief.
They said nothing.
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The psychiatric ward at Manhattan Children’s Hospital was nothing like Claremount. It was clearly trying to be cheerful. The sterile white walls were covered in coloring pages and drawings patients had done. There was a big TV in the main room with a GameCube attached to it. The library was loaded with old copies of Monopoly and Life and torn paperback copies of Narnia. It was almost cozy.
But none of that made Malcolm feel any better.
The therapists tried to get him to speak in group, but he just crossed his arms and sunk further into his chair. None of the other patients spoke to him. One of them had made the connection between his last name and Martin Whitly and that was all it took for him to become a pariah. It wasn’t like Malcolm would have made the effort to talk to any of them anyway, but dealing with the whispers and stares like he was back at school wasn’t making him feel any better.
“No, don’t sit over there,” a girl his age said to a new patient who tried to walk towards the table Malcolm was at during craft time. Malcolm was struggling to make a collage, his hand shaking and making it impossible to properly glue anything down. “His father killed, like, 40 people.”
“He’s in the room next to mine. I hear him screaming at night,” a boy added. “Talk about crazy.”
Malcolm tensed up and crumpled his collage into a ball, tossing it in the trash as he left the common area.
“Careful,” the girl replied to the boy. “Don’t want to make him snap and kill you.”
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The hospital was making his night terrors worse. He woke up thinking he was at Claremount, that his father was hovering over his bed. It constantly felt like the walls were closing in on him.
“Malcolm, can we talk about what brought you here?”
His psychiatrist at the hospital was nothing like Gabrielle. He clearly did not want to be here, probably only had a couple years until retirement. But still, like the therapists, he wanted Malcolm to talk about what he did. Probably just to tick him off the list so he could get to his next patient.
“I’m here because my family overreacts to everything,” Malcolm replied bitterly. It was true. Especially in regards to his mother. She probably thought he didn’t notice how much she hovered when he was holding his pet snakes, as if a switch would suddenly flip and he’d crush their heads under his shoe.
“The wound was very deep, Malcolm. You could have easily died.”
“But I didn’t! So I don’t see why we have to do all this. It’s pointless, everything is pointless.”
The doctor sighed and looked down at his note pad. “Why don’t we consider upping your Zoloft?”
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“Kid, you know the doctors just want to help you.”
It was day four of his stay in the hospital and Malcolm was sitting on his bed while Gil tried to coax more than single word answers out of him.
“But,” Gil continued. “The more you resist talking, the longer they’re going to want you to stay. They need to know you’re not going to do something like this again.”
Malcolm looked down at his wrist. The bandage had been taken off, leaving a trail of angry looking sutures. He was supposed to get the stitches removed in another couple days. His mother had made some comment about consulting with a plastic surgeon when she had visited yesterday.
“So, they do want to keep me here.” Malcolm curled into himself more. “Just like dad.”
“Malcolm, no, this isn’t anything like that. You’re here because we just want you to be safe.”
“You guys keep saying that, but no one listens to me and what I want!” Malcolm exclaimed, louder than he had intended. “I want to go home, I’m not going to do something like this again.”
Gil looked defeated. Malcolm hated that what he was really thinking was if he ever did do something like this again, he would just let himself die. He wouldn’t get help, he’d cut even deeper than before. He could finally rest, it would all be over.
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Gil’s visit had convinced Malcolm he needed to start talking more, but only because he wanted to get out. So he played the part, he opened up, he talked about how he was feeling. Anything to get him out of here.
And it worked. He was finally able to leave after a week, ironically feeling even worse than when he had come in.
But he wouldn’t let on to that. When Gil and Jackie arrived to pick him up, they were both so happy about the “progress” he had made.
“So, how are you feeling, kid?” Gil asked as they pulled out of the parking lot.
Malcolm forced a smile. “Never better.”
He just prayed they believed him.