By the time we got home, Nick had passed out and fallen asleep. I pulled in the driveway and jumped out of the car, not bothering with him. He was capable of coming inside on his own, when he came to.

     Ally and I headed straight to his room to see if we could piece together his puzzle of fuckery. I wished I'd walk in and there'd be big Blue's Clues on a crack pipe, a gun and a pile of meth rocks and we could be done. When we entered the room, I was shocked at how clean and organized it was; the smell of Febreze wafting through the air. I expected a chaotic dumpster fire of a dwelling area, like his life.
T: "I don't even know where to start. I guess I'll take the bedroom, if you wanna do the closet and whoever gets done first can do the bathroom."
A: "Maybe next time I tell you someone's shady boots, you'll listen without having to beat them into oblivion."
I still felt angry pressure built up in my chest, like I swallowed an apple whole and it was stuck in the center of my sternum.
T: "About that...I'm gonna need you to be sneaky boots and not tell Kiwi 'til I decide what I'm gonna do and know what we're dealing with. I don't need him playing king of the castle and dictating everything because he thinks it takes the stress off me."
I did not need them tag-teaming me and I knew that's exactly what would happen. This was my cross to bear...I just wasn't sure what flavor cross I was bearing yet.
A: "I don't feel right lying to him."
T: "Yeah, I know ya don't, because you think he's the second coming. When the shit hits the fan, you better have my back. Mine. I don't know why you act like I'm so incompetent that it must be a given that Kiwi's always right. I need you right now."
She took a deep breathe, just staring at me. Usually she'd protest that she hadn't done anything wrong, but not this time. She'd been like that since everything that happened in high school. I think it was just out of fear that sometimes I wasn't capable of making good decisions, and she never knew when that sometimes was.
T: "I know I recently may or may not have beat someone into submission in my vehicle but you know what they say, dontcha? "You do drugs, you get your ass beat in the car."
A: "Who says-"
T: "-No one, I made it up. You caught me. Let's start digging before he wakes up."

    
    I opened his walk-in closet and Ally went straight for the shoe shelves, saying that's where most people hid things on Intervention. I stepped further inside, surveying the area and trying to pick a place to start. As I scanned the closet, something orange caught my eye, on top of the door frame. I got closer and pushed myself up on my tip toes, trying to knock whatever it was off the frame with my finger tips.
I finally flicked it onto the floor as it made a loud clicky sound. I whipped my head around to see what I had uncovered.
It was a needle. One of the cheap ones you can get at any drug store.
T: "Ally..."
She looked at me, confused and waiting for me to speak, until her eyes darted to the floor and her mouth fell open.
A: "Oh, shit."
She slid across the hardwood and picked up the needle to examine it.
T: "Don't take the cap off! You'll get the whole hepatitis alphabet or the hiv!"
A: "What's a hiv?"
T: "It's baby aids! Then it grows into a toddler with the capital HIVs, then it gets a summer job and hits puberty and you get full blown AIDS."
A: "I'm pretty sure it's pronounced H.I.V. Isn't that what Uncle Fruit Loop died from?"
T: "Yeah, that's why they called him fruit loop."
A: "I don't get vibes that Nick likes the D, but I also don't need hepatitis, so consider the cap untouched. Apparently we need to watch our fingers as we search."
T: "I'll go through his backpack incase there's more; I don't want you getting hurt. Don't stick your hands in shoes all willy nilly."

   
     I headed over to the bed where his backpack was lying. I cautiously opened it and took out the articles of clothing that were bursting out, as huge whiffs of Tom Ford cologne about knocked me out and drug me up the street. I shook the clothes out, to make sure nothing was hidden inside them. At the bottom of the backpack was a graveyard of water bottle caps, Q-tip cotton that had been removed from the stick, orange needle caps and a bag of unused needles.
A: "I hit a jackpot..."
T: "Me too. What'd you find?"
I looked up and saw her holding a bunch of trashy magazines and wrappers of some kind.
T: "Get that trash out of my house! You rip those up and burn them right now! I hate titties!"
I motioned to the fireplace across the room, as I ran to it, flipping the switch to turn on the flames. I grabbed one of the magazines and began tearing it, throwing the pieces directly on the fire so a vagina didn't melt onto a log or some shit like that, that always seems to happen to me.

   
    Ally sat next to me on the floor in front of the fire, after taking a peek in the backpack. She picked up another magazine and began shredding. The mood shifted to a somber one, like Eeyore walked in and wanted to talk about the nail in his ass.
A: "I'm sorry, bud. I know you were just trying to do something nice for someone. You don't deserve to have to deal with this"
I threw the last piece of magazine in the fire, feeling tears escape my eyes. She pulled me into a hug, as I stared blankly at the flames feasting on sluts.
T: "I know I only deserve nice things but no one else seems to know that."
A: "Lets go put signs up around the neighborhood. 'Do not darken this doorway unless you have nice things, good news or carbs.'"
T: "What are those wrappers you found?"
A: "They say they're incense but I don't see an incense burner in here. Maybe they were from his house."

     We heard footsteps coming up the stairs and what I assumed to be the hall bathroom door shut.
A: "Lets get outta here before he sees we went through his stuff!"
T: "Fuck him! This is my house and anything in my house is subject to search if I feel you're an unsavory asshole."
I hopped up and grabbed his backpack, thinking I should dispose of the contents before he tried to use any of it. I handed Ally  the bottle caps and cotton pieces to throw away in her room, where I knew he wouldn't look. I took the needles to the bathroom and bent the needle tips until they broke off and rolled down the drain.

  
      A loud bang came from the hall bathroom, startling Ally and me. We looked at each other and both rushed into the hallway; banging on the bathroom door and trying the knob but it was locked. I put my ear to the door and heard shuffling around, as Ally scurried about, trying to find a key on top of one of the door frames.

    
      The door suddenly flew open, causing me to lose my balance and fall into Nick. I quickly stood myself up and saw he was giving me that same look he had in the car; squinting at me in utter confusion like he had no clue who I was. I waived my hand in his face but got nothing, as expected.
A: "I'm gonna try to find Uncle Mike's number and tell him to come pick up his trash. You don't need this stress."
T: "...Ok."
I felt defeated and worthless. I thought I could handle anything that anyone threw at me. What if this were Pen or Jack or someone that I didn't deem as disposable? Then I wondered how much effort I was really required to give someone who had just shown up in my life to hit a shit ball home-run on my field, versus someone who was actually in my everyday life and deserved all my efforts.

    I felt Nick push passed me and watched him wander down the hall toward his room. Then abruptly stop.
He pulled his shirt off.
He pulled his pants down and kicked them across the floor.
I watched in horror, as his boxers followed.
T: "Ally!...Ally, get up here!"
He turned around and looked at me; his hands held tightly to his chest, like he was doing an impression of a cat.
Then he started hopping. Hopping like a deranged easter bunny, with the strangest dazed blank look on his face.

A: "...Well, I'll be a one-legged cat in a sandbox..."
Ally had appeared next to me with more of those incense wrappers, a lighter and a ball of foil.
T: "He just took his shit off and started jumping! Should we call one of those drug hotlines!?"
A: "Look at the goldmine I found in the bathroom. I got up on the Google and apparently this stuff is sold as potpourri or incense, but it's synthetic weed. He probably can't afford his heroin fix, so he's been smoking this. They spray it with unregulated amounts of chemicals to get you high. You get a bad batch with too much, it'll kill you."
I watched in an almost catatonic state, as he continued hopping further down the hallway.
T: "...Lets light him up another and hope this dose does the trick."
A: "I didn't see anything..."
T: "His dick is smaller than I thought it'd be."
A: "It's about what I expected."

    He bunny hopped into the nearest bedroom; turning a corner so he was no longer visible. We followed him, but by the time we got to the room, he had collapsed on the floor and was violently shivering; squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his teeth.
T: "Is this an overdose or is he just really high!?"
A: "How should I know!? My issue of drug addict weekly didn't come yet!"
T: "We gotta take him to the hospital! We both workout, we can get him in the car. I'll pull the car around, can you just get him dressed please?"
A: "You played with more Barbies than me; I'll get the car and you dress him. You should put him in a bra and fishnets, and say we found him behind a Waffle House."

     We were silent for the most part, as we drove through the night. I stayed in the back with Nick, to make sure he was breathing, as he was still unresponsive. I imagined Kiwi sitting at a bar or in his hotel room, watching television; completely oblivious to the chaos going on at home. I wished I could call him and he'd run home and make all this go away, and I knew he would do exactly that if I did call but I refused to be weak. I guess partly because I was embarrassed that I, and now my family, kept causing him grief and because I felt responsible for this since I'd let him stay here. I was determined to prove to myself that I was capable of cleaning up this mess on my own.

    
     We pulled up at the hospital, by the front door. Everything was unusually quiet. There was no one waiting around outside, or coming in or out. I looked through the glass doors and saw a guy sitting at the front desk, down the hall a ways, looking completely bored and unaware of us.
T: "I guess I'll go get someone to load him in a wheelchair and take him up."
A: "I hope you're not planning on staying here and playing guardian angel, because I'm not."
T: "No...my journey ends here."
A: "What are you gonna tell Kiwi?"
T: "I guess the truth. It's been dealt with, nothing horrible happened to me, you or the house; it'll be like he was never there, so Ki has nothing to freak out about."

    I undid my seatbelt and reached for the door, to let myself out, when Nick shot up and started wailing. It startled both of us, as I quickly shut the door so no one heard the racket.
N: "I'm not going in there! They'll call the police if they find drugs in my system!"
A: "I hope they do and Bubba tears your ass up in the shower!"
T: "How did you even know we were here!?"
N: "I don't know, I just woke up and recognized the lights."
A: "How many overdoses have you had that you wake up and immediately recognize you're at the hospital? And all you're worried about is the police?"
N: "Please, I'll do anything! Please don't make me go in there! I'll go to jail!"
T: "Is that supposed to make me feel bad? Fuck you! You belong in jail. Three hots and a cot is better than your house, anyway."
A: "This is why I can't stand you! And you wonder why no one treats you like a member of this family! You literally just showed up at her house, knowing you were addicted to drugs, and acted like you just needed somewhere to stay while you got your bearings! How did you think you were hiding this and not putting this burden on other people?"
N: "I wanted you to find out, ok!? I wanted to get caught so this would stop!"
T: "...What? Why wouldn't you tell me instead of making me worry and putting me through all this cryptic shit!? You must've known how obvious you looked."
N: "I know it's selfish but I didn't think you'd care enough that it would upset you and I felt so guilty staying at your place with all this shit but I was too embarrassed to tell you, so I just wanted you to catch me with it and for someone to find out."
T: "No one else knows?"
N: "No. I think my dad just doesn't wanna see it and I was too scared to tell Uncle Dan; he'd literally kill me."
A: "Good."
T: "What do you expect me to do? You're not my problem. I don't even know you, anymore."
N: "...I really don't know. I guess tell on me and send me home."
T: "Then what? How is that helping you fight this? I know your dad can't afford rehab and Dan's done with you. He tried to help you before, he'll tell you to fuck off."
N: "Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll finally die. It's not like I haven't tried. That's probably my only way out. I don't know what I expected you to do,T. I'm sorry."
T: "I...I don't want you to die, Nicky, but I don't know how to help you."
Ally shoved her phone in my face. My eyes adjusted to the light and I saw she already had Kiwi's number dialed.
A: "Yes, you do."