The Night I Almost Killed Him — And Why I Didn’t

There are moments in life that don’t come with music, slow motion, or warning.
They just… happen.
Fast. Quiet. Real.

I was hungover, probably still high, sitting on a stoop in Newburgh. Just another day bleeding into the next. I had a gun tucked under my shirt—not because I planned to use it, but because back then, carrying pain looked a lot like carrying protection.

And then I looked up.
There he was.

The man I had grown to hate.
The one who tore apart everything I believed about family.
The one who touched my mother’s skirt when I was a child.
The one who became the center of the explosion that cracked my home in half.

He didn’t say anything.
Didn’t even flinch.
Just walked past me like I was a ghost.

And I snapped.

My hand found the gun.
I stood up.
I took three steps toward him.

And then I stopped.

I don’t know what it was.
God.
A memory.
A whisper from the future.
All I know is… something said, “Not like this.”

I didn’t pull it.
But I could’ve.

And that moment—those three steps—haunt me.

Because I wasn’t afraid of what would happen to me if I did it.
I was afraid of what would be lost forever if I did.

That moment is why I wrote Split Down the Middle.
Because we talk a lot about survival.
We don’t talk enough about the choices that could’ve ended everything.

This memoir isn’t about glorifying the streets.
It’s about telling the truth.

And the truth is…
Sometimes healing doesn’t start when you get help.
It starts when you don’t do the thing your pain is begging you to.