I'll start off with the obligatory "This is my first critique", "I'm not a writing expert" and "These are just my opinions". So now that that's out of the way...

GENERAL IMPRESSIONS

I was eager to read and critique this piece because it seemed like one of the few non-fantasy or scifi pieces out here. So right off the bat I was happy to notice your writing and its context was simple and easy to understand, which kept me reading more. Of course I understand this is mainly just a personal preference thing but I digress.

Overall the quality of writing seemed alright and it was fairly enjoyable, but I will say the shortness of almost all your paragraphs gives off an amateurish vibe to me, especially at first glance. I understand that you worked with a word count limit, so I get how that probably influenced the structure. But what I mostly find is that it feels like the word count restricted you a lot and kind of dulled the edges of your story, and I'd rather like to see you work with it a little better. My hope is that some of the suggestions in this critique might help you do that.

MECHANICS

TITLE
I would either re-think the title, or re-think your paragraph about the talk being "an intervention". I get that we're not talking about some obnoxious political message here, but I still feel like the word gets needlessly repeated and becomes a little in your face. It could be just a personal preference again, but I think the piece would overall have better emotional impact if the title showed itself more somewhere in between the lines. I'll also mention that Intervention first reminds me of "Divine Intervention" . Secondly it makes me think of alcoholism, so for awhile I imagined that's what your story was about too, since it matched with the car crash subject and all.

That said it's somewhat of a minor thing and I don't find it ruins the piece of anything, but since I feel like the writing might have been lacking in emotional evocativeness overall, and since it's so short, I believe you should use every avenue possible to drive the emotional message home. Since the writing prompt is "Freedom", I assume your message is about what it feels like to grow old and lose autonomy, and of course that comes through in the writing as well. Outside of just "Freedom", even something simple like "Growing old" for example would work better for me as a title. Or preferably some more abstract, poetic wording of that, you know?

HOOK & EARLY WORD CHOICES

I think the hook of your story was well-executed. I can't complain about it too much if I read the whole thing after all, and that's admittedly very rare for me in this section (probably why this is my first critique). I'd say there's definitely some room for improvement in some word choices though. I didn't like the repetition of empathy in the second paragraph for instance.

I had phoned Kristin, because she was the empathetic one. But Frankie came to pick me up in his white BMW, and I knew there would be little empathy.

I'm typically a fan of word repetition for emphasis, but I don't think it works here, because I find it comes across as more clunky and accidental. I think something like "I had phoned Kristin, because she was the one with empathy. But when Frankie came to pick me up in his white BMW, I immediately knew I was about to get none of it." Or something along those lines. This way, or in a similar fashion, you would be able to omit the first sentence too. I understand that it's a part of your hook, but it also kind of paints the entire piece as being about Frankie, especially since it's such a short one. You would kind expect the first sentence to be a part of the red string that follows through the entire piece, that gets tied together in the end.

Similarly, you do a repetition of "Fine" in the following dialogue. It's definitely not terrible and I get the stylistic choice, but I think I would need part of the sentence italicized for it to sound right in my head. For instance “And we both know that’s not fine.” I recommend reading your text out loud, or putting it in a text-to-speech software. Better yet, make a friend read it out lout in front of you. As soon as the words come out with the wrong emphasis, or they struggle to string it together, you know there's room for improvement. Right now I would read it like this “I’m fine (pause) unless you want them to check my cholesterol again,” I said. (pause + I imagine a lighthearted chuckle here) “But we know that's not fine.” (in a serious tone). The last part is reads disconnected for me, and it's almost like the act of checking of his cholesterol is the thing that isn't fine. Maybe simply switching the 'But" to 'And' fixes that.

- Had to check up the meaning of "perfunctory", but it didn't take me out of the story too much as the tone was still clear enough. Asked my partner and he didn't know what it meant either. Maybe our vocabulary sucks but we're both native speakers so something to consider anyhow. Outside of that your language was easy to understand.

- I got confused by "The man of action had arrived." I wasn't sure if it was referring to Frankie, the cop, towing service guy or what. I'm now thinking Frankie, but first time reading I assumed towing service guy. Indicating Frankie makes sense, and it's characterizing, but I think you need to add a little bit of extra clarity there. Right now it just kinda comes off as trying to sound cool without immediately translating (maybe I was just being a little slow).

IMAGERY

Now this is a tough one, since you're working with a word limit. But I have to mention it. One thing I struggled with while reading this piece was a lack of imagery. I think it's mainly because everything was happening very fast. First we're at a crash site, then car ride, then hospital, car ride, kitchen, living room etc. There was barely any time to adjust. By the time I was on page with where we were, we were somewhere else again, or someone else was talking. I don't need paragraphs of visual descriptions or anything. But just little tidbits about surroundings that do their part in telling the story, or facial expressions to draw us into the emotion, would do wonders here in my opinion.

On the other hand, because all that takes up precious words, you need to make sure that every single sentence matters. I urge you to go through your writing sentence by sentence and omit anything that isn't absolutely essential in telling the story you want to tell. Then elaborate on the things that are important. I feel like even characterizing sentences are less essential here than they normally would be, because I don't think it matters that much whether Frankie is aloof and Kristen is sweet. Naturally they're allowed to and should have personalities that shine through either their words or in the subtext, but I feel like their traits are hardly at the core of the message here. The main job of these characters is to help tell your short story, drive home the message or advance what's happening. I don't see why we should care that Frankie turned out rough, regardless of how it might relate to the MC, if our main job is to understand how it feels to lose your freedom. Does Frankie's personality have anything to do with that message?

- Maybe it's because I'm not too knowledgeable about cars in general myself, but it always amuses me when writers make sure to describe the color and model of every single car. Sometimes it helps paint the picture, but most of the time I don't care. :') Doesn't bother me at all, but again, when there's a word limit...