Mirrored Cuts

Chapter 36

I spent the day cleaning, trying to regain some control over any part of my life. I organized my desk, threw away extra papers, washed my sheets, vacuumed and picked the random change up off the floor. I opened one of the drawers, and found a pile of folded, lined paper. I picked the pile up and sat among the blankets, still warm from the dryer, which had yet to be folded. I pulled the sides apart and opened them. They were from Flint. I opened each one, remembering how we had passed these notes back and forth during floor meetings. I had shoved them in my backpack and then into a drawer. I should have been grateful, thankful to a friend who just wanted to spend time together. But had he? The kiss changed things. Now I wasn't sure where we stood and I started to feel like I was sinking again.

I felt the same sinking feeling when I was in the office with my advisor when she said "I know you tried." I did. I did I did I did. Was it not enough?

"You just missed the cutoff for passing statistics and your other grades were C's and B's."

I put my head down on her desk, not caring for decorum or presenting myself well. She knew the worst part of my life. She couldn't possibly think any less of me. But that wasn't the worst part.

"Your GPA is so low that we have to put you on probation for next semester."

A fly could have easily flown into my mouth. I hadn't even known that we did that. A flash of panic and I saw white. "Please," I said. "Don't tell my parents. I can get this under control. I just had a rough start."

"That's not up to me," she said. "It's protocol because you're still a minor. I would get in trouble if I started making exceptions." She paused and started again. "The letter will come about two and a half weeks from now in the mail. If it never got to them, that wouldn't be my fault."

I didn't even get my wish for after that meeting. There was no way I could drift off to oblivion and try to forget that this was happening. I had to go on duty. I had already signed up for it, and to drop it, this late in the day, it would certainly get noticed. Right now, I did not want to be noticed. In fact, I slunk into the office with my head down so no one could catch my eye and talk to me. I went straight to the closet to get my equipment and sat myself down in front of the T.V. It was playing a cartoon that I used to watch with my brother. I hadn't seen him in forever. I hadn't spoken to him either. I wasn't used to having to make an effort to contact him. He had always been there when I wanted to have fun or when I needed a distraction from what was hurting me. He was the best defense against my parents, just because he didn't seem to care what they did to him.

Sandy walked in.

"Why are you here?" I said.

"I'm the supervisor on tonight." She didn't even look at me.

This day and night combination has remained in my mind as one of the worst of my life.

I was already on edge when we heard tones go out. I leapt out of bed, happy to be going anywhere away from Sandy. At least we would have patients and bystanders around us. She couldn't be that rude to me if there were other people around. But I also couldn't ask her for help on the call if I needed it. Sandy was a hands-off supervisor to begin with and she certainly wasn't going to help me. I would have to do this all by myself.

The dispatch was for an approximately 20 year old female unable to breathe and experiencing pain in her chest. I flipped through possible situations as we ran. She could be having a heart attack, but she was very young and the common symptoms for women having heart attacks were not usually just chest pain. There was usually shoulder or back pain involved. Unable to breathe sounded bad. That was going to have to be controlled. I had grabbed the oxygen tank with the airways before we started running.