Mirrored Cuts

Chapter 56

April

That week, after John passed me on my last call, I spent every free moment in the office. Scenarios were the scariest part of ranking up. If you did really badly, the Supervisors would stop you from doing any more until you were actually ready because there were only a few sets of them. I could feel my courage turn to a weak broth at the face of each scenario. They would close the door to discuss and I would feel my emotions crawling up my neck, threatening to strangle me.

They told me that scenarios were designed as a teaching tool but I was sure they had turned into a rite of passage. "When I did that one..." a sentence would often start. The idea was, if you had never seen a cardiac arrest or a really serious trauma, these would put you in a place where you knew how to deal with them. We didn't get a lot of life-hanging-in-the-balance calls, but when we did, we didn't want life to hang. Ruby had been a superstar through hers, passing some that only a few people before her had managed to pull off. I cried after each set of scenarios, furious at myself for failing and forgetting and seeming to be turning my wheels in the thickest mud.

Lily saw me after one set, curled up in a ball in the hallway where I thought no one could find me. I tried to stop crying, hating that she was seeing me weak. Lily hadn't had trouble passing the tests.

"Come on. Let's go get some fresh air," she said.

I tiptoed after her, hoping the soft padding of my feet didn't disturb her. Outside, we sat on a nearby bench.

"You need to calm down," she said.

"This makes me feel better."

"Your pity party in the hallway isn't going to get you through scenarios or to where you want to be. You can't take this process personally."

"It is a personal process. I have to do well," I said.

"Do you ever get that feeling, that you're on the outside and you're looking at yourself impassively? Like someone else is operating your body for you?"

"Yeah..." I said.

"Relax," she said. She patted me on the shoulder. "It helps."

I wondered if that was how Lily made it through being with Carl. I couldn't process it for two long though. I went back in to do scenarios and was actually able to pass two of them. I used my fake confidence and authority mask that I was learning and I figured out what I needed to do. I danced all the way home to my dorm. Looking back, that memory is still bright in my mind. Sandy was only able to sully it a little when she used the fact that I cried after scenarios as a reason I shouldn't be elected to a leadership position.

It took another two sets of scenarios for me to get my last pass. Getting there felt like pulling teeth while climbing a mountain. Balance and pain were definitely problems.

After I had passed, Ruby and Lily took me out to ice cream. It was the most adorable place with the best mix-ins, they said.

"It's actually a front for drugs," Ruby told me later. "But they serve ice cream, so who cares?"

We giggled the way we should have been able to at the beginning of our friendship, sharing spoons and acting like restaurant critics.

"You're officially in," Lily said. "You made it."

"Just in time, too," I said. "We only have a few more weeks left of school and even fewer before the EMS conference. Everyone forgets everything during the summer."

"John passed her on one," Ruby said to Lily with a shrug.

My hurricane sensed conflict and began to spin, whirring amongst my organs like a bumper car. Stay, I told it. Disobedient thing. You're going to ruin everything.