Emergency Medical Dad

LIII: spring, past

edit: ch title number was wrong
JORGEN

Scott Miller's information was in my file for seven weeks before I asked for it. Seven weeks. I got transferred home, back to a house I thought I'd never return to. I could barely move enough to shower, to get active at all. I needed help to stand, to sit, to roll over, to go to the bathroom. It was awful. 

I needed an excuse to leave. I needed something that could get me up on my crutches and not at all near the same four walls that had been haunting me. I needed to get out. I'd watched my way through everything even remotely interesting on netflix, read a stack of books I didn't even want to, thoroughly struggled with taking my finals from home. I needed to leave.

I didn't even think I'd like the class, but ten hours a week away from my house was something I couldn't pass up.

The class was in the city hall, a big gross building with tall pillars that was almost scary to look at. I managed to convince my parents not to come with me after a week of arguing. I was seven weeks healed, I could handle myself. The wound was completely closed, so was the bullet hole, they were starting to take fitting a prothstesis seriously, having me practice at home and even sometimes I got to go into their office to work which was exhausting but I'd give anything to get out of the house so if that took working PT until I was shaking like a leaf, I'd take it.

The front desk was busy but not busy enough to ignore me, skinny and far too tall, haphazardly standing on only one foot and two crutches.

"Sir?" One of them had beckoned me forward.

"I'm looking for Scott Miller's class," I blurted. "I'm on a list somewhere."

The woman at the desk nodded, pulling up a different file on her computer, "name?"

"Jorgen Hadley."

She clicked something, "fourth floor, room 415. Can you find that on your own?"

I nodded, "thanks."

I prayed she wouldn't stop me and make me walk up with someone else that could be on make sure the amputee doesn't break himself on the way to the elevator duty. I'd already begun to hate that and I couldn't see myself ever not hating it.

The room was easy to find. It had people in it, one of the only rooms on the floor that appeared to be in use at the time, and it was labeled EMT COURSE on the outside.

I decided that a spot in the middle was my best bet. There were obviously guys in the back taking the course to fulfill who knows what requirement, people in the direct front that looked like a combination of high schoolers looking to make their diploma as shiny as possible and middle aged people going through a crisis or something. Of the three rows, the middle seemed most appropriate.

I took a seat on the side, away from the other people in my row. A short, warm-eyed girl with a notebook out and a pen that sparkled, and a tired kid looking at something on his phone.

I was using the back half of the chemistry notebook I had used that year, with the wrinkles in the sheets from water I'd spilled on it and a couple cup rings on the back cardboard from haphazardly leaving it on the counter at the Barn for someone to use as a beer coaster.

"You made it," Scott was next to me and speaking before I realized it.

I looked up at him, "I needed a good excuse to get out of the house. This seemed reasonable."

"If you can stomach today, it'll be reasonable enough."

I frowned, "what do you mean?"

"Today's the first day. It means I scare out all of everyone with weak stomachs."

"I doubt-"

    "You might find yourself surprised."

    It took fifteen minutes for him to let everyone settle down. When the clock struck start time, the class was full. Well, fuller than I expected it to be. Technically, overfull.

    "Today, we're going to hit it off with a couple of intro things. I want to make sure all of you can handle this before we get too far into it."

    Scott was not lying.

    His method consisted of this: he gave us an overview of what the tone was, or what he had made up, considering the fact that I think he wasn't allowed to share that information, but only I seemed to come to that conclusion. After the overview of the call, he'd show us photos of what it looked like when he got to the scene, which, again, I didn't think he was allowed do that but I didn't comment. Then he'd tell us how he finished it and what the outcome was.

    It was a lot of blood. A lot of blood, a lot of brains, a lot of spilled lunch, a lot of things I didn't really need to see but hell to it, it didn't really bother me that much. It bothered me less than I thought it would.

    It bothered the others more. By the time he'd made it to slide fifteen, the four people standing in the back could sit down in chairs emptied by people who excused themselves from the room. He said that was okay, that it was perfectly alright if you had to go. The rest of us, he told that we would be trained in how to handle feeling sick. I figured by that he meant that we'd be exposed to enough of it at some point that it would dull down our reactions.

    Judging from the fact that mine was already dull, I should've been less worried about the exposure.

    The only thing I almost lost it at was the couple images of an awful car crash, a tuft of red hair caught in the crack on the window and ripped clean from the scalp of the driver as they'd whipped back from the initial impact.

    The only reason I didn't lose it was because he said the photo was old, around a decade ago.

    I don't know what about that made me feel fine about the image and I don't know what about the image made me feel nauseous.

    He moved past it fast enough that I didn't analyze.

    At the end, when we'd narrowed down the group to a hearty fifteen, he had us go around the room, stand up, and tell everyone why we came.

    When it was my turn, I didn't know what to say and what came out was "I'm Jorgen Hadley, and I hit a dead end."

***

it's not long but hey it's here

-rabid