People, Places, and Things

4. A Day in the Life of an EMT

4. A Day in the Life of an EMT

My alarm went off at five thirty in the morning. I smacked my iPhone obnoxiously, trying to get it to stop. When I succeeded, I rolled out of my bed and shuffled down the stairs, through the living room and into the kitchen. I made a cup of coffee (when I graduated high school, Dad got me a Keurig, saying that as a working college kid I would need the caffeine for all-nighters) and grabbed my coffee syrup and those sorts of things. By the time I had gathered my coffee items, my cup was finished. 

While I sipped my coffee (it was caramel flavored), I watched the news. It was my morning ritual. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long enough. For I finished my caffeine, and I needed to get dressed. So I went back upstairs again and threw on my uniform that proudly bore EMS on the sleeves, put all of my things in my massive amount of pockets, such as my scissors, and yanked on my boots that laced up my calves. Then I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and put my hair up. 

After that, I was free to go. 

So I picked up my lanyard and headed out to Tina. It was still dark out. I realized that I was a little bit early, but that wasn’t too big of a deal. Besides, I soon realized that Tina would not start. I groaned and punched the dashboard—she likes it rough. 

Sliding my phone from my pocket, I called Jackson. 

With a grumble, he answered.

“Hey, Tina won’t start,” I told him. 

“And you’d like a ride to work.”

“Yes, please.”

I heard the shuffling of fabric, as if he was getting out of bed and getting dressed. “I’m on my way.”

I tucked my phone back into my pocket back inside my pocket before going inside again, because it was very cold and snowy. I noticed I had forgotten to pick up my bag, so I grabbed that, and clipped my badge to one of my breast pockets. 

It took Jackson ten minutes or so to get to my house. He lived across town, on the university campus, but he drove fast. When he pulled up, I jumped into the cab of his truck and leaned over to kiss him. 

“You owe me so much,” he grumbled. Sleep still touched his voice, along with a slight Southern accent. He had moved here from Texas for college. We were in a long-distance relationship since I was a junior, and he was a freshman. Now that he was in college too, he moved up north a little bit to be closer to me. He had to live on campus though, which sucked, but I saw him more now that I ever did before. 

I grabbed onto his hand and rubbed circles into it with my thumbs. While he drove, I studied him. I found myself doing that a lot lately. It always felt like he was going to suddenly disappear. I has only seen him maybe ever year or year and a half when he lived in Texas, so the fact he was now here all the time was…mind blowing. 

Jackson was tall, like really tall. His truck was giant and only a year old, because he would have hit his head on the ceiling of anything else. He was almost six and a half feet giant, which was more than a foot taller than me. He was also very, very athletic, so he was pretty much solid muscle. He played football in high school, and he worked out all the time on his own. He was also dirty blonde, with hair that I made him keep long enough that his bangs almost hung in his eyes and he looked sort of like a scruffy puppy. From being asleep, his hair was sticking up all over, like he hadn’t even tried to fix it. His eyes, looking to the road, weren’t quite dark brown, so they were a shade or two lighter than mine. His skin was golden and tanned, from living in the Deep South, and even now he spent a lot of time outside. There was also a slight shadowing across his jaw, from his lack of shaving yet.