March

The week prior to Spring Fling was a whirlwind of activity. Third party tents started popping up all over campus. Signs for every kind of themed alcoholic event possible covered the electrical poles, the billboards, the sidewalk and the back of my eyelids. The atmosphere was electric. There was a countdown ticking away in everyone’s heads; it is almost time. I got ready to spend a lot of the weekend doing my homework. During the day, from eight am to two pm, if people were feeling conservative, were the times when everything apparently slowed down. We had been told not to plan to do anything during the rest of the twenty-four hour period in a day because we would be running around.

By the time the weekend came, everyone had been warned. The neighbors had been asked to please excuse the students as they let loose for the only time that year. The city paramedics had been warned that there would be an unusually high number of intox calls. The students had been warned that the police would be on patrol for the underage among them. We had been warned that this was our last chance to pass calls.

Lily had passed her last call and gone through her scenarios a few weeks prior, which left me as the only one of our friends who hadn’t moved up.

I went to Flint’s room to see what his plans were. He jumped when I opened the door without knocking. His face didn’t have the same smiling light it usually did, when I saw him. He seemed to have been staring at one beam in his bed frame for a while.

“What does a guy have to do to get a little privacy around here?” he said.

“Stop leaving his door unlocked,” I said, shutting the door behind me. “Are you doing anything fun for Spring Fling? Remember, I have to live vicariously through you.”

“Right to the point. That’s my girl.” He pushed his fingers through his hair in his typical thoughtful way, as if I had asked him a philosophical question. “Probably just going to lay low. People have been getting pretty crazy preparing for this. I feel like something bad is going to happen.”

I looked at him again. He seemed paler than usual and sweaty. I reached out to touch his forehead.

He slapped my hand away. “I’m fine.”

I held my hand in my other hand, behind my back, like I was leading myself off my favorite playground. “Why did you do that?”

“I don’t want to be touched.”

“I was trying to help. You don’t look well,” I said.

He shook his head. “I have homework to do.”

Dismissed, I walked towards the door. When I glanced back, Flint was staring at a different beam in his bed like he expected it all to come crashing down around him. He didn’t have any homework in front of him, not even paper. I slammed the door on my way out, probably angering the rest of the floor and not bothering Flint one bit.

Why was he always so confusing? What had I done wrong? Why had he reminded me of my father in that moment?

I tried to push that thought out of my mind without thinking about it. I couldn’t bear it if it was true.

* * *

My teachers had assigned a test and a project for after Spring Fling weekend, probably to try to temper the drinking with the need to get something done. But they didn’t understand. The project would just stress everyone out the Monday after the weekend. It was taboo to do homework during this sacred time. This weekend was for shoving all the shenanigans we usually didn’t do into reality. So I tried to work on studying for this test and making this project early. I could feel the excitement radiating from the other rooms. It made the lights brighter, the air crisper. Ruby was all smiles for a change. Someone had bought her a bottle of neon pink liquor. She told me it tasted awful but it looked so pretty, didn’t it?

We walked to the office together to get my jumpkit so I could go on duty. Ruby just wanted to hang out. I wanted to go over drills so I knew what to do if something terrible-awful happened. Like a party chandelier fell on someone’s head or there was a heroin overdose or a heart attack. They ran me through an intox and then sat around talking. Ruby dominated the conversation, switching from jokes to serious questions like an expert DJ.

DOOOO-DOOOOOOOH.

We all leapt up, accompanied by the familiar curses and whoops that came with being dispatched. I picked my jumpkit up and started running. If I didn’t get there when the Crew Chief and Supervisor did, I wouldn’t be able to lead and pass a call. They jumped in the car, so I had to run back and join them. There was no way I was faster than a police vehicle repurposed for EMS.

“You all set? You know what to do?” John asked from the front seat.

“What was the dispatch again?”

“Intox,” he said. “It’s started.”

Sandy rolled her eyes. His grin was huge. He got such a thrill out of the rush of adrenaline that came with each call. As long as you weren’t doing anything important, getting an EMS call was fun. I ran through the checklist I had made in my head for intox calls. I had taken to codifying the types of calls we had to make up for the fact that my brain couldn’t handle fast changes as well as it used to. “I’m getting older now,” I imagined my brain saying. “You’re still 18,” I told it. “Just because you’re a little bruised…”

We arrived at my dorm. That’s when I knew something was wrong. It was a freshman dorm and supposed to be dry at all times. Sandy tried to block me from going in first, but I ducked around her and through the open door. The police were already there and an officer led us up a few floors, to my floor. My stomach dropped even more. What if it was someone I knew? I prayed that some upperclassman had forgotten that they didn’t live here anymore and stumbled into the building in a drunken haze.

Flint’ roommate was outside their room. His words started filtering in slowly.

“I couldn’t wake him up. I thought it was weird. I don’t know what happened. Is he going to be okay?”

I gestured him aside. I felt like icicles were forming on my internal organs. Don’t move the wrong way, Andi. Something will explode.

Flint was lying on the floor in a starfish position. He didn’t seem to be breathing so I checked for drug paraphernalia, prescription bottles and alcohol. Nothing except for an empty fifth. I almost slapped him. You’re an idiot, I wanted to tell him. Instead, I sternal rubbed him, a way of getting a painful response mixed with maybe a little bit of payback. He woke up just enough to look at me.

“Andi…you never tell me anything,” he said.

“Flint, stay with me,” I said. His eyes shut.

“Sandy, call the medics. John, get the oxygen and set it up. I’m going to do a rapid trauma and put him on his side so he doesn’t asphyxiate if he throws up.”

They went to do as I had said, John lingering a little longer. “Is that the Flint?”

“Do you need a sternal rub too?” I surprised myself with my anger. That was what he was focusing on. Flint needed to be in a hospital.

I pushed his hair, floppy with sweat from his forehead. He wasn’t breathing well. I sternal rubbed him again but he just moaned. Wake up, idiot, I thought. I pulled my hand back when John entered the room. He dropped the oxygen bag on the floor and stood above us, pulling some sort of cosmic rank. I pulled the oxygen bag over to me, hoping that somehow it would transfer the will to live through the tubes and out of the valves into Flint’ limp body. John’s temper tantrum wasn’t important right then. Flint started to throw up. I glanced at the mixture and noticed a few half-digested pills.

“Sandy, update the medics, there were drugs involved, not just alcohol.”

“Sure,” she said. “He have any other friends here? Anything that can tell us what happened?”

I kept my eyes trained on the oxygen bag and rattled off the possibilities. “Possible suicide.”

“What makes you think suicide?” she said.

I grabbed for any excuse I could think of. “It’s a feeling I have.”

“Great,” Sandy said. “I love when we base medical decisions on feelings.”

“Did you try to wake him up?” John said. “I bet you didn’t try hard enough.” He grabbed Flint’ ear and twisted it. Flint moaned and pulled away.

“Leave him alone,” I said, swatting at him. “I’m checking to make sure he’s responsive.”

“I’m sure he is responsive to you,” John said. If he had been outside, I’m sure he would have spit on the floor.

I longed to be outside of this room. My worlds were colliding and I was afraid that this would be the end, like the reverse big bang. After what felt like an eternity, the medics arrived. John transferred to them with as much condescending language as he could fit into five sentences. The medics put him on a stretcher, covered him up with sheets whiter than a lily and certainly whiter than our Lily, and buckled him in. I found his wallet and tucked it into the side of the stretcher. I bargained with whoever the higher power was. I’ll do anything. I’ll work harder in school. I’ll be more honest. I’ll quit EMS. Just help him. I wished that I could go with him, be there when he woke up. But I was on duty and leaving would probably get me kicked out.

“Freshmen,” John said to Sandy when the medics had left.

I stalked out of the room carrying as many of the bags and oxygen tanks as I could. It wasn’t dignified or angry in any way. It was clumsy and I ran into every corner and doorjam on the way out. John and Sandy followed with their personal jumpkits, joking about how great Spring Fling was. I tried to ignore them but they wanted to debrief the call. Sandy had no idea what she had walked in to. John was well aware and didn’t care.

“I wonder what he took,” Sandy said. “Could you tell what the pills were?”

I shook my head.

“Why are you so down, Andi?” John said. “That was the perfect call. You did everything right. Any reasonable human being would pass you on that.”

“I won’t,” Sandy said.

“Point proven,” John said. “I’ll pass you on it. That’s your third one, right? Don’t worry about that patient. I’m sure he’ll be very happy he got you your last pass.”

The patient. I glowered at John, wondering if he had suffered a concussion as well. Perhaps it would help him see the situation more clearly if he lost some prideful brain cells. That pass was what I had wanted for a year.

I glanced outside to see if the ambulance was still outside. Its lights were piercing through the window. I dropped the oxygen tank on the ground, ignoring Sandy’s annoyed gasp.

“Consider this notice of my off time. I’m going with him.”

I started to run towards the ambulance, down the hall and then the stairs.

“I’ll handle it,” I heard from behind me.

I sped up but John caught me just as I reached up and knocked on the door.

“Andi, you can’t do this. You have a responsibility to the greater campus. You can’t just go jumping in ambulances.”

The ambulance door opened.

“Is it okay if I ride with you?” I said to the paramedic.

He waved me up.

I turned to John as I climbed the stairs. “Don’t tell me what to do.”