Page 10 of Falling for my First Crush

Joe fills the nurses in on the ride over, and then they whisk the little guy away into the depths of Walnut Bend General. Our job is done, but that doesn’t mean I can put aside the feelings this ride has brought up in me. My worry about the baby still hasn’t subsided either. One glance over at Joe, and I can tell that he feels the same.

“This was pretty intense, huh?” I venture to say.

Joe glances at me and slowly nods, but he doesn’t say anything. I’m not sure how to read the situation. Is he mad at me? Does he know that I was mad at him? Is he just waiting for the right moment to ask about Maia again? It’s hard for me to reconcile these thoughts with the professionalism and calm he exhibited on the ride over. Maybe Joe Lawrence is more of an enigma than I realized. And everything in me at the moment is screaming that I want to get to know him better all over again.

Six

JOE

My heart is still hammering in my chest as I stare at the closed ER doors. I hear Jackie’s question at a distance, like she’s talking to me underwater. I know that she said something about the situation, but when I look at her, my mind goes completely blank. It’s awful when my work has something to do with kids. A newborn baby is the absolute worst.

The baby’s oxygen levels kept plummeting, and I didn’t know if I was going to be able to make the journey all the way to Walnut Bend. Jackie was remarkably calm in the face of the pressure. If I could find my words, I would tell her that. But I still can’t seem to put two thoughts together. I blink at her, and she seems concerned.

John, our driver tonight, comes up to where Jackie and I are standing. “How are you guys doing?” he asks.

I just look at him, but Jackie shakes her head. “I’m still trembling,” she says, holding out a trembling hand. “I don’t usually go for the ride-alongs. I don’t know how you guys handle the pressure.”

John gives her a rueful smile. “It’s not something that you get used to. We just do the job that’s in front of us.”

“Well, I’m sure impressed,” Jackie says, smiling back at him.

If I didn’t know better, I would say that the two of them are flirting with each other. It’s not like I would care if they were, but I decide that I must be reading the situation wrong, since I’ve been so shaken up by the ride. I grunt as some kind of contribution to the conversation. Neither John nor Jackie look at me. Suddenly, I feel a wave of irritation roll over me. That must be my reaction to having to deal with such a traumatic event. Now I’m coming back to myself.

“I’m just exhausted,” I say.

John and Jackie look at me like they forgot I’m here with them. Clearly they are indeed flirting. I feel another flash of irritation. I’m seriously way more tired than I usually am after a ride. We rotate through the various positions at the firehouse. I’m not sure if every station does it this way, but it works in Cranberry Creek, so who am I to question it? It does help us from getting bored. At the moment, however, I’m not sure that I want to have another EMT rotation any time soon.

As I am standing there thinking about my exhaustion and irritation, I finally take a good look at Jackie. I notice how pale she looks at the moment. All thoughts of my own annoyance flee my mind, and I take a step toward her.

“Hey, Jackie? Are you okay?” I ask just as she sways on her feet. John and I both step toward her at the same time.

Jackie holds up her hand. “I’m okay,” she says. “Just exhausted. That took a lot more out of me than I realized. I think I need something to eat. I don’t remember when the last time I had food was.”

“Let’s take a break,” John suggests. “We can get something to eat in the cafeteria. Then we’ll head back to Cranberry Creek. How does that sound?”

Part of me just wants to say that we should head back now, but Jackie is already nodding, so I’m outnumbered, before I even speak. So I nod, too. It isn’t a terrible idea actually. Food will help us regain some strength, and the break will help us refocus. I don’t know about Jackie, but John and I have to head back to work for another ten hours or so of our shift. I assume she has to go back to work as well.

“I hope the cafeteria here has better food than we have at Cranberry Creek,” Jackie says as we head toward the ER doors.

John laughs like Jackie just said the funniest thing ever. She gives him a strange look, like she can’t figure out his response. Honestly, I’m not sure how to react to his response either. But the thing about the moment that strikes me the most, is that I realize that I don’t know this version of Jackie at all. She’s an adult. The last time I saw her, she was really just a kid. Okay, a teenager, but to me she was just Maia’s kid sister. This version of Jackie, who is flirting with my coworker, makes me feel odd… and protective, like I’m not sure if John is even good enough for her.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” I say, my tone coming out harder than I intended it. Neither one seems to notice, though.

Jackie pauses and studies the hospital directory posted on the wall. “It seems like the cafeteria is on this floor toward the back.”

“Well, let’s go,” John says, offering Jackie his arm. She giggles and takes it. The two of them head off down the corridor with me trailing behind.

I take a deep breath, needing to clear my head. My thoughts keep going back to the baby’s tiny face, nearly swallowed up by the oxygen mask that we kept having to adjust. I’m sure that the baby will still need to have some help with his breathing. There were a couple of moments when his coloring faded to a sickish gray color, with the little lips turning a blueish tint. I honestly didn’t know if he would make it.

Jackie and I managed to keep him alive, though. We delivered him into the capable hands of the nurses here. This is what they’re trained for and specialize in. So even though the whole drive here was one big ball of stress, we did our jobs. A baby has a chance at life tonight because of what we did. I need to remind myself of that, so I can move past this. That’s one of the tricks that I’ve learned over the years: how to compartmentalize each traumatic event that I’ve been through. I give myself a chance to be upset, to “feel my feelings” as my therapist would say, but then I lock my emotions down and put them away, focusing forward on the good.

Therapy wasn’t ever something that I wanted to do in my life. I had a fairly serious girlfriend six years ago, who insisted we go to therapy, both together and individually. Our relationship didn’t last, but I did keep seeing my therapist for a full year after we broke up. I think the therapy visits helped me to deal with some of the things that I saw on my tours of duty and the stress of being a wildfire firefighter. I can still use the techniques for stressors now. Hey, what can I say? I’m enlightened.

The cafeteria is a standard issue hospital cafeteria, although it’s decorated better than most I’ve been in. It also smells better than most hospital cafeterias. My stomach growls in anticipation. Jackie must have heard, because she glances over her shoulder and smirks at me. Even back when I was tight with the Morettis, my stomach was infamous for loudly asserting itself. I arch an eyebrow back at her. I swear that she blushes before turning back around. That’s another new thing about Jackie. She would never have backed down when we were younger. She accepted a challenge like it was second nature to her. Feisty and always ready to share her mind. I always appreciated that about her, but it also got her into plenty of spats with her older sisters.

“What do you think you’re going to order?” John asks Jackie, apparently oblivious to the interaction we just had.

“Probably just a grilled cheese and tomato soup,” she says. “Comfort food that’s hard to ruin.”

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