When we arrived at the dorm, I sat down and wrote the answers to the questions they had asked, filling out each question with small paragraphs. I eliminated anything that said that I wanted to join EMS in order to help people and instead focused on a desire for community and a need to be prepared for any problem. I told them my major was Psychology but I withheld the fact that I was taking all of the other science classes in order to be prepared for medical school. I nipped and tucked until my application was ready to submit.

I pressed the “Go” button, sending my application into a void where I hoped it would be received favorably. In an instant, I started regretting things. I could have changed wordings and rearranged the structure of my answers. Why had I chosen to make that joke about the freeze pops? They loved those freeze pops. Had I hidden my pre-med aspirations well enough? What if that ‘don’t tell anyone you want to help people’ was a test to make sure that I really did want to help people?

I climbed onto the radiator in order to get into my unnaturally high bed. Usually, I used a running leap but I just wasn’t feeling it. I hugged my pillow to my chest, obscuring my face from the world. I closed my eyes and thought of happy things. I thought of my brother, who was starting high school this week and how happy he must be to be a revered high schooler, top of the K-12 food chain. I wondered if he was worrying already about how our parents would react to his grades. I wondered if he missed me. He was one of the only people who gave me my space, who didn’t expect me to be a certain way.

My mother wanted me to be as attractive to the outside world as possible. Some mothers try to keep their daughters from having boyfriends. Mine was not one of them. Whenever I told her I was hanging out with a friend, she would fight me about the details of when I would be home until she heard that it was a boy. Then, she was perfectly okay with me staying out for as long as I wanted. I tried to avoid boys for that reason for a long time. I never had the urge to sneak away to the bathroom with the boy I had paired up with. I was both mother and child.

My father, on the other hand, just wanted good grades. Results, he said. For what he was paying for. Every semester, he challenged me to get straight A’s. He expected it. One semester, I brought home a report care with four A’s and an A minus. He screamed and yelled. An A minus is not an A, he said. I tried to explain that this was not the case but he refused to listen. “The fact that you have to say minus means that it’s not an A. What’s the difference between this and a B plus?” he said. I never got an A minus again. It wasn’t worth it.

Knock, knock.

I pulled the pillow off of my face. “Come in.”

Flint opened the door. “Sleeping already? It’s only 10 pm.”

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I put the pillow back over my face.

Flint pulled it down. “Don’t you know that the hour between 10 and 11 pm is sad girl hour?”

I glared at him.

“Only sad girls sleep during this hour.”

I sat up. I didn’t want to be a sad girl.

He kissed my cheek. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go get that 2000 calorie Brownie Mountain Supreme they’re offering to the freshmen downstairs. I need someone to take mouse sized bites while I eat the majority of it.”

I followed him downstairs, filled with new warmth. As we dug into the aptly named Brownie Mountain Supreme, I studied his face.

“I applied to EMS today.”

We high fived.

“You are going to look so official in your uniform,” he said.

“If I even get an interview.” I shook my head and skewered another brownie chunk, smothering it in vanilla ice cream.

“Super Andi.” He posed. “Saving the world, one philosophy student at a time.”

“I petitioned to get into my Creative Writing class today,” he said.

We high-fived again. His gentle hands were covered in calluses. He didn’t try to high-five as hard as he could, like the guys at my high school.

My phone buzzed, moving across the table. I checked the screen. It was an email: an email asking me to be at an interview the next day.

“What’s the rush?” Flint said.

“I’m just thankful I don’t have to wait a week. I don’t know if I would have nails anymore. I’d be so nervous.”

“EMS, nail hero!” Flint said.

I wrote back quickly, confirming my interview time. I would be missing part of my statistics class, but I was okay with that. Statistics didn’t save lives.

I chanted Flint into finishing the rest of his brownie and dragged him upstairs. I needed the perfect outfit for the next day. Something professional so they would take me seriously, but not an outfit that took itself too seriously, or they wouldn’t think I was fun. My closet was not well equipped for this kind of demand. I liked large, loose sweaters that allowed me to relax while looking like I put some effort into my outfit. Sweaters didn’t quite scream professional. They screamed, “I’m at home reading a nice book and drinking a cup of tea.”

I don’t think that people who do EMS even know what tea is. I bet it’s just hardcore black coffee for all occasions. I can’t even drink black coffee. My heart starts feeling like it’s going to pound out of my chest, my insides start quivering and I start sweating. It’s a thoroughly unpleasant experience and I tend to try to stay away from it. I’ve only ever drunk a cup of black coffee once. That was enough for me. If they asked me to, I think I would drink black coffee. They could probably resuscitate me anyway if I had a heart attack.

I settled on a pair of black pants and a short-sleeved, but collared shirt. I set them out on the back of my desk chair.