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convalescence.
    At some point we drop the patient off, then run more calls. The day ends. I go home, and whatever I tell Sabrina or my classmates of that first day is edited for content. There are other ride-alongs, more classroom hours. There are other things I do right, other moments I live up to. But as always, lessons are drawn from mistakes, not victories.
    So I learn that knots are knots, that patients will turn on you, and that what happens in the ambulance—well, it’s best that it stay there.

5
Failure Is an Option
    U nlike the first four months, the second half of my EMT course speeds by. We attend class, do our ride-alongs, and work shifts at a local hospital. All this is background noise; nothing matters anymore except the impending doom of the National Registry exam. Alan devotes a chunk of every class to the exam—passing along his tips and warning us not to panic, not to let Registry become a huge stumbling block.
    National Registry consists of two parts—the written and the practical—and sports a fail rate somewhere near 50 percent. Everyone is anxious. If I don’t pass, I can’t work. It’s that simple. If I choke, I’m just a paperboy who took an EMT course. Alan assures us that we can retest but only so many times—after that, it’s back to school. I silently voice to myself the things I must remember: Know the material, trust your instincts, avoid the fatal mistakes—scene safety, scene safety, scene safety. We study. We prepare. We wait.
    Our course work ends in mid-December. After eight months, it’s strange to be set free from the three-nights-a-week mooring we’ve relied on for so long. School, even technical school, becomes an end in itself. On the last night we do a few scenarios, and then Alan asks if we have any final questions. Not one handgoes up. We’re simply ready to leave. After class I head to a Mexican restaurant with my little group of five. We drink, we laugh, we reminisce about this strange bubble we’ve been living in for the last eight months. Nothing about tonight feels final until the tab is paid and we’re drifting out the door one by one. Life is a series of cycles—each nothing but new people, new memories, and eventually, a new ending.
    That weekend Justin and I drive to Savannah to take our exam. We don’t leave much time to spare on the drive down, and rather abruptly, we go from sitting in the car to sitting in a medical annex building, staring at a test booklet. I finish in an hour, and even as I’m walking out, I can’t remember a single question. We have dinner, sleep, wake up, and take our practical exam.
    In contrast to the written, the practical portion is agonizingly slow. There are five stations and a hundred testers. We sit for hours in a stuffy room waiting our turn. Finally, everyone cycles through and it’s over. We line up outside a door and enter the room one by one to see who passed and who failed. More waiting, more waiting, holy fuck, the waiting. Justin goes in first. He emerges shaking his head—he’s failed and will have to retest. Things have just gotten real. I go next, close the door, and smile at the five assembled faces. Someone asks my name. He shuffles through a stack of papers and nods. “You pass. Congratulations.”
    That night I throw away my books and get drunk.
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    Two days later, Sabrina and I are in Paris. We’ve each been here before, though separately, and all the sightseeing that must be done has been done. We wander the Latin Quarter eating gyrosand sandwiches. We walk the Seine at night and eat Nutella-and-banana crepes under the Eiffel Tower. We drink wine all day and ride the Metro drunk just to listen to the gypsies play the accordion. At midnight on New Year’s Eve, we’re under the Arc de Triomphe. It’s nothing but a celebration until 12:01, when the city shuts down the entire