Holding Still for as Long as Possible by Zoe Whittall Page B

a.m. but I’m still just going to jump. Breathe, just breathe. Take a deep breath. Inhale. What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? This is it. This is a sign. That lady is a sign. My hands are shaking. I’m having a stroke. Who has a stroke at twenty-four? People who live in toxic cities. Maybe I should move home. I don’t have a skeleton. No, I have one, and it’s going to break through my skin. When I get home I’ll be able to gauge if I am really dying or if I am just panicking. It’s probably just panic. But it might be the flesh-eating disease. It might be meningitis. It’s an aneurism! ANEURISM . Stop it. Of course it’s an aneurism. It’s a sign. Everything about today makes sense now. The day will end with an exploding blood clot. Of course! They will play the wrong song at my funeral and only people I hate will talk. Dad will go on and on. He will show off my track and field trophies. Okay. Shut up. SHUT UP . I’ve been through this before and lived. You’re going to live. What did that fucking book say? Change your thoughts. Change your thoughts. I am Fine. I am Fine. I am Totally Fine.
    [ 8 ]
    Josh
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    â€œKids show up either dead or alive, and there’s not much we can do about it.” This is what the ER nurse said to me at 7:30 a.m. in the Toronto General Hospital Atrium. Starbucks was open, filled with the early-morning dreary. I nodded. I was trying not to say the nurse’s name because I wasn’t sure if it was Anna or Angela.
    She spoke so matter-of-factly. Wearily. She could have been anywhere between thirty and fifty. Smoker’s lines, night-shift skin, but still young in her eyes. She had taken a liking to me a few weeks ago. I wasn’t sure why.
    â€œAdults can fight, but sometimes with kids they just can or they can’t and there’s not much of a grey area. But it was your first dead baby?”
    â€œYup.”
    â€œAre you okay?”
    â€œI’ll have a double espresso. What do you want?”
    â€œTall mild.”
    The baby was dead when we got there. Dispatch would’ve sent an ALS crew, but Mandy and I happened to be on standby two blocks away. Mom fell asleep breastfeeding. Must have rolled over onto Baby. Fire got there first, and one of them looked like he had no blood left in his face. He was about twenty years old, the body of a linebacker. I told him to go outside and get some air. His eyes were out of focus.
    Sometimes I liked it when other people reacted, so I didn’t have to.
    Mandy said, “Maybe we should book off on stress .”
    We contemplated it, sitting in the truck after the coroner arrived. We stared ahead through the window at absolutely nothing. No radio, no late-night joking. Our phones didn’t buzz. Eventually, I heard Mandy unwrap one of her many vegan green-veggie energy bars. I usually made fun of them, but this time I just listened to her chew and swallow, fold up the wrapper. She leaned her jacket up against the passenger-side window, and cradled her head against it. She looked like she was a tired eight-year-old on a family drive.
    We cleared with Dispatch and had started driving back to the station when we got another call. Delta chest pain; female 52 . We took it, and now we’d been waiting on offload for four hours at Toronto General.
    The baby call felt like it had happened years ago. The nurse and I were chatting in the atrium to stay awake. I paid for her tall mild and my double shot, and walked slowly down University Avenue and back towards the ER . I was practising nonchalance. It occurred to me that if Amy and I did break up, I really would have no idea how to start dating. It made me sad to think I’d even want a new girlfriend. I kept feeling surprised that we’d got to a place where we were even contemplating it.
    Driving back to the station, I saw Billy paused at a red light on Bathurst, leaning against her handlebars, smoking. I leaned out