At this point, I could convince myself that I idolized Andrew, and that was it. He was my mentor, my shining example of how to do this job. My admiration of him as a person was strictly professional.

Which would make sense, in the abstract, because I didn’t know one thing about his life outside work. I knew he drove a Jeep Cherokee because I saw it parked outside, but that was it. Right, I also knew that he didn’t wear a wedding ring. But he could have a significant other anyway, and three kids, or six, or a compound full of sister wives, for all I knew.

The next morning, he pulled up in front of my place. I was waiting outside, knowing not ot waste his time by making him ring the bell.

He reached over and threw the passenger door open for me.

“Doesn’t open from outside,” he explained.

I threw my pack in the back seat. He’d told me to bring a Camelbak full of water, wear lots of layers and sturdy hiking boots, and that was all I knew about our adventure.

We headed out of town on I-90, and Andrew pushed play on a CD. Fleet Foxes was perfect accompaniment for a cool Washington afternoon.

There was no fucking way I was going to ride in silence for… however long this trip would be. This wasn’t a call. There was nothing to plan for, nothing to worry about, I was the passenger and not the driver, threading through fear-frozen drivers.

I looked over at Andrew. His face was different, relaxed, his grip on the wheel loose, his lips parted.

“So how’d you end up being a medic?” I asked at last.

He smiled. “When I was a kid, I was pretty wild. Rebellious as fuck. I would cut school to skate or ride BMX or snowboard, smoke a lot of pot, play video games, and blow off all my homework. One day when I was thirteen, I was skating at a crowded skate park, in one of those big ass bowls. I flew up in the air and I collided with this kid who wasn’t paying attention. I had a helmet, and he didn’t, so of course when he hit the concrete, he cracked his skull. His parents were in the park having a picnic, and they came over all screaming and shit, totally hysterical, and all these other kids were freaking out because he had a head wound, so you know, fuckin’ blood everywhere.”

I nodded. The face and scalp are loaded with blood vessels near the skin, so a head injury can look a lot worse than it really is.

“Then the fire trucks and medics rolled up, and they were these big fuckin’ guys, they looked like bouncers, and they came over to this kid, and they were just… you know, kind. Doing the whole run-through, telling him he’s gonna be okay, and then they started talking about EKGs and pulse ox and laceration. And I…”

He stopped. Gripped the wheel tighter. I waited; I already knew Andrew well enough to know that poking him would only make him clam up tighter.

“I grew up in a family of doctors, with a lot of… expectations about what I was going to do with my life. The whole course of it was planned out for me, like my father before me and his before him and all that. And I knew that day that I didn’t want it. It took me a long time to rebel on the outside, you know, to act on it in a way that really mattered. But from that day, the rebellion was happening in the inside.”

He shook his head. “These guys, man, I could tell they knew their shit. They were so cool under pressure, they were so good at calming down the crazy parents, all at the same time they were focused on fixing this kid up and keeping him awake and... Like… Like life was…”

I waited a few seconds, then I said it. “Like life was a disaster all the time, but you could manage it anyway.”

Andrew looked at me, startled. But only for a moment; his own training yanked his eyes back to the road, keeping them peeled for obstacles, danger.

“Yeah. And they looked like goombahs, like lugs, until you heard ‘em talking like… astronauts or scientists or something. One of the medics was working on me, I had a busted arm, radius and ulna. And I just blurted out to him that I wanted to be a medic. I just decided that minute, you know? And he grinned at me and said, ‘Sure, kid. Couple steps you gotta take. First thing you do is stop smokin’ pot. Second thing is stop cuttin’ class. Then you come down to the firehouse and we’ll show you what’s what.’”

He nodded, and I could see him reliving that boyhood moment, that awe, the sudden sense that something he really wanted was open to him after all.

“The first time I walked in the firehouse, I was hooked. I wanted to be where the action was. I turned everything around, I got through high school, went to college, then I…”

I could see him clamp down on a memory. “Then I went to EMT school, did that for a year, then went to paramedic school. And you?”

“I…” I paused. I liked Andrew’s story. It was a good story, a nice story for a day out. Even if it didn’t make sense in some ways – who graduates from college and then becomes an EMT for ten bucks an hour? There was a lot missing there, but, I wasn’t going to pry.

At any rate, it was still a good story, and I didn’t want to ruin it with mine.

“Hey,” he said gently. “Don’t sweat it. Look, we’re here.”

I exhaled as I realized we’d reached a trail head parking lot. Damn, he was good with injured people.

“You ever done Mailbox Peak?”

I shook my head.

He smiled. “Good.”