Third Degree (10 page)

“How did you know?”

I rub the sleep from my eyes and stifle a yawn. Sergeant Holloway yelled at a girl the other day for yawning. Told her to give up and take her ass back to bed. The blurriness clears from my eyes, and I take in the paper Marshall’s holding out in front of me. A big blue
60
sits at the top.

“Lucky guess.” I shrug and internally praise myself for such a normal answer. I want to tell him that I bought and read his course textbook in one night, then found copies of all the exams online. I mentally awarded him credit for the obvious choices and then assumed he’d chase his tail on the more open-ended statements, the way he’d done two days ago when we were studying. That probable score worked out to be 60.

He narrows his gaze at me but doesn’t say anything else. The paper gets tucked into his bag, which is resting on the track that surrounds the obstacle course.

“Private Collins!” Holloway shouts, then blows his whistle to follow up. “Ready for duty?”

Marshall jumps to attention. “Yes, sir.”

“We won’t be stopping after the first three stations like we did during the last session,” Holloway explains, pacing in front of the twenty-two students. “Each and every one of you will complete this course in its entirety. Private Collins will demonstrate. Pay close attention to the safety precautions on the wall climb and rope station. If you kill yourself, you get an F.”

Jesus Christ, talk about a lack of logical reasoning. The student handbook clearly states that deceased students can’t be graded, therefore they can’t be flunked.

Marshall takes off, first running through the tires, then under the wire for the army crawl station. He’s got a very specific technique on the army crawl that I could have used the other day. I make a mental note to try his way. Hopefully I won’t end up eating a mouthful of sand for breakfast. After running across a wooden balance beam, he quickly moves on to a long rope that’s spread between two beams but less than three feet off the ground. Marshall turns upside down and hangs from it like a possum, then climbs across it without landing in the sand pit. (I’m assuming we aren’t supposed to land in the sand.)

The hardest obstacle by far is the wall at the end. Marshall uses a rope to help him make
it up the twelve-foot wall, but even with the rope, it requires a great deal of upper-body strength, something a large portion of the females here won’t have—including me.

After climbing down the ladder on the other side of the wall, Marshall returns to the group, only slightly out of breath. Does he come here and train on this course in the middle of the night or something?

“I didn’t realize that you were a private,” I whisper.

“I’m not,” he says. “Holloway just likes to pretend, I guess.”

I poke my elbow into his side. “Some would view that as abnormal behavior.”

“We should ask Kelsey. I know how much you love analytical conversations with psych majors.” Marshall flashes me a grin, and I reply by sticking out my tongue at him.

“Private Collins will be assisting at the wall to make sure none of you try anything stupid,” Hollow shouts.

Two girls behind me start laughing, and one says, “I’m totally sacrificing my body so that hot piece of ass can catch me.”

Oh, lord.

The whistle is blown a few more times, each sharp eruption causing a pain right between my eyes. I wonder how many decibels that thing puts out. Might be causing some minor eardrum damage. We line up in front of the tires as instructed, and I catch Marshall’s arm and whisper, “Watch out for falling girls.”

He gives me a mock salute. “Yes, sir.”

Before I can reply with some unintelligent but choice words, my gaze zooms in on Sergeant Holloway’s left leg. There’s a scar from a transverse incision. “He’s had a knee replacement, hasn’t he?”

Marshall’s eyes follow where mine have landed. “Yeah, he has. How did you know?”

“That’s why he needs a TA,” I say, more to myself than to him. “He can’t be more than thirty-five. What happened?”

“Iraq,” Marshall says. “But he’s still living the life, you know?”

Or bitter and unable to accept his injury and move on to something non-military. I guess being a college PE teacher would fall under non-military, but it sure as hell doesn’t feel like that right now. The other day, he used the phrase “This is war, people!” at least three times. What war are we preparing for, exactly? Final exams at a mediocre university? Petrifying.

“You!” Holloway blows the whistle right in my face. “Go first!”

Great
.

I don’t consider myself an unfit person. I participate in rigorous exercise at least five days per week. (Though I missed days here and there during my internship because we’d sometimes work twenty-four-hour shifts.) And I always make sure to choose a variety of forms—cardio,
strength, and yoga. The hospital has an excellent facility for employees and plenty of classes as well, but I’m not even close to prepared for this level of strength and agility. Not with that big wall waiting for me at the last station.

Despite my efforts to focus on the positive and envision the different muscle groups I’m strengthening, I can’t help thinking, as I’m spitting out sand while crawling on my belly under wires,
How the hell is this going to help me get into Johns Hopkins’s residency program? How the hell is this going to make me a fully qualified doctor?

Holloway keeps blowing his whistle and shouting, “Move it!” But I can’t tell if it’s directed to me or to the students who follow me at thirty-second intervals. The rope for the possum climb cuts into my wrists and ankles, leaving more than a dozen scrapes. By the time I get to the wall where Marshall is poised to assist falling girls, two students have passed me and I’m bent over, clutching my side.

There are actually two ropes in front of this wall; one has knots and one is smooth. Marshall hands me the knotted one while I’m still hunched over. “It’s easier to climb this one.”

A guy zooms up and grabs the rope beside me, flying up the wall in only a few seconds. I shake out my arms. They’re trembling and weak from the possum crawl. I grip the rope with as much strength as I can muster, but when I place my feet on the wall, they just slide right off again, landing in the gravel.

“You have to lean back and put your feet flat against the wall,” Marshall instructs.

I try his way and end up swinging side to side out of control.

“Bend your knees,” he adds.

His technique works fairly well, and I’m able to make it about halfway, but then my arms give out and I’m falling fast. “Shit!”

But of course Mr. TA Extraordinaire (or should I say Private Collins?) is there to catch me. He moves quickly, grabbing me around the waist and allowing my feet to hit the ground first. Holloway blows his whistle again and stomps over to us. He nods toward the other side of the wall. “Go around, Jenkins!”

My eyebrows shoot up. “I thought the point was to go over the wall.”

Marshall pulls me back while another girl takes the rope and struggles but manages to climb to the top.

Holloway rolls his eyes. “If you fall and break your neck, my ass is on the line. Go around!”

I’ve now watched three female students reach the top, and all of them appear to have more body mass than I. I should be able to do this. I’ve lifted hundreds of patients onto gurneys and operating tables.

“I need some help,” one of the girls who ogled Marshall earlier says.

He doesn’t even hesitate, putting his hands all over her and lifting her up the wall.

I wait for a few more students to go over—two get a reprieve, like I did, and are told to walk around the wall—then I grab the rope again. “I can do this,” I tell Marshall, whose mouth has just fallen open in protest.

I plant my feet and bend my knees like he instructed, and this time I get past the halfway point before feeling the sensation of my arms ready to give out again. I release my feet from the wall, hang straight down, then let go of the rope so I can land in the gravel. I come down on my hands and knees, but it’s better than flat on my back, like I would have done the first time if Marshall hadn’t caught me.

“Go around, Jenkins,” Holloway repeats, giving the whistle a sharp toot. “Graduation is in four years. I’d hate for you to miss it.”

“Actually, it’s three years, eight months, and—”

Fweeeee!

I’m going to kidnap, murder, and bury that damn whistle.

Marshall shoves me from behind, toward the other side of the wall, and I have no choice but to concede. For now.

A few minutes later, Holloway has half the group lined up at the start line of the track and the other half inside the track, paired up with a current runner. My partner is a guy who lapped me on the obstacle course, completing three circuits while I attempted and failed to get over the wall just once.

“Four laps around is one mile,” Holloway says, “By the end of this semester, each and every one of you will be running a mile in under nine minutes. Count your partner’s laps and if I catch anyone cheating …” He makes a slicing motion across his neck with his index finger. “And ten bucks for anyone who beats Private Collins’s time.”

Marshall, now poised at the start line, makes an obvious effort to groan, like he hadn’t planned on trying too hard. But right before Holloway starts the first group, I see his muscles tense. He’s ready to pounce. It’s obvious that he loves the challenge. Before eight in the morning, I should note.

My partner moves through the pack quickly to run beside Marshall. Is he going for the ten bucks? This could be an interesting showdown to observe. But I quickly realize that it’s pretty boring counting laps that take over a minute to complete. So it’s not surprising, especially after all the flirting the other night, that my eyes are glued to my RA, studying his stride, the way his calves flex each time his feet meet the ground. And then there are his glutes. Talk about some finely shaped muscles, and I get to stare at them for over half of each lap. Despite the fact that after three laps he’s on a six-minute-mile pace, there’s an ease about him—his shoulders are relaxed and pressed down, his arms swing in this casual manner, and his face is relaxed, too, but
it’s also clear that he’s in the zone.

The guy I’m paired with slows down and is now more than half a lap behind Marshall, who easily finishes first, recording a time of six minutes and twenty seconds. When Holloway shouts the time, Marshall shakes his head and says, “Not my best.”

Show-off.

At least he’s finally red-faced and sweaty like the rest of us. The front of his shirt is completely soaked, too. He peels it off and wipes his face with it. With the sunlight hitting him, his skin looks more bronzed than when I’d seen him shirtless inside our dorm. But soon there’s a sea of shirtless guys to stare at as more students finish the run and remove excess clothing. The last runner finishes in eleven minutes fifteen seconds, and that was one of the girls who made it over the wall. Holloway is clearly disappointed with the small number of nine-minute miles, which is why I’ve got stomach butterflies as I take my place with the second half of the class. The last thing I want is to stand out for being the slowest runner in the class.

All during the first lap, I keep reminding myself that only a month ago I ran a 5K race with my dad. It was a hospital fund-raiser and employees were “strongly encouraged” to participate, so it wasn’t exactly by choice, but I trained for it and finished in twenty-seven minutes and forty seconds. If I could run three miles in that time, then surely I could do one in less than eleven minutes. It’s irrational and illogical to assume I’d be the last one just because the slowest runner so far was able to make it up that damn wall and I wasn’t.

I focus all my attention on the facts, the pure calculations to prove what I should be capable of achieving. I match my pace to a blond-haired guy several strides in front of me. I watch his back and measure his breathing, trying to keep my breaths in line with the pace. Right after the third lap, his breathing starts to shift. At first I think he’s running out of gas, slowing up his pace on purpose, but then his head tilts upward like he’s trying to expand his airway.

Something’s wrong
.

I speed up until I’m within arm’s reach of him and then grab the back of his T-shirt, halting both our movements. “You need to stop.”

He’s wheezing with such effort, he’s now resorted to clutching his chest and making large movements with his upper back and shoulders, as if that will improve his ability to take in air. It won’t.

Sergeant Holloway crosses the track, walking as quickly as his artificial knee will allow. “He’s hyperventilating.” He rests a hand on the guy’s shoulder. “Longfield, put your head between your knees. I swear, you infants would drop like flies if, God forbid, I made you run
two
miles. Jesus Christ.”

Holloway has this way of sounding pissed off and abusive while at the same time showing obvious concern for our safety (maybe just because he doesn’t want to get in trouble for
student injuries happening during his class).

“He’s not hyperventilating,” I say, studying the guy’s chest.

Shirtless Marshall has now joined us with a very concerned look on his face, his cell phone already in his hand. “Is it asthma? Does he have an inhaler?”

“Aha!” I’ve figured out the problem. I grab Longfield’s arm and flip it over. It’s covered in hives.
Allergic reaction
.

Longfield is panicking now. He can’t speak or respond. That seems to be enough of a clue for Marshall and a couple of other students who have gathered around to all pull out their cell phones to call 911. I tune out the voices and focus on the patient, pulling him down to the ground. I search his ankle first for a bracelet and then ask, even though he’s not likely to answer, “Where is it? Surely you’re not stupid enough to go somewhere without—”

But I don’t have to finish. My hand lands on a small pouch strapped to his waist. If he had run shirtless I would have noticed the pouch even before any symptoms hit and this diagnostic hunt wouldn’t have had to happen at all. I could have saved him the anaphylactic shock.