Chapter 3 — The First Heartbeat

The whole week before the CPR practice session, Thien Kim hardly thought about anything else. During class, she absentmindedly drew a heart shape with two arrow lines indicating the position of her hand on the corner of her sketchbook. During lunch, she turned on her phone and watched CPR instructional videos for the umpteenth time, counting the beats to the song "Stayin' Alive," which a video had suggested as a standard rhythm for one hundred to one hundred and twenty compressions per minute.

"What are you doing, muttering 'ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' alive' all the time?" Tuyet Mai asked during recess, looking at her friend with both funny and worried eyes.

"It's the standard rhythm for chest compressions," Thien Kim replied, without any embarrassment. "A hundred times a minute. I'm getting used to the rhythm."

"You know it's not time for practice yet," Tuyet Mai shook her head. "You're worrying too much."

Thien Kim knew her friend was right, but she couldn't stop. For her, thorough preparation was not a choice, but an almost instinctive need — the more she prepared, the less afraid she felt, even if it was just an illusion.

Thursday afternoon, the medical room was cleared to make room for three CPR dummies on three different mats, each with a team of three to four people in charge of rotating them. Minh Vu stood in the middle of the room, holding a small stopwatch, explaining the process to the group.

"We'll practice in full order today," he said, his voice more serious than usual, though still maintaining his usual ease. "First is to check the reaction — shake the shoulder, call out. Then call for support or call an ambulance. Then come chest compressions, thirty times in a row, at a speed of one hundred to one hundred and twenty times per minute, about five to six centimeters deep. Anyone who has learned it before, don't be subjective, because the first time practicing on a real mannequin will be much different than just watching a video."

Thien Kim was placed in a group with Duc and a female friend named Linh, practicing on the second dummy. She stood and watched Linh practice first, trying to remember every little detail — the way Linh placed the heel of her hand on the center of the mannequin's chest, the way her elbows remained straight, the way her entire body weight came down over her shoulders and not just the force of her arms.

Then it was her turn.

Thien Kim knelt down next to the mannequin, followed the first steps correctly: shaking the mannequin's shoulders, calling out "Brother, can you hear me?" according to the pre-arranged script, then pretended to call Duc standing nearby to "call an ambulance for me!". When it came to the chest compression step, she placed her hands in the correct position, preparing to begin.

But the moment her hand touched the mannequin's hard plastic chest, something in her mind suddenly stopped.

It wasn't that she had forgotten the steps — she still remembered them clearly, the thirty-two ratio, the one hundred beats per minute tempo, the five centimeter depth, it was all still fresh in her mind like a printed list. But she couldn't lift her hand. Her body, as if there was an invisible string tightening, refused to obey the orders from her brain.

In her mind, the image of baby Bin three years ago suddenly flashed back - his pale face, his eyes wide open in panic, the choking cough he couldn't escape, and herself, standing there, motionless, unable to do anything.

"Thien Kim?" Duc called, his voice a bit worried when he saw her kneeling silently next to the mannequin for so long. "Are you okay?"

That call seemed to pull her back to reality. Thien Kim was startled and tried to start chest compressions, but her movements now became stiff and irregular, her counting was constantly wrong - she counted to "twenty-three" and then repeated "twenty-two", her hands shook, sweat began to form on her forehead even though the classroom was not hot.

She tried to concentrate, tried to remember the rhythm of the song she had been practicing all week, but the more she tried, the more confused her mind became. At the twenty-eighth compression, her hand completely stopped, trembling on the mannequin's chest, unable to continue.

"Sorry," she whispered, her voice barely audible, her eyes lowered to look at the lifeless plastic mannequin in front of her as if it were a living thing she had just disappointed. "I... I can't do it."

The small group around was silent for a moment. Duc and Linh looked at each other, not knowing what to say. In the next group, a few people also turned their heads to look over, even if only for a moment, then returned to their practice.

Minh Vu, who was walking around observing the groups, immediately realized something was wrong. He walked closer, not in a hurry, didn't show panic or surprise, just sat down next to Thien Kim, at eye level with her.

"Hey," he said, his voice soft, almost a whisper so as not to attract the others' attention. "It's okay. This is just a plastic mannequin, not a real person. No one is in danger."

Thien Kim looked up at him, her eyes red, trying to hold back the tears that were about to flow out of shame. "I know," she said, her voice choked. "I know this is just a dummy. But I still... I still can't do it."

"Yes, I see," Minh Vu nodded, without any judgment in his voice. "So now let's try something a little different. No need to count the rhythm of the song, no need to remember all the steps at once. Just do one thing: put your hand up, press down once. Just once."

"Just once?" Thien Kim asked again, her voice still shaking.

"Yes, just once," Minh Vu repeated, patiently. "It doesn't need to be the right rhythm, it doesn't need to be the right depth from the start. Just press down once, then lift up. Then I'll tell you the next step."

Thien Kim took a deep breath and tried to do as he said. She placed her hand back on the center of the mannequin's chest, and this time, instead of thinking about all thirty compressions, she thought about just one. She pressed down. Once.

"Good," Minh Vu said immediately, his voice encouraging but not too showy. "Now do it one more time."

Just like that, each time, Minh Vu led her through each compression movement, without urging, without mentioning the number thirty or the standard pace, simply counting with her, "one, two, three" slowly, so that she gradually regained her breathing and control over her hands. By the fifteenth time, her chest compressions began to become more regular, her hands no longer trembled, and she could continue counting without Minh Vu reminding her of each number.

When she completed thirty compressions, even though it wasn't quite at the right pace, Minh Vu nodded with satisfaction. "Very good. Now it's time for the breathing step — today we'll only practice on a dummy that has separate parts for cleaning, so please rest assured to follow the correct technique."

Thien Kim completed the rest of the exercise while still slightly shaken, but no longer frozen. When she stood up after finishing, she felt exhausted as if she had just run a long distance, even though in reality she had only been kneeling in place for a few minutes.

At the end of the class, when everyone gradually left, Thien Kim stayed behind to pack her things, deliberately waiting until the room was empty so she wouldn't have to face the eyes of others. Minh Vu, who was arranging the mannequins in the corner of the room, realized she was still there and approached.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice sincere.

"I'm sorry for earlier," Thien Kim said immediately, not waiting for him to ask more. "You're wasting the group's time, and you're also making everyone pay attention to you."

"No one thinks like that," Minh Vu shook his head. "You know, this is normal. A lot of people, even adults who have learned CPR many times, still freeze the first time they practice it seriously. My body can't distinguish between a plastic dummy and a real person, especially if my mind thinks of something."

That last sentence made Thien Kim pause and look up at him. "How do you know I think of something?"

Minh Vu smiled slightly, not looking complacent because he had guessed correctly. "I don't know what exactly. But I saw the look in your eyes at that moment — not the eyes of someone who forgot their lesson, but the eyes of someone who was remembering something very specific. I've seen that look in a few other people before."

Thien Kim was silent for a long time, considering whether to speak or not. In the end, she only said a small part. "Something happened to me, three years ago. Not during practice, but something real. I don't want to go into details now, but... that's why I reacted like that."

"You don't have to say anything if you're not ready," Minh Vu said immediately, without asking. "But I want you to know something — just because you froze today doesn't mean you're incapable. It just means you have an old wound that needs time to heal. And this club, if you want, can be a place for you to practice healing that wound, little by little."

Those words touched a very deep place in Thien Kim's heart, deeper than what Tuyet Mai had ever said to her, perhaps because it came from someone who did not know her story clearly but still saw through the nature of that fear through just a few seconds of observation.

"Thank you," she said, her voice small but sincere. "I will try to continue."

"No need to try," Minh Vu smiled, his voice returning to its familiar comfort. "Just come. Let the club take care of the rest."

On the way home that day, Thien Kim walked more slowly than usual, letting the cool afternoon breeze blow through, giving her mind time to calm down after an emotional class. She thought about her frozen moment, about her initial embarrassment, but also about how Minh Vu patiently guided her through every small movement, without a word of blame, without a look of disappointment.

It was the first time, since the incident with little Bin, that someone had witnessed her freeze without making her feel like a complete failure. That feeling was so strange that she didn't know what to call it, she only knew that it was completely different from the familiar shame she had been carrying with her for the past three years.

That evening, she opened her notebook and wrote a new line, her hands shaking slightly because she still had the emotional residue of the afternoon: "Today I really froze, in front of everyone. And the sky still didn't fall."