I remind myself to go through my pre-scripted self-talk. You’re not having a heart attack, because first of all, you’re twenty-four years old, Ellie, and despite your love of microwave dinners and your hatred of physical exercise, it’s unlikely you’re having an unprecedented cardiac event.

Secondly, because you’ve been here before, confusing a panic attack for something else, going to the emergency room in the middle of the night to have EKGs painfully point out that your health problems are not in your chest.

I take my first full breath.

What I’m having, in fact, is a minor panic attack. A brief flash of intense anxiety. The kind you might experience when you agree to follow a stranger to a second location. Even if that second location is just the coffee shop inside of Powell’s.

I take a few more calming, cleansing breaths. The woman named Jack orders our coffees, then leads the way to an empty table beside a wall of windows. Most of the tables are empty, actually. Outside, there’s at least three inches of snow now, with gridlocked cars lining Burnside and fat flakes still falling. Jack shrugs out of her khaki jacket, and my heart clenches for some reason. A beautiful woman with long fingers wrapped around a praline mocha sits down across from me, and my cardiovascular system is going haywire trying to figure out if this is some kind of date.

“Don’t worry. This is not a date,” she says, leaning back in her chair like she’s just read my mind.

“Oh.” I’m relieved. Am I relieved? Why am I not more relieved? “Oh, right. Um, of course not. I didn’t think—”

“This,” she continues, cutting off my rambling, “is a meeting between co-parents to discuss the future upbringing of our book.”

The copy of Fun Home she purchased sits on the table between us, and she gravely places her hand over it.

“And because this isn’t a date,” Jack says, “normal date rules don’t apply.”

That is somehow worse. At least I understand the rules of dating and know what’s expected of me socially. This is something lawless. Under the table, Jack jostles her foot, and I feel it rattling through my bones. “Normal date rules?” I finally ask.

Jack hums. “Yes. On a normal first date, you’re not allowed to unburden your childhood traumas, but because this isn’t a date at all, I think you should tell me why you were crying in a bookstore on Christmas Eve.”

I shift in my seat. “I wasn’t—”

“Don’t,” she interrupts, raising one stern finger. “Do not lie and say you weren’t crying. It sets a bad example for our child.” She pats the book. “New rule. We both have to answer every question the other person asks honestly.”

“I–I don’t agree to those terms.”