She begins earnestly shoveling snow with her hands. “We don’t have the infrastructure for snow here because we don’t get it very often. Most winters, we only get about two inches or so, but every few years, there’s a massive storm like this one where all the grocery stores sell out of kale and no one can go anywhere. As for plows, they’ll wait until the snow stops, so maybe by midday tomorrow the main roads will be clear. You know, this would probably go faster with two people.”

But it goes nowhere, even after thirty minutes of both of us attempting to dig the car out. Finally, Jack slumps back against her truck. “Gillian isn’t moving today. I think we might be properly stuck.”

She sounds impossibly calm, as if she hasn’t just announced that we are trapped outside in a snowstorm with no way to get home. I try to take a deep breath, but it feels like all the oxygen has been siphoned out of my lungs. We’re stuck. I’m stuck, with a stranger, in a city I don’t know, cut off from the comfort and the safety of my new apartment.

I’m stuck in the snow, stuck, stuck, stuck.

“Hey.” Jack’s voice cuts through my mental spiral. “Are you okay?”

“No!” I gasp, clutching the sides of my ribs, struggling to breathe through this new probably-not-a-heart-attack. “We’re stuck in the snow! What are we going to do?”

I wait for Jack to laugh at my overreaction, the way my parents used to. I wait for her to switch into problem-solving mode, like Meredith always does. I wait for her to tell me something horribly unhelpful, like you’re fine or you’re going to be okay, even though nothing feels fine and it isn’t okay and I’m having a panic attack in the snow.

But Jack doesn’t say anything at all, not for a long time. She simply unhooks the tailgate so it drops down into a bench, gesturing until I come and sit down beside her, my legs dangling over the edge. We sit in silence, her thigh pressed against mine, her shoulder right there, reminding me I’m not alone with my racing thoughts.

My hands are twisted in my lap, and with the same gentleness from earlier, Jack reaches over with her left hand to disentangle the anxious knot of fingers. Then she slips her warm, callused hand through mine, holding it loosely. “Is this okay?” she asks, and when I nod, she tightens her grasp. “What’s the worst thing your anxiety is telling you right now?”

“Nothing,” I manage. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“Elle,” she says. She started doing that, started calling me Elle on our walk to Voodoo. One syllable, a single letter. I focus on that. “Don’t make me say ‘honesty game’ when you’re clearly having a panic attack.”