“Fine,” I choke out. “My anxiety is telling me that we don’t have a plan, and that we’re going to be stuck outside in the snow forever. That we’ll never get home. That we’ll catch hypothermia and our toes will fall off and we’ll die.”

“Yeah.” Jack exhales. “That would all be less than ideal.”

I study her profile, the sharp lines of her pretty face against the backdrop of so much snow. “Aren’t you going to tell me that I’m being irrational?”

She turns to face me, so close, our noses almost brush. “Is that something that helps you when you’re having a panic attack? Being told you’re irrational?”

“God, no.”

“Then, why would I say that to you?” Without letting go of my hand, Jack fishes her phone out of the pocket of her coat. “My mom has generalized anxiety disorder, and if I ever told her she was being irrational while she was having a panic attack, I’m pretty sure she’d scratch my eyes out. And I would deserve it.”

“What are you doing?” I ask as I watch her jab her thumb against her phone screen awkwardly with one hand.

“I’m coming up with a plan. Okay. I live up on Stark close to Mount Tabor Park, which is… an hour-and-twenty-minute walk from here. Totally manageable. Where do you live?”

“Off Belmont, near Thirty-Fourth.”

“Even closer. Perfect. We can leave Gillian here, and I’ll come back for her when the snow clears. Does that sound like an okay plan?”

For the first time in five minutes, I’m able to catch my breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess… that works.”

She hops off the tailgate, and as a natural product of our new distance, our hands fall apart. The absence of her closeness feels conspicuous on the right side of my body, in all the places the cold air can now reach now that she’s not pressed there.

She shakes the snowflakes from her hair before turning back to face me. “Do you think you can trust me to get you home, Elle?” she asks with that quarter-moon smile softening the angles of her face.

And two surprising realizations hit me at the same time.

First: that I did, inexplicably, trust this woman I’d only known for a few hours.

And second: that I really, really wanted to hold her hand again.

Chapter Twelve

Monday, December 19, 2022

Jack is avoiding me.

At first, I thought I was just being sensitive—reading into things in our relationship that weren’t really there, like I’d done last year.