“It’s not a death trap.” Brecken drums the steering wheel with his thumbs. “There will be some snow, sure, but look around us. The storm is hitting right here. We need to get out of it, or we’ll be driving through it the entire way.”

Harper smiles at me. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“You’ll stop the storm from hitting the mountains?” Kayla asks. “Impressive.”

“It won’t hit the mountains,” Josh says.

I shake my head. “The storms always hit the mountains.”

“Even if the storm is in the mountains, I-80 will probably be clear, right?” Josh says. “It’s a major trucking route.”

“So is this,” I say, jerking my thumb toward the highway where semis crawl steadily along. “This isn’t clear.”

“It would be clear if they predicted it right,” Brecken says. “This has all the looks of a classic meteorology screwup. The forecast said the mountains would be worse, so all the plows and salt trucks are up there. This piece of shit will wind up closed because they thought it’d be fine. Mark my words.”

“If anything, there will be too many snow plows up on I-80,” Josh says. “We’ll probably end up with more salt than snow on the car up there.”

“I’m not seeing it,” I argue. “I’ve been on I-80. My aunt lived in Philadelphia for a while, and, I’m telling you, that highway is notorious for being utter crap. Traffic. Wrecks. Closures. There’s always something going on, and that’s without the snow.”

“There won’t be that much snow,” Brecken says. “Just calm down and trust us. Or wait until we get there, and I’ll say I told you so.”

“No, you won’t,” Josh says, and then he pats my knee with a smile that he probably thinks is friendly. “I promise, I really believe I-80 is a good idea. We’ll be safer there.”

“Then let’s do I-80,” Kayla says with a sigh. “Whatever. Let’s just stop talking about it.”

Harper, who’s writing again in the front, murmurs in agreement.

“I still say it’s insane,” I say. “Eighty is insane in good weather.”

“Oh my God, you’re like my damn mother back there,” Brecken says, then he looks at Harper. “Are the girls at Pomona like this, too?”

“It’s women, not girls,” Harper says. “Which I’m sure the women at your school would have told you.”

“Where do you go to school?” Josh asks.

“Premed at UC Berkeley,” Brecken says stiffly, his dark eyes flicking to the rearview mirror to Josh. “What about you?”

My brain fizzes as the conversation unfolds. I feel like a laugh is stuck in my throat, half choking with this new, impossible development.

They don’t know each other.

“Carnegie Mellon,” Josh answers.