I read the headline he just quoted and then hand the phone back, too sick to look at anything else. The gas station lot is crammed, so Brecken pulls back out and parks in line, waiting for a pump to open up.

“Might as well get gas while we’re here,” he says.

“Good idea,” Josh agrees.

He shifts into park and twists in his seat to face us. “That’s fifty-three cars in that wreck, and we know they aren’t counting us or the cars that spun down after.”

“The highway should have been closed,” Harper says.

“It is now,” Josh says. He’s staring out the window and pointing in the direction of the on-ramp for the highway.

Sure enough, through a thin row of bare-branched trees, I can see the curve of the exit ramp. More importantly, I can see the flares and police car parked across it. Josh is right. They closed the on-ramp. We got off the highway thinking we’d make calls. Get a tow or maybe a new car.

But now we’re trapped in the middle of Pennsylvania with no major highway to get us out.

How the hell am I going to get home to my mom?

I check my watch. She’s going to be off work now, maybe even home in her jammies making hot tea. I take a tight breath, my throat thick with thoughts of our teakettle. The way she always serves mine with a little saucer with a spoon and three sugar cubes. I don’t know where she gets them, but ever since I got a book in third grade about proper English tea, Mom has always kept sugar cubes in the house.

I wish I was there, warm and safe and a million miles from this god-awful disaster highway. And when she checks the news, she’ll see these giant pileups and have an all-out panic attack.

Wait. Mom still thinks I’m down south on I-78. She probably still thinks I’m safe. Except that when I don’t call, she’ll start to worry. She might try to track my location, but she’ll need Dad’s help since I’m on his plan.

Shit, will she think of that? Will she call him? Would she have called already?

The questions are piling up like the cars on the bridge. I need damage control, and I need it now.

I pull up my mom on my phone, and my finger hovers over the option to place a call. I hesitate. I desperately want to talk to her. Even sad and distant, she’s my mom and hearing her voice would make this all a little easier. But I need to think this through so I don’t make things worse.