“We can’t do it tonight,” I blurt, startling Katherine and Taylor out of their argument about what windchill actually means. I gesture to the scene outside, remembering to lower my voice. “We can’t have people digging trails.” Their footprints would make an arrow that points right to the back door of the performing-arts building and the suspicion that something shady is going on. Amping up the likelihood of being caught.

“Aw, shit,” Nevaeh says, grimacing at that. She sighs and turns to snap a photo of the snow through the window, blustering under the glow of the lampposts outside. “We’ll postpone. I’ll post in the group.”

“I’ll text Jack, okay?” Katherine says. I nod.

It pushes off our conversation for one more week. The idea makes me antsy, I’m surprised to realize. But I don’t like feeling like a jerk, like a chicken. My excuses seem thinner and thinner.

Later, at dinner, looking out that same picture window, we know we made the right decision. It’s still snowing. Absolutely no way our midnight trails wouldn’t be noticed. After eating, we drift over into the rec room, manage to claim the couches by the window. Katherine settles down on one end, pulls me down next to her to curl up on my side with my head in her lap. Her hand is cool on my forehead. Taylor lifts up my feet and snugs in next to us, his hand around my ankle. Nevaeh is leaning against Katherine’s legs, her cheek on her knee and her arm wrapped around her calf.

Soft, terrible music is playing over the speakers in the corner, and there are a bunch of dudes yelling at the foosball table and a girl kicking the antique Ms. Pac-Man machine. Voices are echoing in the lobby, and there are so many stomping boots and shouts and bangs from the lobby doors. But I feel like we’re in a bubble here, looking out at the storm. We’re quiet, watching the snow fall hard, the wind letting up for a bit so that big fat flakes are now taking up the whole world.

“God, I hope no one missed the post and thinks it’s a good idea to go out tonight,” Nevaeh says quietly, leaning against Katherine’s knees. She’s chewing the inside of her lip, staring out the window.

“What if someone does?” I say, twisting my fingers in the hem of my sweater.

“I’ll get up early and stomp out footprints,” Taylor says. “And then I’ll figure out who had the bright idea to go out in a storm and kick their ass.”

“I am not sure that would be less suspicious,” Katherine says.

There’s no reason to think footsteps from curfew breakers would point to us. There’s no reason, necessarily, to think if someone was caught they’d give us away.

“We just have to wait,” Nevaeh says.