In the story, On the bridge. While the boys are standing on the overpass, Adam pretends to throw something down at the cars below and a “woman…swerved momentarily out of her lane” how does the reaction of each boys to this prank reflect their personality

The car pulls off the exit ramp next to them and three men get out, surrounding the boys. The driver demands to know who flicked the butt. While Seth privately resolves to never tell on a friend, he realizes that Adam is pointing at him, suggesting that Seth threw the cigarette.

The driver grabs Seth and forces him to lick the cigarette ash off the windshield. Seth notices that Adam has disappeared. When Seth refuses to lick the ash, the man slams Seth's head against the windshield and gives him a bloody nose before driving away.

Adam reappears and tries to comfort Seth, who is bleeding. Adam claims he could not intervene because one of the men had a small knife on him. Seth realizes that Adam is lying and walks home alone. Before going inside, he stops at the curb and throws away his blood-stained denim jacket in a garbage can as a symbolic rejection of his efforts to emulate Adam's tough-guy posturing.