The Shuddering

Nissan’s front bumper, trudging toward the deck.
    Ryan peered at Sawyer’s back. “Hey,” he called out to him. Sawyer paused, looking over his shoulder. “What the hell did you do?”
    Sawyer shook his head and looked away, ascending the stairs while Ryan was left to glare at the trunk of a tree.
    Sawyer stepped back inside the cabin, tracking snow across the floor. He snatched his backpack off the ground and threw it over his shoulder, the duffel bag following suit. Jane was standing at the kitchen island, a whisk in her hand, a chrome mixing bowl sitting in front of her. She blinked at him, her expression blank. Sawyer stared at her, frozen in place, his brain telling him to say something, to apologize yet again, but his vocal cords constricted, refusing to make a sound.
    “Are you really leaving?” Jane asked, her expression unreadable.
    “It isn’t my call,” he croaked past the dryness of his throat. “I’m sorry. Everything is just…”
    Jane nodded, looked down. “Yeah,” she said. “I know.”
    He stared at her, wanting to ask what that meant, wanting to know what it was she knew. But before he could gather up the courage, April stepped into the kitchen and shot Jane a look: a smile so disingenuous that it turned Sawyer’s stomach.
    “Thanks so much for having us,” April said, her tone painfully insincere. “We had a blast.”
    Jane’s expression wavered. He watched her indecision flicker across her face like bad reception, challenging her soft-spoken nature as she tried to smile in return.
    “We’ll see you again,” April told her. “At the wedding, for sure.”
    Sawyer’s heart pulled into itself like a snail backing into its shell. For half a second he felt like the world had reversed its orbit. April stepped through the open kitchen door and out into the snow, leaving Sawyer silently reeling in her wake. When he dared to glance back up at Jane, she looked a little paler than before, her green eyes glinting in the morning sun. He hadn’t wanted the news to come out this way, hadn’t even told Ryan for fear of how he would react, especially after what Jane had gone through with Alex not more than a few months back. Sawyer had kept his engagement to April a secret from the person who knew everything about him. Ryan even knew about the baby six weeks ago, and back then Sawyer had still been unsure about how he felt about what his life had become. And the first thing Ryan had told him hadn’t been “congratulations” or even how Sawyer had just screwed up in the biggest way possible, but “Don’t marry her.” It was classic Ryan, a warning born of his own insecurities. And so when Sawyer asked April to become his wife two weeks later, he hadn’t brought it up in conversation with Ryan.
    But now it felt like keeping that secret had been all for nothing. He was waiting for it, waiting for Jane to tell him she never wanted to see him again, waiting for her to tell Ryan, so Ryan could tell Sawyer what a huge mistake he was making. How stupid could he possibly be?
    “I’m sorry,” he said, then turned, not wanting to hear her reply, not wanting to see her face, not wanting anything but to get away, to crawl into the Jeep and drive.
    By the time he stepped off the deck, April was halfway to the car and his dismay was slowly shifting gears. He couldn’t help but think that maybe Ryan had been right—April was a mistake. Because what kind of a girl stooped so low as to break suchimportant news in such a cold, calculated way? What kind of a girl was willing to destroy his dearest relationships because she was pissed?
    As Sawyer approached the Nissan, Ryan’s arms were crossed over his chest, his expression grave. His friend’s disappointment was apparent. Sawyer stopped in front of him, dropping the duffel bag into the snow.
    “I have to tell you something,” he said. “Because April just made shit a lot worse, and if I don’t tell you, you’re going to hear it from Jane.”
    “You already asked her,” Ryan said flatly, and while Sawyer shouldn’t have been surprised that Ryan had figured it out on his own, he was still caught off guard. He opened his mouth to speak, to explain, but Ryan shook his head as if to say forget it . “It’s your life,” he said. “It was screwed up of me to try to stand in your way. I’m sure she’s great.”
    Sawyer frowned at Ryan’s resignation. Something about it felt finite, like his closest, truest friend was giving up on him,