The Shuddering

I borrowed money from Ryan last month for rent.” Jane rolled her eyes at herself. “I won’t take the money from my father, but I’ll take it from my brother. It’s completely idiotic.”
    “Maybe it’s because you love your brother but hate your dad.” Lauren turned to face Jane, puckering her lips, revealing the new her. “Slutty,” she said, raising an eyebrow at her friend. “Speaking of daddy, does this stuff belong to that chick he’s banging?”
    Jane pushed away from the door, taking a seat on the edge of the tub while Lauren snooped around, completely unabashed in her curiosity.
    “Alessandra,” Jane said. “From Milan.”
    “I bet it’s easy to look amazing when your lipstick costs fifty bucks a tube,” Lauren said, then struck a pose. “What do you think? Am I runway ready? Think Mr. Adler would approve?” Jane furrowed her eyebrows. “Your brother, not your cheating ass of a dad.” She puckered again before capping the lipstick and tossing it onto the vanity. “Or is this too brazen for him?” She mussed her long blonde hair, piling it on top of her head before glancing over her shoulder at Jane.
    “I thought you didn’t like guys with money.” Jane smiled to herself. She was glad Lauren found her brother so intriguing—God knew he needed a good woman in his life. There had been so many girls—athletic types, clubbing types, the kind who wore nothing but sneakers following the type who grocery shopped in heels. After a few dates, Ryan had dismissed them all.
    And then there was Summer.
    He had met his dream girl in a business management course at ASU. Summer was smart and funny and drop-deadgorgeous, and she knew how to ride as well as he did. She had been tenacious, challenging him like nobody else ever had, pushing him further than he thought he could go, and Jane had loved her for it. Summer had been the one who had believed in him when he had come up with the crazy idea of starting a website dedicated to the sport they both adored—she had been the one to convince Jane it was a fantastic plan, that it didn’t matter that they had to drive hours for a mediocre mountain at best. It was the passion that mattered, and Ryan had enough of it for the whole world. And yet, despite the love Jane was sure Ryan had for Summer, their relationship crumbled. Jane hoped that infidelity—the very thing that had destroyed their family—hadn’t been what had done them in. She didn’t want to think of her brother like that, didn’t want to think that he could be as callous as the man he insisted he didn’t want to become.
    “I don’t know,” Lauren said. “He’s starting to grow on me.”
    “What, after spending six hours with him?”
    Lauren made a face, let her hair sweep across her shoulders, and plucked a tissue from its holder before rubbing the lipstick from her mouth.
    “And what about Sawyer; you’re sure you’re okay with this?”
    “I’m here, aren’t I?” Jane shrugged. “Ryan already asked me that like a hundred thousand times, anyway.”
    “I’m sure he has, but did you tell him the truth?”
    Jane offered her friend a tight-lipped smile. That was the million-dollar question, and the answer was no. She’d spared Ryan the truth and told him what he wanted to hear—it was fine, she was over it. Because what kind of a girl pined over a guy for a decade? If she wanted to grieve the loss of a relationship, it should have been the one she’d lost less than three months ago, not one that ended in her senior year of high school.
    “There’s probably nothing to eat downstairs,” Jane concluded, changing the subject. It would have been nice to have stopped at the store along the way, but Ryan had taken a shortcut to save them nearly an hour, and they had bypassed the nearest town by a good twenty miles.
    Lauren gave her a strange smile in response, like she’d just remembered a joke.
    “What?”
    Lauren shook her head and tossed the red-smeared tissue into the trash can next to her sneakered feet. “Nothing,” she said. “Let’s go.”
    Pulling the wood-paneled door open, Jane stared into an empty refrigerator. There were a couple of bottles of Evian lined up in a row along the right side of the unit. A half-empty bottle of merlot sat in the door, along with a collection of condiments. She grabbed the wine bottle by its neck and uncorked it, breathing it in, immediately recoiling at the smell. As far as alcohol went, wine was the only thing Jane could