The Shuddering Part 12

Sawyer gave it some gas, leaving deep tire tracks in the driveway. Backing up onto the road, he pointed the Jeep down the steep grade. The e-brake zipped into place. Ryan watched his childhood friend slide out of the car and trudge around its front, using the Jeep's tracks as a thoroughfare as he marched back toward the house. Ryan blocked his way when Sawyer reached the end of the tracks, his hands held up, wanting to say what he had to say before Sawyer went back inside.

"Listen, you're my best friend, all right?"

"Don't," Sawyer warned, pus.h.i.+ng Ryan's hands away from his chest.

"You don't have to do this. A kid doesn't have to come with vows anymore."

"Ryan, move," Sawyer said, but Ryan refused.

"I'm not moving until you hear me out, because this s.h.i.+t has to be said."

"Nothing has to be said. What's done is done."

Ryan shook his head. "What does that even mean?"

"Just move." Sawyer tried to step around, but Ryan moved in the same direction.

"What's done?" he asked. "You told me you were going to wait; you were going to think it through."

Sawyer grabbed him by the shoulders and moved him to the side before stepping around the Nissan's front b.u.mper, trudging toward the deck.

Ryan peered at Sawyer's back. "Hey," he called out to him. Sawyer paused, looking over his shoulder. "What the h.e.l.l 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 sh.e.l.l. For half a second he felt like the world had reversed its...o...b..t. 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 cla.s.sic 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 s.h.i.+fting 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 such important news in such a cold, calculated way? What kind of a girl was willing to destroy his dearest relations.h.i.+ps because she was p.i.s.sed?

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 s.h.i.+t 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, like Sawyer had just traded a best friend in for a wife. "Don't do that," he told him.

"Do what?" Ryan asked. "Finally stop being a d.i.c.k and start being supportive? What else is there for me to do?"

"You'll always be a d.i.c.k," Sawyer a.s.sured him, staring down at the snow.

"I should probably try to fix that, or I'll end up turning into my dad."

"Probably."

"So, sorry for being a d.i.c.k," Ryan muttered. "Just give me a chance to get back into the country before you run off to Vegas or something, all right? I want to see Elvis marry you. I at least deserve that much."

"The Chapel of Love for the ceremony and a Barry Manilow concert as the honeymoon," Sawyer agreed.

They both went silent then, staring at the ground between them, s.h.i.+fting their weight from foot to foot as the cold bit at their cheeks. Finally, Sawyer moved in to give his best friend a parting hug. "Tell Jane I'm sorry, all right? It wasn't supposed to be this way."

"Yeah, I know."

"Hey, good luck with Lauren. Who knows, right?"

Ryan smirked.

Sawyer turned to walk the narrow tire trail toward the Jeep. The question of whether the Jeep would make it through the snow was irrelevant now. They had to make it, because Sawyer couldn't go back inside that cabin again. Not after April's announcement. Not after the way Jane had looked at him, wounded, betrayed.

Slamming the car door shut, he clicked his seat belt into place, s.h.i.+fted into first, and released the parking break. April sat in the pa.s.senger seat, p.i.s.sed off, not speaking-silence he was sure to miss a few minutes from now, when she'd grow tired of the silent treatment and launch into another tirade. Easing the Jeep forward, snow crunched beneath the tires. Ryan appeared in the side-view mirror, watching them descend the steep grade.

The distance between them grew.

When the Jeep slowed, Sawyer gave it some gas. It continued to ramble forward, but eventually had to stop. He put it in reverse, backing up to reveal a pile of snow he'd pushed forward with the b.u.mper, a good two feet tall, compacted and barricading them from going any farther.

Ryan was right. They were going to end up dead.

April said nothing despite the wall of snow ahead of them, and for a moment Sawyer wondered whether she realized how unachievable this was. Maybe that was why she wasn't saying anything-because she knew it was impossible. Maybe she was stewing in her own defeat, ready to tell him to forget it. But Sawyer wasn't going to forget it-not after what she'd pulled back there. She wanted to go, so they'd go. Pa.s.sive-aggressiveness had slithered into his bloodstream, infecting him like a disease.

He shoved the Jeep into first, revving the engine. In the rearview mirror, Ryan put his hands on top of his head, his mouth moving. Sawyer couldn't hear him, but he knew exactly what Ryan was saying. You've got to be kidding. But Sawyer wasn't kidding.

He floored it.

April gasped.

The Jeep hit the bank of snow and rolled through it, but more snow gathered in front of the car seconds later. They had advanced only a couple of feet before they were stuck again, and this time Sawyer couldn't back up. With one pile of snow behind them and another one ahead, they were trapped.

"Are you crazy?" April screeched.

"This was your idea," he reminded her, trying to stay calm.

"Right," she said. "This is all my fault, you bringing me here..."

"Bringing you here? Are you serious?"

"Go around it," she demanded, motioning at the blockade of snow ahead of them.

"You practically begged me to bring you."

"Yeah, well, big f.u.c.king mistake," she said. "It won't happen again, I a.s.sure you."

Sawyer bit his tongue, deciding to focus on how to get the Jeep down the road, but April refused to let up.

"Like I want to hang out with your preppy-a.s.s friends anyway." She scowled. "It's like spending a weekend with Donnie and f.u.c.king Marie."

Sawyer closed his eyes, trying to keep his cool.

"It's gross," she told him.

He blinked at her.

"Gross that you a.s.sociate with people like that." Her bottom lip quivered and she looked away, as if ashamed of the judgment that had just dripped from her tongue. "I'm sorry that I'm not as perfect as Jane Adler," she said softly, tears streaking her cheeks.

Sawyer opened his mouth to speak, but her culpability robbed him of his fire. He looked straight ahead, staring through the winds.h.i.+eld and an endless expanse of snow, his guilt so heavy it was suffocating him, burning him up from the inside out. He unzipped his coat and pressed his face into his hands, momentarily overwhelmed by the silence that surrounded them.

"Here," April said, her voice quavering with emotion.

Sawyer let his hands drop to his lap and blinked at a ring attached to a silver chain in the palm of her hand. It was an old ring he had had since high school, one that was far too big for her to wear, but he had given her as a placeholder for her real engagement ring once he had the cash to buy it. He didn't move, afraid to take it, scared to know what that would mean. Would he ever see her again? Would he be shut out of his child's life?

"You can give me the real one when you buy it." She wiped a cheek with the sleeve of her coat. "If you decide you still want to buy it." She dropped the ring into his hand and looked away again. "I'm sorry that I'm such a b.i.t.c.h. I just want to go home, okay? Please just take me home."

His heart twisted as he closed his hand around the ring, sliding it into the pocket of his coat before looking back to the unnavigable road ahead. "I don't know if I can, Ape," he confessed quietly.

"Just...please try," she pleaded. "I can't go back in there. I'm not going to. There's no way."

Sawyer could relate to that. He didn't want to go back in there either, not without erasing the last fifteen minutes from everyone's memory. He reversed again. There wasn't enough distance between them and the car-made mogul to plow through it, so he turned the wheel to the right instead. They'd go around.

He heard something behind them-a yell. Ryan was waving his arms over his head. Jane was standing next to him, her oversize sweater hanging off her like a sack, her colorful pajama pants a circuslike contrast against the whiteness of snow. Sawyer hit the brakes, suddenly realizing what Ryan was screaming about, but it was too late. The Jeep slid down the slope of the driveway, then suddenly lurched forward, the right front tire sinking lower than the rest.

"s.h.i.+t," Sawyer said, freezing in place. But with no possibility of reversing, he kept the Jeep rolling; it was forward or nothing. April sucked in a shaky breath as the front tire pulled out of the divot while the back tire replaced it. He cursed his decision of veering right rather than left. Left would have given him a better view of what he was doing. Right just had him guessing what was coming.

"Roll down your window," he said.

April did as she was told, a startled expression veiling her features, a cold blast of air coiling through the car's interior.

"I need to know if I'm clear."

"I don't know," she said, her bottom lip trembling again.

"Ape, come on. I need your help."

"Clear of what?" she asked.

Frustrated, he leaned forward, his chest pressed against the steering wheel. The trees were close to the pa.s.senger side now, threatening to knock off the side-view mirror. Ryan was skidding down the road behind them, sticking to the tracks they'd made. Sawyer reluctantly rolled down his window as his friend slid to a stop beside the car.

"You can't go any farther," Ryan told them, breathing hard. "You're at the edge of the runoff."

Sawyer slammed the Jeep into reverse, but the tires just spun, kicking up dirty snow onto the road.

"I'm not going back in there," April whispered, her gaze pleading for Sawyer to keep trying.

"You're stuck," Ryan said. "There's no way out of here."

That was when April started sobbing.

Sawyer blinked at the girl next to him, surprised by her response. There was no question that she would resist hiking back up the driveway, but he couldn't help but stare as she shook her head in insistence, her fists pounding against her knees, a full-fledged temper tantrum-something he had yet to witness in the six months they had been together.

"No no no no NO!" she yelled. "I'm not going back in there! I want to go home!"

Ryan leaned through the window, trying to reason with her. "Even if you get down this road, you're never going to make it to the highway."

"Why don't you mind your own business?" she wailed. "I don't even know you."

"Jesus," Sawyer said.

"If you don't drive, I will," April cried into her hands. "Just stay here with your friends, okay? I don't want to be here anymore."

"Okay, just give me some room," Sawyer told Ryan. Ryan opened his mouth to say something, but Sawyer shot his friend a look. "I can't handle this right now," he confessed. "Ryan, move." And then he stomped on the accelerator.

The Jeep lurched forward.

Ryan jumped back.

The right tires sank low and April's eyes went wide. One of her hands instinctively pressed against the dash while the other held the armrest of the door.

"Oh my G.o.d," she yelped, but Sawyer pressed on toward the inevitable, and the inevitable came quickly. The Jeep sank low, every nerve in Sawyer's body buzzing as he felt the left tires lift off the ground. April screamed as the car tipped against the embankment. Sawyer's mind reeled, wondering why the h.e.l.l he had just done what he'd done, wondering if this stupid move had been some subconscious sabotage to stay here longer now that April's ring was in the pocket of his coat, now that he was free. The Jeep tipped over, pinning April's door in place as she bawled.

They were stuck for good.

April's breath came in gasps. She stared at the boy in the driver's seat, speechless, as Sawyer tried to keep from falling on top of her. After a bit of effort he shoved the car door open and pulled himself out.

"Holy s.h.i.+t," Ryan said, his hands on top of his head again, a.s.sessing the situation. "Holy s.h.i.+t, dude. Holy s.h.i.+t. You just wrecked your car," he marveled, unable to peel his eyes away from the leaning vehicle. "Your baby. Your pride and joy."

Sawyer stared at the Jeep for a long while, as though suddenly realizing exactly what he had done. And then he shrugged. "Yeah, I did. Didn't see that coming, did you?"

April cried out for help as Ryan laughed, exasperated. Sawyer stepped back to the car and helped heft her up and out of the vehicle. April tumbled out of the window, slipping on the snow. She sat there for a long moment before Ryan extended a hand to her, trying to help her up; but she refused, too stubborn to admit that she had lost. Still sobbing, she eventually righted herself, but rather than walking uphill toward the cabin with the boys, she pointed herself downhill instead.

"Where are you going?" Sawyer asked her.