The Shuddering

by Ania Ahlborn

Lauren spotted Ryan watching them and gave him a ghost of a smile. A second later the music swelled when the kitchen door swung open and his sister’s friend stepped onto the deck with a chuckle, closing the door behind her. She tossed her blonde hair over a shoulder before shrugging against the cold. “Jesus,” she said, jerking up on

Ryan’s call, he would have let her smoke in every single room, if not just to stink up his father’s place, then to oblige his twin sister’s quite attractive best friend. Lauren tapped the hard pack against an open palm, her teeth clacking as she shivered. She noticed him looking and offered up a sheepish grin. “Bad habit, I know.”

Ryan breathed a quiet laugh and looked away from her, surveying the endless wave of trees before them to keep himself from staring. He liked her. She was witty, charming, not afraid to crack a joke.

He watched Lauren’s face soften as he waited for her response. “Yes,” she said after a beat, “stupidly sentimental.” “I guess I just don’t want her to be alone, you know?” He shifted his weight from one boot to the other, his gaze fixed on the porch’s banister. Lauren leaned against the railing. “Ooh,” she said, a spark of realization crossing her face. “This is all because of Switzerland, isn’t it?” Ryan shrugged almost helplessly. It was an amazing opportunity, but leaving his sister behind wasn’t exactly easy. Sawyer had grown up with them. Sawyer and Jane had been together for more than three years in high school. It had been weird at first—his best friend dating his twin sister—but he’d learned to like it. Now, with Zurich in his not-so-distant future, it would make him feel better to know that his two closest friends were together again, taking care

There was something out there. Oona had seen it. Jane clasped her hands together as she looked at the table. There were five place settings: two on each side and one at the head, each setting identical to the one beside it—square white plates, their father’s best silverware, delicate crystal wineglasses glinting beneath the glow of an antler chandelier. It was one of the things she missed the most about married life—she loved being domestic, making fancy meals for no particular occasion at all. Now, after four years together, she was left alone in an apartment big enough for two.

She wondered whether this was how it felt to be lost, alone, spiraling toward some inevitable fate. The endless expanse of white, the silence, the solitude were overwhelming.