Page 191 - A Little Life: A Novel

Andy looked at him. “And even if you hadn’t been a kid, even if you had
just been some horny guy who wanted to fuck everything in sight and had
ended up with a bunch of STDs, it still wouldn’t be anything to be ashamed

of.” He sighed. “Can you try to believe me?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“I know,” Andy said. They were quiet. “I wish you’d see a therapist,
Jude,” he added, and his voice was sad. He couldn’t respond, and after a
few minutes, Andy stood up. “Well,” he said, sounding determined, “let’s
see them,” and he took off his sweater and held out his arms.
He could tell by Andy’s expression that it was worse than he had

anticipated, and when he looked down and tried to view himself as
something unfamiliar, he could see in flashes what Andy did: the gobs of
bandages applied at intervals to the fresh cuts, the half-healed cuts, with
their fragile stitchings of still-forming scar tissue, the one infected cut,
which had developed a chunky cap of dried pus.
“So,” Andy said after a long silence, after he’d almost finished his right

arm, cleaning out the infected cut and painting antibiotic cream on the
others, “what about your extreme weight loss?”
“I don’t think it’s extreme.”
“Jude,” said Andy, “twelve pounds in not quite eight weeks is extreme,
and you didn’t exactly have twelve pounds to spare to begin with.”
“I’m just not hungry,” he said, finally.
Andy didn’t say anything else until he finished both his arms, and then

sighed and sat down again and started scribbling on his pad. “I want you to
eat three full meals a day, Jude,” he said, “plus one of the things on this list.
Every day. That’s in addition to standard meals, do you understand me? Or
I’m going to call your crew and make them sit with you every mealtime and
watch you eat, and you don’t want that, believe me.” He ripped the page off
the pad and handed it to him. “And then I want you back here next week.

No excuses.”
He looked at the list—PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICH. CHEESE
SANDWICH. AVOCADO SANDWICH. 3 EGGS (WITH YOLKS!!!!).
BANANA SMOOTHIE—and tucked it into his pants pocket.
“And the other thing I want you to do is this,” said Andy. “When you
wake up in the middle of the night and want to cut yourself, I want you to
call me instead. I don’t care what time it is, you call me, okay?” He nodded.

“I mean it, Jude.”