Page 221 - A Little Life: A Novel

people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical
attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared
agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never

be codified. Friendship was witnessing another’s slow drip of miseries, and
long bouts of boredom, and occasional triumphs. It was feeling honored by
the privilege of getting to be present for another person’s most dismal
moments, and knowing that you could be dismal around him in return.
More troubling to him than his possible immaturity, though, were his
capabilities as a friend. He had always taken pride in the fact that he was a
good friend; friendship had always been important to him. But was he

actually any good at it? There was the unresolved JB problem, for example;
a good friend would have figured something out. And a good friend would
certainly have figured out a better way to deal with Jude, instead of telling
himself, chantlike, that there simply was no better way to deal with Jude,
and if there was, if someone (Andy? Harold? Anyone?) could figure out a
plan, then he’d be happy to follow it. But even as he told himself this, he

knew that he was just making excuses for himself.
Andy knew it, too. Five years ago, Andy had called him in Sofia and
yelled at him. It was his first shoot; it had been very late at night, and from
the moment he answered the phone and heard Andy say, “For someone who
claims to be such a great friend, you sure as fuck haven’t been around to
prove it,” he had been defensive, because he knew Andy was right.
“Wait a minute,” he said, sitting upright, fury and fear clearing away any

residual sleepiness.
“He’s sitting at home fucking cutting himself to shreds, he’s essentially
all scar tissue now, he looks like a fucking skeleton, and where are you,
Willem?” asked Andy. “And don’t say ‘I’m on a shoot.’ Why aren’t you
checking in on him?”
“I call him every single day,” he began, yelling himself.

“You knew this was going to be hard for him,” Andy continued, talking
over him. “You knew the adoption was going to make him feel more
vulnerable. So why didn’t you put any safeguards in place, Willem? Why
aren’t your other so-called friends doing anything?”
“Because he doesn’t want them to know that he cuts himself, that’s why!
And I didn’t know it was going to be this hard for him, Andy,” he said. “He
never tells me anything! How was I supposed to know?”

“Because! You’re supposed to! Fucking use your brain, Willem!”