Page 274 - A Little Life: A Novel

every weekend, when they had returned the next day to share the night’s
stories with Malcolm and Jude, Jude who never went anywhere, who never
shared stories of his own? How had it happened that he was the one who

was all alone? Why had they left him for Jackson to pick over and destroy?
Why hadn’t they fought harder for him? Why had he ruined it all for
himself? Why had they let him? He wanted to devastate them; he wanted
them to feel as inhuman as he did.
“And you,” he said, turning to Jude. “You like knowing how fucked up I
am? You like always being the person who gets to learn everyone else’s
secrets, without ever telling us a single fucking thing? What do you think

this is, Jude? You think you get to be a part of the club and you never have
to say anything, you never have to tell us anything? Well, it doesn’t fucking
work like that, and we’re all fucking sick of you.”
“That’s enough, JB,” Willem said sharply, grabbing his shoulder, but he
was strong suddenly, and he wrenched out of Willem’s grasp, his feet
unexpectedly nimble, dancing toward the bookcase like a boxer. He looked

at Jude, who was standing in silence, his face very still and his eyes very
large, almost as if he was waiting for him to continue, waiting for JB to hurt
him further. The first time he had painted Jude’s eyes, he had gone to a pet
store to take photographs of a rough green snake because the colors were so
similar. But in that moment they were darker, almost like a grass snake’s,
and he wished, ridiculously, that he had his paints, because he knew that if
he had them, he’d be able to get the shade exactly right without even having

to try.
“It doesn’t work like that,” he said to Jude again. And then, before he
knew it, he was doing Jackson’s imitation of Jude, the hideous parody, his
mouth open as Jackson had done it, making an imbecile’s moan, dragging
his right leg behind him as if it were made of stone. “I’m Jude,” he slurred.
“I’m Jude St. Francis.” For a few seconds, his was the only voice in the

room, his movements the only movements, and in those seconds, he wanted
to stop, but he couldn’t stop. And then Willem had run at him, and the last
thing he had seen was Willem drawing his fist back, and the last thing he
had heard was the cracking of bone.
He woke and didn’t know where he was. It was difficult to breathe.
Something was on his nose, he realized. But when he tried to lift his hand to
feel what it was, he couldn’t. And then he had looked down and seen that

his wrists were in restraints, and he knew he was in the hospital. He closed