Page 474 - A Little Life: A Novel

If he spoke, he would cry, and so he didn’t speak. The word no, so short,
so easy to say, a child’s sound, a noise more than a word, a sharp exhalation
of air: all he had to do was part his lips, and the word would come out, and

—and what? Willem would leave, and take everything with him. I can
endure this, he would think when they had sex, I can endure this. He could
endure it for every morning he woke next to Willem, for every affection
Willem gave him, for the comfort of his company. When Willem was
watching television in the living room and he was walking by, Willem
would reach out his hand and he would take it, and they would remain
there, Willem watching the screen and sitting, he standing, their hands in

each other’s, and finally he would let go and continue moving. He needed
Willem’s presence; every day since Willem had moved back in with him, he
had experienced that same feeling of calm he had when Willem had stayed
with him before he left to shoot The Prince of Cinnamon. Willem was his
ballast, and he clung to him, even though he was always aware of how
selfish he was being. If he truly loved Willem, he knew, he would leave

him. He would allow Willem—he would force him, if he had to—to find
someone better to love, someone who would enjoy having sex with him,
someone who actually desired him, someone with fewer problems, someone
with greater charms. Willem was good for him, but he was bad for Willem.
“Do you like having sex with me?” he asked when he could finally speak.
“Yes,” said Willem, immediately. “I love it. But do you like it?”
He swallowed, counted to three. “Yes,” he said, quietly, furious at

himself and relieved as well. He had won himself more time: of Willem’s
presence, but also of sex. What, he wonders, if he had said no?
And so on they went. But in compensation for the sex, there is the
cutting, which he has been doing more and more: to help ease the feelings
of shame, and to rebuke himself for his feelings of resentment. For so long,
he had been so disciplined: once a week, two cuts each time, no more. But

in the past six months, he has broken his rules again and again, and now he
is cutting himself as much as he had when he was with Caleb, as much as
he had in the weeks before the adoption.
His accelerated cutting was the topic of their first truly awful fight, not
only as a couple but ever, in their entire twenty-nine years of friendship.
Sometimes the cutting has no place in their relationship. And sometimes it
is their relationship, their every conversation, the thing they are discussing

even when they’re not saying anything. He never knows when he’ll come to