Page 513 - A Little Life: A Novel

fightmaster on a set once taught him to do, a method he knows both
paralyzes and hurts, and then he is stripping Jude’s clothes off and Jude is
frantic beneath him, threatening and then begging him to stop. He thinks,

dully, that anyone watching them would think this was a rape, but he isn’t
trying to rape, he reminds himself: he is trying to find the razor. And then
he hears it, the ping of metal on tile, and he grabs the edge of it between his
fingers and throws it behind him, and then goes back to undressing him,
yanking his clothes away with a brutal efficiency that surprises him even as
he does it, but it isn’t until he pulls down Jude’s underwear that he sees the
cuts: six of them, in neat parallel horizontal stripes, high on his left thigh,

and he releases Jude and scuttles away from him as if he is diseased.
“You—are—crazy,” he says, flatly and slowly, after his initial shock has
lessened somewhat. “You’re crazy, Jude. To cut yourself on your legs, of all
places. You know what can happen; you know you can get infected there.
What the hell are you thinking?” He is gasping with exertion, with misery.
“You’re sick,” he says, and he is recognizing, again as if Jude is a stranger,

how thin he really is, and wondering why he hadn’t noticed before. “You’re
sick. You need to be hospitalized. You need—”
“Stop trying to fix me, Willem,” Jude spits back at him. “What am I to
you? Why are you with me anyway? I’m not your goddamned charity
project. I was doing just fine without you.”
“Oh yeah?” he asks. “Sorry if I’m not living up to being the ideal
boyfriend, Jude. I know you prefer your relationships heavy on the sadism,

right? Maybe if I kicked you down the stairs a few times I’d be living up to
your standards?” He sees Jude move back from him then, pressing himself
hard against the tub, sees something in his eyes flatten and close.
“I’m not Hemming, Willem,” Jude hisses at him. “I’m not going to be the
cripple you get to save for the one you couldn’t.”
He rocks back on his heels then, stands, backs away, scooping up the

razor as he does and then throwing it as hard as he can at Jude’s face, Jude
bringing his arms up to shield himself, the razor bouncing off his palm.
“Fine,” he pants. “Fucking cut yourself to ribbons for all I care. You love
the cutting more than you love me, anyway.” He leaves, wishing he could
slam the door behind him, banging off the light switch as he goes.
Back in the bedroom, he grabs his pillows and one of the blankets from
the bed and flings himself down on the sofa. If he could leave altogether, he

would, but Harold and Julia’s presence stops him, so he doesn’t. He turns