Page 514 - A Little Life: A Novel

facedown and screams, really screams, into the pillow, hitting his fists and
kicking his legs against the cushions like a child having a tantrum, his rage
mingling with a regret so complete that he is breathless. He is thinking

many things, but he cannot articulate or distinguish any of them, and three
successive fantasies spool quickly through his mind: he will get in the car
and escape and never talk to Jude again; he will go back into the bathroom
and hold him until he acquiesces, until he can heal him; he will call Andy
now, right now, and have Jude committed first thing in the morning. But he
does none of those things, just beats and kicks uselessly, as if he is
swimming in place.

At last, he stops, and lies still, and finally, after what feels like a very
long time, he hears Jude creep into the room, as soft and slow as something
beaten, a dog perhaps, some unloved creature who lives only to be abused,
and then the creak of the bed as he climbs into it.
The long ugly night lurches on, and he sleeps, a shallow, furtive slumber,
and when he wakes, it isn’t quite daylight, but he pulls on his clothes and

running shoes and goes outside, wrung dry with exhaustion, trying not to
think of anything. As he runs, tears, whether from the cold or from
everything, intermittently cloud his vision, and he rubs his eyes angrily,
keeps going, making himself go faster, inhaling the wind in large, punishing
gulps, feeling its ache in his lungs. When he returns, he goes back to their
room, where Jude is still lying on his side, curled into himself, and for a
second he imagines, with a jolt of horror, that he is dead, and is about to

speak his name when Jude shifts a bit in his sleep, and he instead goes to
the bathroom and showers, packs his running clothes into their bag, dresses
for the day, and goes to the kitchen, shutting the bedroom door quietly
behind him. There in the kitchen is Harold, who offers him a cup of coffee
as he always does, and as always since he began his relationship with Jude,
he shakes his head, although right now just the smell of coffee—its woody,

barky warmth—makes him almost ravenous. Harold doesn’t know why he’s
stopped drinking it, only that he has, and is always, as he says, trying to
lead him back down the road to temptation, and although normally he
would joke around with him, this morning he doesn’t. He can’t even look at
Harold, he is so ashamed. And he is resentful as well: of Harold’s unspoken
but, he senses, unshakable expectation that he will always know what to do
about Jude; the disappointment, the disdain he knows Harold would feel for

him if he knew what he had said and done in the nighttime.