Page 628 - A Little Life: A Novel

Why have I spent more hours at Rosen Pritchard than I spent with Willem?
But now the choice has been made for him, and Rosen Pritchard is all he
has.

Then he thinks: Why did I never give Willem what I should have? Why
did I make him go elsewhere for sex? Why couldn’t I have been braver?
Why couldn’t I have done my duty? Why did he stay with me anyway?
He goes back to Greene Street to shower and sleep for a few hours; he
will return to the office that afternoon. As he rides home, his eyes lowered
against the Life After Death posters, he looks at his messages: Andy,
Richard, Harold, Black Henry Young.

The last message is from JB, who calls or texts him at least twice a week.
He does not know why, but he cannot tolerate seeing JB. He in fact hates
him, hates him more purely than he has hated anyone in a long time. He is
fully aware of how irrational this is. He is fully aware that JB is not to
blame, not in the slightest. The hatred makes no sense. JB wasn’t even in
the car that day; in no way, even in the most deformed logic, does he bear

any responsibility. And yet the first time he saw JB in his conscious state,
he heard a voice in his head say, clearly and calmly, It should have been
you, JB. He didn’t say it, but his face must have betrayed something,
because JB had been stepping forward to hug him when suddenly, he
stopped. He has seen JB only twice since then, both times in Richard’s
company, and both times, he has had to keep himself from saying
something malignant, something unforgivable. And still JB calls him, and

always leaves messages, and his messages are always the same: “Hey Judy,
it’s me. I’m just checking in on you. I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I’d
like to see you. Okay. Love you. Bye.” And as he always does, he will write
back to JB the same message: “Hi JB, thanks for your message. I’m sorry
I’ve been so out of touch; it’s been really busy at work. I’ll talk to you soon.
Love, J.” But despite this message, he has no intention of talking to JB,

perhaps not ever again. There is something very wrong with this world, he
thinks, a world in which of the four of them—him, JB, Willem, and
Malcolm—the two best people, the two kindest and most thoughtful, have
died, and the two poorer examples of humanity have survived. At least JB is
talented; he deserves to live. But he can think of no reason why he might.
“We’re all we have left, Jude,” JB had said to him at some point, “at least
we have each other,” and he had thought, in another of those statements that

leapt quickly to mind but that he successfully prevented himself from