Page 73 - A Little Life: A Novel

wrapped with white gauze—but he knew he would find the same thing
there.
He had been lying when he told Andy he hadn’t known Jude cut himself.

Or rather, he hadn’t known for certain, but that was only a technicality: he
knew, and he had known for a long time. When they were at Malcolm’s
house the summer after Hemming died, he and Malcolm had gotten drunk
one afternoon, and as they sat and watched JB and Jude, back from their
walk to the dunes, fling sand at each other, Malcolm had asked, “Have you
ever noticed how Jude always wears long sleeves?”
He’d grunted in response. He had, of course—it was difficult not to,

especially on hot days—but he had never let himself wonder why. Much of
his friendship with Jude, it often seemed, was not letting himself ask the
questions he knew he ought to, because he was afraid of the answers.
There had been a silence then, and the two of them had watched as JB,
drunk himself, fell backward into the sand and Jude limped over and begun
burying him.

“Flora had a friend who always wore long sleeves,” Malcolm continued.
“Her name was Maryam. She used to cut herself.”
He let the silence pull between them until he imagined he could hear it
come alive. There had been a girl in their dorm who had cut herself as well.
She had been with them freshman year, but, he realized, he hadn’t seen her
at all this past year.
“Why?” he asked Malcolm. On the sand, Jude had worked up to JB’s

waist. JB was singing something meandering and tuneless.
“I don’t know,” Malcolm said. “She had a lot of problems.”
He waited, but it seemed Malcolm had nothing more to say. “What
happened to her?”
“I don’t know. They lost touch when Flora went to college; she never
spoke about her again.”

They were quiet again. Somewhere along the way, he knew, it had been
silently decided among the three of them that he would be primarily
responsible for Jude, and this, he recognized, was Malcolm’s way of
presenting him with a difficulty that needed a solution, although what,
exactly, the problem was—or what the answer might be—he wasn’t certain,
and he was willing to bet that Malcolm didn’t know, either.
For the next few days he avoided Jude, because he knew if he were alone

with him, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from having a conversation