Page 355 - A Little Life: A Novel

“Of course,” I said. We were quiet. “Why don’t I help you get changed
and then you can have something to eat?”
He shook his head. “No, thank you. But I’m not hungry. And I can do it

myself.” Now he was subdued, controlled: the person I had seen earlier was
gone, caged once more in his labyrinth in some little-opened cellar. He was
always polite, but when he was trying to protect himself or assert his
competency, he became more so: polite and slightly remote, as if he was an
explorer among a dangerous tribe, and was being careful not to find himself
too involved in their goings-on.
I sighed, inwardly, and took him to his room; I told him I’d be here if he

needed me, and he nodded. I sat on the floor outside the closed door and
waited: I could hear the faucets turning on and off, and then his steps, and
then a long period of silence, and then the sigh of the bed as he sat on it.
When I went in, he was under the covers, and I sat down next to him, on
the edge of the bed. “Are you sure you don’t want to eat anything?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, and after a pause, he looked at me. He could open his eyes

now, and against the white of the sheets, he was the loamy, fecund colors of
camouflage: the jungle-green of his eyes, and the streaky gold-and-brown
of his hair, and his face, less blue than it had been this morning and now a
dark shimmery bronze. “Harold, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I yelled
at you last night, and I’m sorry I cause so many problems for you. I’m sorry
that—”
“Jude,” I interrupted him, “you don’t need to be sorry. I’m sorry. I wish I

could make this better for you.”
He closed his eyes, and opened them, and looked away from me. “I’m so
ashamed,” he said, softly.
I stroked his hair, then, and he let me. “You don’t have to be,” I said.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” I wanted to cry, but I thought he might,
and if he wanted to, I would try not to. “You know that, right?” I asked him.

“You know this wasn’t your fault, you know you didn’t deserve this?” He
said nothing, so I kept asking, and asking, until finally he gave a small nod.
“You know that guy is a fucking asshole, right?” I asked him, and he turned
his face away. “You know you’re not to blame, right?” I asked him. “You
know that this says nothing about you and what you’re worth?”
“Harold,” he said. “Please.” And I stopped, although really, I should have
kept going.