Page 376 - A Little Life: A Novel

“What the hell is going on with you?” Willem asked as soon as they were
in the apartment.
“Nothing,” he said, “nothing,” and now his teeth were chattering, which

was something that had never accompanied the shaking when he was young
but now happened almost every time.
Willem stepped close to him, but he turned his face away. “Something
happened while I was away,” Willem said, tentatively. “I don’t know what it
is, but something happened. Something’s wrong. You’ve been acting
strangely ever since I got home from The Odyssey. I don’t know why.” He
stopped, and put his hands on his shoulders. “Tell me, Jude,” he said. “Tell

me what it is. Tell me and we’ll figure out how to make it better.”
“No,” he whispered. “I can’t, Willem, I can’t.” There was a long silence.
“I want to go to bed,” he said, and Willem released him, and he went to the
bathroom.
When he came out, Willem was wearing one of his T-shirts, and was
lofting the duvet from the guest room over the sofa in his bedroom, the sofa

under the painting of Willem in the makeup chair. “What’re you doing?” he
asked.
“I’m staying here tonight,” Willem said.
He sighed, but Willem started talking before he could. “You have three
choices, Jude,” he said. “One, I call Andy and tell him I think there’s
something really going wrong with you and I take you up to his office for
an evaluation. Two, I call Harold, who freaks out and calls Andy. Or three,

you let me stay here and monitor you because you won’t talk to me, you
won’t fucking tell me anything, and you never seem to understand that you
at least owe your friends the opportunity to try to help you—you at least
owe me that.” His voice cracked. “So what’s it going to be?”
Oh Willem, he thought. You don’t know how badly I want to tell you.
“I’m sorry, Willem,” he said, instead.

“Fine, you’re sorry,” said Willem. “Go to bed. Do you still have extra
toothbrushes in the same place?”
“Yes,” he said.
The next night he came home late from work, and found Willem lying on
the sofa in his room again, reading. “How was your day?” he asked, not
lowering his book.
“Fine,” he said. He waited to see if Willem was going to explain himself,

but he didn’t, and eventually he went to the bathroom. In the closet, he