Page 381 - A Little Life: A Novel

this in all these years? The choice now seemed obvious; the only question
was why it had taken him so long.
He talked to Harold; he could tell by the relief in Harold’s voice that he

must be sounding more normal. He talked to Willem. “You sound better,”
Willem said, and he could hear the relief in Willem’s voice as well.
“I am,” he said. He felt a pull of regret after talking to both of them, but
he was determined. He was no good for them, anyway; he was only an
extravagant collection of problems, nothing more. Unless he stopped
himself, he would consume them with his needs. He would take and take
and take from them until he had chewed away their every bit of flesh; they

could answer every difficulty he posed to them and he would still find new
ways to destroy them. For a while, they would mourn him, because they
were good people, the best, and he was sorry for that—but eventually they
would see that their lives were better without him in it. They would see how
much time he had stolen from them; they would understand what a thief he
had been, how he had suckled away all their energy and attention, how he

had exsanguinated them. He hoped they would forgive him; he hoped they
would see that this was his apology to them. He was releasing them—he
loved them most of all, and this was what you did for people you loved: you
gave them their freedom.
The day came: a Monday at the end of September. The night before he
had realized that it was almost exactly a year after the beating, although he
hadn’t planned it that way. He left work early that evening. He had spent the

weekend organizing his projects; he had written Lucien a memo detailing
the status of everything he had been working on. At home, he lined up his
letters on the dining-room table, and a copy of his will. He had left a
message with Richard’s studio manager that the toilet in the master
bathroom kept running and asked if Richard could let in the plumber the
following day at nine—both Richard and Willem had a set of keys to his

apartment—because he would be away on business.
He took off his suit jacket and tie and shoes and watch and went to the
bathroom. He sat in the shower area with his sleeves pushed up. He had a
glass of scotch, which he sipped at to steady himself, and a box cutter,
which he knew would be easier to hold than a razor. He knew what he
needed to do: three straight vertical lines, as deep and long as he could
make them, following the veins up both arms. And then he would lie down

and wait.