Page 443 - A Little Life: A Novel

wearing any clothes, and he put his arms beneath the sheet, and pulled the
blanket up to his chin.
“No, Jude,” Willem said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was going to be so

traumatic for you.” He reached over and stroked his hair. They were quiet.
“That was the first time I’ve ever seen you cry, you know.”
“Well,” he said, swallowing. “For some reason it’s not as successful a
seduction method as I’d hoped,” and smiled at Willem, a little, and Willem
smiled back.
They lay in bed that morning and talked. Willem asked him about certain
scars, and he told him. He explained how he had gotten the scars on his

back: about the day he had been caught trying to run away from the home;
the beating that had followed; the resulting infection, the way his back had
wept pus for days, the bubbles of blisters that had formed around the stray
splinters from the broom handle that had embedded themselves into his
flesh; what he had been left with when it was all over. Willem asked him
when he was last naked before anyone and he lied and told him that—

except for Andy—it had been when he was fifteen. And then Willem said
various kind and unbelievable things about his body, which he chose to
ignore, because he knew they weren’t true.
“Willem, if you want out, I understand,” he said. It had been his idea not
to tell anyone that their friendship might be changing into something else,
and although he had told Willem it would give them space, and privacy, to
figure out how to be with each other, he had also thought it would give

Willem time to reconsider, opportunities to change his mind without fear of
everyone else’s opinions. Of course, with this decision he cannot help but
hear the echoes of his last relationship, which had also been conducted in
secrecy, and he had to remind himself that this one was different; it was
different unless he made it the same.
“Jude, of course I don’t,” Willem said. “Of course not.”

Willem was running his fingertip over his eyebrow, which for some
reason he found a comforting gesture: it was affectionate without being in
the least sexual. “I just feel like I’m going to be this series of nasty surprises
for you,” he said at last, and Willem shook his head. “Surprises, maybe,” he
said. “But not nasty ones.”
And so every night, he tries to remove his clothes. Sometimes he can do
it; other times, he can’t. Sometimes he can allow Willem to touch him on

his back and arms, and other times, he can’t. But he has been unable to be