Hanya Yanagihara - A Little Life

That night he turns off his phones, drugs himself, crawls into bed. He wakes the next day, texts both JB and Richard that he’s not feeling well and has to cancel his dinners with them, and then re-drugs himself until it is Monday. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. He has ignored all of Andy’s calls and texts and e-mails, all of his messages, but although he is no longer angry, only ashamed, he cannot bear to make one more apology, cannot bear his own meanness, his own weakness. “I’m frightened, Andy,” he wants to say. “What will I do without you?”

Andy loves sweets, and on Thursday afternoon he has one of his secretaries place an order for an absurd, a stupid amount of chocolates from Andy’s favorite candy shop. “Any note?” his secretary asks, and he shakes his head. “No,” he says, “just my name.” She nods and starts to leave and he calls her back, grabs a piece of notepaper from his desk, and scribbles Andy — I’m so embarrassed. Please forgive me. Jude , and hands it to her.

But the next night he doesn’t go to see Andy; he goes home to make dinner for Harold, who is in town on one of his unannounced visits. The previous spring had been Harold’s final semester, which he had failed to register until it was September. He and Willem had always spoken of throwing Harold a party when he finally retired, the way they had done for Julia when she had retired. But he had forgotten, and he had done nothing. And then he remembered and he still did nothing.

He is tired. He doesn’t want to see Harold. But he makes dinner anyway, a dinner he knows he will not eat, and serves it to Harold and then sits down himself.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Harold asks him, and he shakes his head. “I ate lunch at five today,” he lies. “I’ll eat later.”

He watches Harold eat, and sees that he is old, that the skin on his hands has become as soft and satiny as a baby’s. He is ever-more aware that he is one year older, two years older, and now, six years older than Harold was when they met. And yet for all these years, Harold has remained in his perceptions stubbornly forty-five; the only thing that has changed is his perception of how old, exactly, forty-five is. It is embarrassing to admit this to himself, but it is only recently that he has begun considering that there is a possibility, even a probability, that he will outlive Harold. He has already lived beyond his imaginings; isn’t it likely he will live longer still?

He remembers a conversation they’d had when he turned thirty-five. “I’m middle-aged,” he’d said, and Harold had laughed.

“You’re young,” he’d said. “You’re so young, Jude. You’re only middle-aged if you plan on dying at seventy. And you’d better not. I’m really not going to be in the mood to attend your funeral.”

“You’re going to be ninety-five,” he said. “Are you really planning on still being alive then?”

“Alive, and frisky, and being attended to by an assortment of buxom young nurses, and not in any mood to go to some long-winded service.”

He had finally smiled. “And who’s paying for this fleet of buxom young nurses?”

“You, of course,” said Harold. “You and your big-pharma spoils.”

But now he worries that this won’t happen after all. Don’t leave me, Harold, he thinks, but it is a dull, spiritless request, one he doesn’t expect will be answered, made more from rote than from real hope. Don’t leave me.

“You’re not saying anything,” Harold says now, and he refocuses himself.

“I’m sorry, Harold,” he says. “I was drifting a little.”

“I can see that,” Harold says. “I was saying: Julia and I were thinking of spending some more time here, in the city, of living uptown full-time.”

He blinks. “You mean, moving here?”

“Well, we’ll keep the place in Cambridge,” Harold says, “but yes. I’m considering teaching a seminar at Columbia next fall, and we like spending time here.” He looks at him. “We thought it’d be nice to be closer to you, too.”

He isn’t sure what he thinks about this. “But what about your lives up there?” he asks. He is discomfited by this news; Harold and Julia love Cambridge — he has never thought they would leave. “What about Laurence and Gillian?”

“Laurence and Gillian are always coming through the city; so is everyone else.” Harold studies him again. “You don’t seem very happy about this, Jude.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, looking down. “But I just hope you’re not moving here because — because of me.” There’s a silence. “I don’t mean to sound presumptuous,” he says, finally. “But if it is because of me, then you shouldn’t, Harold. I’m fine. I’m doing fine.”

“Are you, Jude?” Harold asks, very quietly, and he suddenly stands, quickly, and goes to the bathroom near the kitchen, where he sits on the toilet seat and puts his face in his hands. He can hear Harold waiting on the other side of the door, but he says nothing, and neither does Harold. Finally, minutes later, when he’s able to compose himself, he opens the door again, and the two of them look at each other.

“I’m fifty-one,” he tells Harold.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harold asks.

“It means I can take care of myself,” he says. “It means I don’t need anyone to help me.”

Harold sighs. “Jude,” he says, “there’s not an expiration date on needing help, or needing people. You don’t get to a certain age and it stops.” They’re quiet again. “You’re so thin,” Harold continues, and when he doesn’t say anything, “What does Andy say?”

“I can’t keep having this conversation,” he says at last, his voice scraped and hoarse. “I can’t, Harold. And you can’t, either. I feel like all I do is disappoint you, and I’m sorry for that, I’m sorry for all of it. But I’m really trying. I’m doing the best I can. I’m sorry if it’s not good enough.” Harold tries to interject, but he talks over him. “This is who I am. This is it, Harold. I’m sorry I’m such a problem for you. I’m sorry I’m ruining your retirement. I’m sorry I’m not happier. I’m sorry I’m not over Willem. I’m sorry I have a job you don’t respect. I’m sorry I’m such a nothing of a person.” He no longer knows what he’s saying; he no longer knows how he feels: he wants to cut himself, to disappear, to lie down and never get up again, to hurl himself into space. He hates himself; he pities himself; he hates himself for pitying himself. “I think you should go,” he says. “I think you should leave.”

“Jude,” Harold says.

“Please go,” he says. “Please. I’m tired. I need to be left alone. Please leave me alone.” And he turns from Harold and stands, waiting, until he hears Harold walk away from him.

After Harold leaves, he takes the elevator to the roof. Here there is a stone wall, chest-high, that lines the perimeter of the building, and he leans against it, swallowing the cool air, placing his palms flat against the top of the wall to try to stop them from shaking. He thinks of Willem, of how he and Willem used to stand on this roof at night, not saying anything, just looking down into other people’s apartments. From the southern end of the roof, they could almost see the roof of their old building on Lispenard Street, and sometimes they would pretend that they could see not just the building, but them within it, their former selves performing a theater of their daily lives.

“There must be a fold in the space-time continuum,” Willem would say in his action-hero voice. “You’re here beside me, and yet— I can see you moving around in that shithole apartment . My god, St. Francis: Do you realize what’s going on here?! ” Back then, he would always laugh, but remembering this now, he cannot. These days, his only pleasure is thoughts of Willem, and yet those same thoughts are also his greatest source of sorrow. He wishes he could forget as completely as Lucien has: that Willem ever existed, his life with him.