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Willem was cold.
He groaned and turned over, reaching his arm across the bed to pull Jude closer, his personal furnace. But instead of finding Jude's body, his hand plopped down onto the mattress. It was cool – no trace of body heat. He must have been gone for a while, Willem thought, and then he came fully awake, and sat up, and dragged his hands down his face.
It had been so long. Willem had almost forgotten what it was like to wake in the middle of the night alone, to sit in the dark and know that less than thirty feet away, Jude was hurting himself, and there was nothing Willem could do. Back when they were still having sex (when Willem was making Jude have sex, a cruel part of Willem reminded him), Jude would crawl out of bed almost every night. Jude was always quiet, always careful, but Willem woke anyway. Until Jude returned, he would stare at the wall, imagining what Jude was doing in each moment: now he’s unwrapping the razor. Now he’s cutting a piece from the roll of gauze. Now he’s pouring the rubbing alcohol onto the blade.
Get up, Willem would command himself. Just get up and walk down the hall. You can stop this now. Beg him, take his razors, hold him down until it’s over. Do whatever you have to, just don’t let this go on any longer. But after their terrible fight, when Willem had pinned Jude to the floor and wrestled with him for the razor, and then Jude hadn’t been able to come near Willem for a week, Willem couldn’t do it. And though self-hatred fell under Jude’s purview, sometimes Willem hated himself for his own selfishness – for allowing Jude to continue to hurt himself rather than give up their fragile truce.
In those days, even before the sun rose and Willem made Jude roll up his sleeves so he could check his arms, Willem could always tell when Jude had cut himself, because those were the only times when Jude slept soundly. In this way, they were opposites; when Jude didn’t cut, Willem, relieved, would let himself rest; when Jude cut himself, Willem would lie awake next to him, staring at the insides of his eyelids and admonishing himself. Next time, you have to stop it, he would think. This can’t possibly go on. And then it would, and Willem would do nothing.
But things had changed. Gradually, and unpredictably, the two of them had found a kind of equilibrium. Jude’s cutting had grown less frequent; his nightmares worsened, then, eventually, relaxed their grip on Jude, so he sometimes slept all the way through the night without interruption. Willem had stopped checking Jude’s arms. The past few months, they had been happy.
So why now? Had Willem missed something? Had Jude been lying about his happiness, just as he used to lie that he was happy having sex?
Get up, Willem’s mind told him. This time, he listened. He swung his legs out of bed – it was February, and he shivered when his bare feet met the cold wood floor – and pulled on the sweater that, to Jude’s consternation, he’d left on the floor the previous night. Then he walked out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom, where, heart pounding, he pressed the side of his head against the door, listening.
Willem heard nothing. How could so much violence occur without the slightest sound? Jude’s cuts were deep, and yet he never cried out, never hissed in pain. Against his will, Willem pictured Jude as a child lying in some dirty motel bed, learning to be silent, learning to bite his tongue so that he wouldn’t scream – and then Willem shook his head, willing the terrible image to leave his mind.
He knocked on the bathroom door. “Jude,” he called, quietly.
Now there was a sound – a quick breath, the rustle of fabric, the sound of the faucet turning on and off. Another moment of silence, then Jude’s footsteps, the click of the bathroom lock, the turn of the doorknob.
Jude opened the door. He said nothing, just looked at Willem, the whites of his eyes bright in the darkness.
Willem scanned Jude’s arms. He was wearing one of his old, navy blue Yale hoodies; in the darkness, it was impossible to tell whether blood was seeping through the fabric. “Did you – did you do it already?”
Jude pulled the door half closed, creating a boundary between them. He looked away. “Willem, I’m sorry.”
Willem sighed. He hadn’t expected anything different, but he hated to see the way Jude was already pulling himself away, closing himself off. “Will you let me in?”
Jude eyed him warily. “What are you going to do?”
That hurt, and it hurt all the more for the fact that at one time, Jude would have been justified in asking. How had he have been so stupid, so impulsive, Willem thought. How could he have seen Jude’s vulnerability, and instead of accepting Jude as he was, given him another reason to close himself away?
“Please,” he found himself saying.
Jude stepped back from the door, his eyes wary, and Willem followed him in. As always, the evidence was gone, spirited away as if nothing had happened. There was no blood on the floor, no roll of gauze on the counter. The razors had been secreted back to wherever Jude kept them, and the only trace of Jude's suffering was the faint scent of rubbing alcohol and, below that, the warm copper tang of blood.
“Can I see?”
“I’m not sure, Willem.” Jude shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“Okay. That’s okay.” He would see them eventually; the next time Jude felt safe taking off his shirt in front of him, Willem would see the half-healed scabs, and though he would be careful not to react, his chest would ache. “Did you bandage them? Are they clean?”
“Yes, Willem,” Jude said, embarrassed. “I’m fine. You should go back to bed.”
Willem just shook his head. “What happened, Jude? I thought you were doing better.”
The corners of Jude’s mouth tilted down. “I am doing better.” He sat down on the closed toilet lid, staring down at his hands. There was blood caked in the wrinkles of his knuckles, Willem noticed, and shivered. “It just – it was just going to be a year. Next week.”
Willem lowered himself to the ground in front of Jude, crossing his legs. “You mean, a year since you last…”
Jude nodded, still not meeting Willem’s eyes.
“I don’t understand, Jude.” Willem sighed. “Isn’t that a good thing? A whole year.”
“That’s the problem,” Jude said quietly. He paused, and Willem watched as Jude thought about what to say. “I know you’re proud of me. And that means something to me, Willem – it does. But if I made it to a year…” Jude swallowed. “That would mean I was getting better.”
Willem frowned. “Don’t you want to get better?”
“I do,” Jude said quickly. “But it’s – frightening. To feel like I’m changing. Every time my life gets better, Willem, it’s like I have more to lose. And I’m going to lose it, because that’s what happens to me. So – why not make the loss happen when I can predict it?”
“Oh, Jude,” Willem sighed. His throat burned. “Can I touch you?”
Jude leaned away. “I’m not sure, Willem.”
“I don’t mean – I just want to hold your hand.”
After a moment, Jude extended his right hand. Willem held it, brushing his thumb back and forth across the back of Jude’s knuckles, over the blood stains Jude hadn’t been able to wash out. “I want you to feel better, Jude.”
“I know,” Jude whispered, staring at their hands. "I'm sorry."
“But I know it’s – it’s complicated.”
Jude closed his eyes, his eyebrows drawing together as if in pain. “A whole year. I almost made it. I was...” He shook his head. "It doesn't matter."
"What doesn't matter?"
Jude sighed. "It's stupid. But I was proud."
Willem hummed. “You made it almost a year. You should be proud. That doesn’t go away just because of one mistake.”
“It does, though,” Jude insisted. “I’m right back at the start.”
“Do you feel like you did at the start?”
Jude thought about it for a second, then shook his head.
“You’ve made so much progress, Jude,” Willem said quietly. “You’ve been working so hard.”
“Are you angry, Willem?”
Willem shook his head. “No. I'm still just proud.”
Jude said nothing. He blinked down at their connected hands.
Willem stood up, not letting go. “And tired. It’s late. Will you come back to bed?”
After a moment, Jude nodded. He stood up, and Willem led him out of the bathroom, clicking off the light.