Outdoor Voices Rec Shorts I was a late bloomer for Outdoor Voices. While countless women were singing the praises of the company’s famous leggings, I was certain that within the casual shorts genre, nothing could surpass my love for classic Patagonia Baggies shorts. But Outdoor Voices Rec shorts, so comfy and perfect for slipping on in the hot summer when decency laws require you to wear something to leave the house, come really close.
Lucien Albrecht Cremont Rosé All rosé is not created equal. Thanks to my wife, who suggested we serve this delicious sparkling beverage to our wedding guests in 2018, I know that now. My wine education has only just begun and while I still struggle to tell a chardonnay from a Riesling, I’ll be coming back to this Lucien Albrecht sparkling rosé for years (and anniversaries) to come. Cheers!
No.6 Pull-On Shearling Clog Boots Weird things happen in New York City. The neighbor you’ve lived next to for a decade turns out to be a hoarder; the dry cleaner closes without warning and holds your sweaters hostage. But the weird things can be good things, too. I noticed my first pair of No. 6 Pull-On Shearling Clog Boots walking up Madison Avenue on an early Fall day. Oh, those are cute, I remember thinking while turning to get another look. From there, the flood gates opened and it was impossible to venture anywhere in the city without seeing No. 6 clogs in every neighborhood, on the subway, at work, and of course, on those very clever Instagram ads. All of a sudden, they were everywhere. It was as if the universe, and New York City, was trying to tell me something: buy the clogs. Weird. But also wonderful, as they are the most comfortable pair of boots I own. And where nature failed to give me an extra inch of height, No. 6 clogs make up for the shortcomings of my DNA.
Sphen and Magic This list wouldn’t be complete without a touch of gay fairy dust, and in 2018 there was a lot of gay fairy dust to go around. In India, same-sex couples were granted the right to marry and in Colorado, Jared Polis was the first gay man elected governor in the history of the United States. The fairy dust also spread to Sea Life Sydney Aquarium in Australia where Sphen and Magic, two male gentoo penguins, took part in the ritual of building a nest made of pebbles for each other. When their caretakers noticed Sphen and Magic’s budding romance and how bonded the two birds had become, they gave them an egg to incubate together, spreading the gay fairy dust even further and making “Sphengic” the first known same-sex penguin couple.
J.Crew Cashmere Boyfriend Sweater Finally, J.Crew made an affordable cashmere sweater that doesn’t pill, shred, molt or otherwise fall to pieces after wearing it twice. I never thought they’d get it right, but they did and I’ll be wearing this sweater in multiple colors (and with a monogram, fyi) all winter long.
Green Smoothie This was the year I finally started to juice things and make drinks that look gross, but taste amazing. My favorite recipe calls for kale, cucumber, apples, ginger, and celery blended together with water and then passed through a strainer. Delicious!
Accidentally Wes Anderson For anyone who needs to be transported to a peculiar world of symmetrical buildings, colorful interiors, and architecture that delights in the faded grandeur of real-world places, the Instagram account known as @accidentallywesanderson is a must follow. What started as a subreddit by Wally Koval is now its own Instagram handle with over 570,000 followers and daily posts that cover the globe, showing all things twee, precious, and carefully curated in that signature Wes Anderson style.
Apple AirPods My sincerest apologies to anyone I may have mislabeled as a robot for sporting AirPods. I maintain that they make us look more like droids and less like, well, humans, but they’ve also completely amped up my workouts, changed my commute, and made it possible to tolerate the noise of everyday life by blocking it out.
This is Life With Lisa Ling Longform journalism is hard to pull off. Budgets are short and attention spans are even shorter. But as someone who first discovered a love of storytelling through news magazine shows, the format of researching a story, embedding, and getting to the truth of an experience or an issue, there’s nothing more compelling than watching a story take shape for an hour. Lisa Ling’s CNN show “This is Life” took me there this year, into the heart of the heroin epidemic, through the deep south, and to Asia for the world’s most celebrated transgender beauty pageant, just to name a few topics she covered. Ling’s show has renewed my love for longform journalism and discovering more about everything I don’t know yet.
Fort Tryon Park When I told people that my wife and I were moving to Inwood, most responded by referencing the fabulous dog park there. They were right. The Sir William dog run in Fort Tryon Park is amazing and has done wonders for our small pup. In the spring and summer months, when the sun doesn’t go down until 8pm, it’s easy to spend 90 minutes watching him fetch sticks, kick dirt, and make fellow dog friends in the park’s huge expanse. For some, it’s just a park, but for dog owners, it’s a community.
A Little Life I was warned about this book. “You’re really doing it,” asked the person who sold it to me. And “oooh, that’s a tough one,” said many others who spotted my paperback and were compelled to talk to me about their experience with Hanya Yanagihara’s novel. 700 pages later, I get it: the concern, the warning, confiding in a stranger about the deep wound that this book leaves its readers. The story is heavy and heartbreaking. And it’s also one of the most the most incredible books I’ve ever read. I don’t regret reading “A Little Life” like some warned me I would. I only regret that I can’t read it for the first time again.
My feeling about this book are extremely complicated.
I can see why people like the writing style, and why they love the characters as much as they do. Yanagihara really does a beautiful job of drawing you in in the beginning, and making you really investing in these characters, so much so that, even after things start to unravel, when you start to learn about Jude’s coping mechanisms, when you see him go through an extremely traumatic and abusive relationship, when you find out about the abuse he suffered as a child, somehow, you keep on reading, hoping against all hope that soon things will get better. That there will be a happy ending for these people after all.
Some people have talking about how what Yanagihara has done is simply expose us to the suffering that is already out there. That we are forced to confront that there is so much more behind the brave face we see people put on, that for some people, it is so difficult to escape the cycle of abuse, that sometimes, sadly, there is no happy ending. And I can see that.
I can also see, and agree that the trauma described in this book is a lot, and it goes too far. There is so much suffering, far more than anyone is capable of holding. I personally found it incredibly difficult to read those sections of the book, which dive deep into Jude’s suffering. I often found myself skipping over over those parts because I didn’t want to see it. It felt invasive, and uncomfortable and inappropriate.
At the end of the day, I stand by the fact that this is not a book I can recommend to people. I bought it over a year ago, and only recently started reading, and at one point I decided I didn’t want to read anymore. I do have a rough idea about what happens because I have seem way too many reviews and posts of this book over the past year to help me decide if I want to see why so many people like it despite everything.
I am afraid I cant say that I love this book. Props to Yanagihara for how she made us care so much about the characters, but i cant say that I will be revisiting it anytime soon. You are not missing out on anything if you choose not to read it.
If you do decide to pick it up, please, please, please check the trigger warmings. I cannot stress that enough.
i’m so obsessed with the idea of living in a big city where i can choose to be invisible and disappear between the crowds and live for myself and have my favorite little corner in a cafe and go to musea and galleries and appreciate art and architecture for hours uninterrupted and go to all the places where literary figures got inspiration for their poetry and their works and stroll down the streets by myself and look at people who pass by and invent little stories for them in my head and live in a small apartment where i can write by my open window until really late at night and sometimes stop and listen to the bustle of life on the streets below and i can also choose to be part of that bustle myself and part of a circle of artists who share a studio and support each other and go to social gatherings where i meet people who are as passionate about art and poetry as i am and exchange ideas and be inspired and have specific corners and monuments and cafes where we gather, and hold symposia stuffed in someone’s tiny apartment and in general live as an active part of the urban creative scene ??? just ,,, living in a city where i get to see the entire assembled past and present existence of humanity ???
But what was happiness but an extravagance, an impossible state to maintain, partly because it was so difficult to articulate?
To understand the novel’s exaggeration and its intense, claustrophobic focus on its characters’ inner lives requires recognizing how it engages with aesthetic modes long coded as queer: melodrama, sentimental fiction, grand opera. The book is scaled to the intensity of Jude’s inner life, and for long passages it forces the reader to experience a world that’s brutally warped by suffering. Again and again A Little Life conveys Jude’s sense of himself through elaborate metaphor: he is “a scrap of bloodied, muddied cloth,” “a blank, faceless prairie under whose yellow surface earthworms and beetles wriggled,” “a scooped out husk.” His memories are “hyenas,” his fear “a flock of flapping bats,” his self-hatred a “beast.” This language infects those closest to him, so that for Willem, learning about his childhood is “plunging an arm into the snake- and centipede-squirming muck of Jude’s past.” In its sometimes grueling descriptions of Jude’s self-harm and his perceptions of his own body, the book reminds readers of the long filiation between gay art and the freakish, the abnormal, the extreme—those aspects of queer culture we’ve been encouraged to forget in an era that’s increasingly embracing gay marriage and homonormativity.
I’ve read A Little Life in my native language, which they translated the book title to something like “A Worthless Life”
Since the pages weren’t in English i never questioned the English title’s meaning, so while I was watching the play, when brother Luke said “show a little life” to Jude, it hit me so hard???? All of a sudden it made so much sense and the fact that brother Luke’s words made it into the title, (to me) showed how much and deeply his existence affected Jude’s story.
Still waiting for your arrival, the sunrise is near. Perhaps i should read your letters, where our memories are clear.
I couldn’t help but make another edit to the play, it had so many beautiful scenes in it. The long silence after Willem’s accident took my breath away, could almost put myself in Jude’s shoes, reminiscing the past
Also if you’d like, you can read my Jude x Willem comfort fanfic here on AO3 or here on tumblr!
Please don’t repost without crediting the watermark. Thanks!
Here is a Jude&Willem edit i made after finishing A Little Life’s play, it was honestly a hundred times better than i expected; The actors held nothing back and seeing Jude and Willem’s relationship on screen made me incredibly happy.
Hope you’ll enjoy this little edit I made that took way too long to finish, but nevertheless i like the outcome.
Also if you’d like, you can read my Jude x Willem comfort fanfic here on AO3 or here on tumblr!
Please don’t repost without credit to watermark, thank you so much!
“Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified.”
Summary: Jude’s final attempt sends him back to the day Willem’s car crash happens. But this time, the drunk driver hits another car instead. Willem is alive. With the memories of a life without Willem, Jude decides to achieve a better ending than the one he got. And with Willem by his side, nothing feels impossible.
(Also, sorry if the writing style feels a bit different than Yanagihara’s, My first language isn’t English and I didn’t read the English version of this book. I really hope there aren’t too many noticeable mistakes that would prevent you from enjoying it.)
–
VIII / The Butterfly Effect
The needle of the syringe that’s inside of Jude St. Francis feels cold. Nothing more, nothing less. The fingers of the man holding it trembles for a second, even himself isn’t sure if it’s because he is scared or excited. Scared for death, or excited for the release.
Release. That’s the name he came up with for this attempt months ago, while he was planning the letters each person would get. He has become such a dead weight on other people that it is noticeable; from their smiles that hide worry, or their eyes covered in dark circles. People around him are tired because of him. Harold, Julia, and Andy, they all are. He thinks how their lives would be if they never met Jude. Probably way happier. This thought has been putting a lot of weight on his shoulders and each day the weight multiplies. The shoulders that have been already carrying so much of the past.
The needle stays inside of him for a couple of minutes, he still didn’t inject the air into his artery. He looks around himself, taking in the last chance of using his senses, ever. He looks at the -perfectly- clean bathroom tiles, feels its texture with his hand that’s not holding the syringe and smells the perfume of Willem he poured onto himself minutes before. He cries, of course. Cries for what he is doing, how others are going to react, and what could have been. If only this and that were different. If he was a better person, then things would be different. He would make everyone proud. Maybe even himself.
He fought, very hard. He just wishes other people will be aware of it after what will happen moments later. That he is not doing this because he is giving up, but because he fought so long that he can’t bear to do it any longer. “Release me from my promise to you.” He remembers shouting these words to Harold, “Don’t make me do this anymore, don’t make me go on.”
But he stops himself from diving too deep into his thoughts or memories. He has already thought about these probably his entire life. What good would they be in his final moments? So, he changes his focus; He looks at the space in front of him and thinks of him, Willem. He knows it’s selfish not to imagine Harold or Julia or Andy… but Willem is already dead and dead people can’t be more disappointed. Thinking anybody else who is alive would only make him feel guilty about what he is about to do. He tries to imagine Willem in front of him, he thinks how his touch would feel on his cheeks, arms, chest, and back. He thinks about all the years he knew him. How Willem always found a way to find his way back home and how he always tried to take care of Jude. He plays their memories on his head, one by one, that’s how he always planned it would go. Because if he doesn’t, his promise to Harold will be all over the corners of his mind, and that way he could never find the courage to do what he is about to do.
Only Willem, Jude guides himself in the right direction. Willem’s hair, Willem’s smell, Willem’s kind heart, and Willem’s arms around him as they slept together side by side every night. The memories get faster and faster as his heartbeats do as well. Sacred memories that only belong to them. How lucky and blessed Jude must be to have such magical memories. Willem, he thinks.
Willem, Willem, Willem.
I hope we can meet again someday, dear.
He shuts down his eyes and injects the syringe all at once. The air that was previously stuck in the syringe’s tube finds its way and welcomes its new home, Jude’s artery.
The pain he feels isn’t how he imagined it would be, it feels normal to him, way too normal. But he can’t figure it out if it was because the actual act wasn’t as harsh as the papers written about it or if his body was so used to inflicting pain to itself that this was nothing new. He feels happy. Yes, the pain, his body trembling and his legs kicking around in an animalistic way feels distracting, but he can still think of Willem. Not being able to do that was his biggest fear in the whole act itself.
He thinks of him until his mind doesn’t allow him to, until he forgets what he looks like. But that doesn’t stop him. He knows Willem’s name and Willem’s name is enough home to him. Enough to keep him safe from Brother Luke and Dr. Traylor’s fingers that are reaching for him. It seems that Jude carried his demons with him for so long that his mind still can’t let go of them, even at death. He still clearly remembers every single detail about them, but he isn’t worried.
It’s okay. He knows Willem’s name, nothing else would be strong enough to take that name away from him.
–
There is a noise.
The noise comes and goes, one by one, but it is always the same noise. As if somebody is shutting a light switch on and off repeatedly. He drifts away from his dazed state, he can hear the ringing more and more clearly now. Jude can’t help but shake his head, the fog that’s surrounding him needs to get away because the noise is getting more and more irritating each passing second. He feels his right arm slapping through the air as if he is materializing the thing that’s bothering him and punching it. But it doesn’t work, the ringing is still there.
Seconds feel like an eternity. An eternity of remembering what he has done seconds ago. Great, he thinks to himself, I’m in the hospital again. He failed. Failing twice in a subject so close to him feels like a punch in the throat. This is the one thing he should be doing successfully and better than anyone, but he even fails at this, apparently.
The ringing gets louder and louder, so loud that he takes a bold step to get up. The action is more of a reflex but what surprises him is that he can feel his body moving. His muscles tensing up and his prosthetics lifting him to the ground. He feels worried now, how is he standing up if he is in the hospital? It’s time to open your eyes, he commands himself. Something is wrong, Jude. It feels like it takes him days just to lift his glued eyelids back up. The light feels violent, he covers his eyes for a while with his scarred hand and waits until they adapt to seeing, observing life once again.
He is in the Lantern House. He looks around with a huge discomfort in his chest. How is he here, why is he here? He wasn’t supposed to be here, the last thing he remembers is the needle that was inside of his skin and the stroke taking control of his body. Being here made no sense at all.
His mind doesn’t even think about how it could just be a bad nightmare.
His thoughts get distracted by the ringing once again. What he thought were hospital machines beeping was coming from the kitchen table.
Oh, his phone was ringing.
He slowly but surely moves his body towards the kitchen, since he still feels a bit dazed, he doesn’t bother checking the caller and just answers the phone. “Hello?”
“Hi Judy!” the voice that’s coming from the other side of the phone reaches him and suddenly Jude is wide awake, feeling clearer than he had ever felt. He pushes the phone closer to his ear until it hurts and is still shocked by the unexpected voice. Was this a voicemail? Or an old recording he put on a loop to fall asleep? “Dear, I just met up with Malcolm and Sophie at the station, we’ll shortly be on our way. Do you need anything from the grocery store?”
Willem’s voice.
Jude doesn’t even hear the words themselves; he just hears Willem’s beautiful voice on his ears and tears up. Even if somebody is messing with him by playing this sound to him on the phone, Jude doesn’t care. “Willem, is that you?” he whispers to the phone. “Of course, it’s me, Judy.” Willem chuckles sincerely, “Or is there anyone else that calls you ’dear’?”
Jude instantly takes a step back from the phone and even falls to the ground. This conversation has never happened between them and his mind is racing between millions of thoughts on what the hell is going on. He is not sure how long he stayed on the ground, he was so distracted and mesmerized by Willem’s name on the screen. “Jude?” Willem finally speaks once again, “Is everything alright?”
Jude wasn’t alright, he would be crying hysterically if he wasn’t biting on his own fingers to silence himself. The tears are rolling down from his cheeks nonstop and he knows this can’t be real. This is the day Willem dies .
The day Willem went to pick up Malcolm and Sophie seems so far away from now. Just a blur, a lost page on a dusted calendar.
He would laugh at himself if he could, to the fact that he questioned how moments ago his suicide attempt could be a dream. Jude wasn’t stupid, it wasn’t a dream . The nightmares he had to endure, the days that only had ever-lasting pain in them couldn’t be a dream.
But this was one. Hearing and seeing Willem could only be a dream. It always was . They would get rarer and rarer, so much so that he doesn’t even remember which day was it the last time he had seen Willem in his dreams. He inhales sharply and forces himself to sound normal and picks up the phone again, “Sorry,” He says, “I’m cooking at the same time, a bit busy.” He adds. “Oh, I see!” Jude can see the smile that forms on Willem’s face. “So, do you need anything?” Willem asks once again.
Jude smiles faintly. I just need you, Willem. But you’re never going to come back to me.
He leans on the phone, he could almost hear Willem’s steady breathing on the phone, he would never speak and drive so they must still be in the train station. The thought of warning Willem about the car crash sounds so desperate to him. But he is desperate, he is and has always been since this day. The funny thing was, Willem wouldn’t even think of him as crazy, he would nod and say he would make sure to drive a bit slower. But Jude still can’t find the courage to warn him. He takes a deep breath and wipes his eyes so that he can see again, “I’m out of soil for the garden,” He puts his forehead to the wall, he knows there is a flower shop right before the place the car crash is going to happen. “Can you stop by and get me some?” the question is such a simple one without context, so it doesn’t even take a second for Willem to answer, “Of course, the usual store?” he asks for reassurance and Jude nods, “Mhm.” He says, “ Please take your time.”
After the phone call ends, Jude feels himself almost going crazy. First, the seconds don’t pass. He is stuck in a singular moment, thinking of how the conversation went. Repeats every single word Willem just said to him in his head and lives them in his head again and again. Then, seconds pass like sands falling from an hourglass. He wishes for time to slow down but minutes keep passing and passing. Jude is surprised at how childish he is feeling. He thinks that how he is feeling would be the same if he had a normal childhood and if he was waiting for Christmas morning.
When the doorbell rings, he is still in the same spot the phone call happened.
He doesn’t know how to react or respond, he just feels his body preparing to get up and run to the door. Will he see Willem? Is he that lucky in his dream?
Then it hits him, maybe nothing has changed. Maybe it’ll be a police officer standing in front of his house again, announcing what happened to his dearest friends.
Knowing himself, Jude can guess which way this dream is going to go. His mind has never been a friend to him, so why would it this time?
That’s why he doesn’t move an inch, he stays there and looks at the door. Why was it locked anyway? Couldn’t they just enter and save him from the misery? Minutes pass once again, his phone is also ringing now. He slowly gets up and looks around. The kitchen is familiarly strange to him. Over the years after Willem’s death, he made small changes but those changes aren’t there anymore. Not being able to find comfort in his own house makes him even more anxious. Each step towards the door feels like a journey itself.
When he finally opens the door, he was fully expecting to see an officer standing right next to him to announce whoever got hurt this time.
But he doesn’t see a police officer. What he sees feels just like another day of his everyday life. But a part of him knows this isn’t ordinary. A part of him is sure how much this cannot be real. He looks at the people greeting him by the door, Sophie, Malcolm, and Willem.
Willem.
Jude feels as if he is seeing Willem for the first time in his entire life, all his grace at once. All the days he starved himself just to have a glimpse of him, all the nights he buried his face onto Willem’s shirt, and all the days he used Willem’s perfume on his pillow. Every single day he spent without Willem comes at him like ravenous wolves jumping at their prey. Jude is so overwhelmed that he doesn’t recognize the worry on their faces. Well, technically he does, but he is used to it, so it doesn’t bat an eye.
“What took you so long?” Willem says. The simple, without character words leaving Willem’s mouth sounds like music from the heavens to Jude. He could cry, he wants to cry. But his old habits are also returning him, he can’t do that in front of Malcolm and Sophie.
Jude has always been good at lying, so much so that he could come up with one without even taking another breath. It is one of the greatest defences he built against the world trying to find their way to his secrets. “I got tired from waiting for you guys, so I took a nap.” He explains while looking at the paper bags that are filled with groceries in their hand. “Why was the door locked in the first place?” Malcolm asks. He knew Malcolm probably all of his adult life, he was Jude’s one of the closest, dearest friends. But spending two years without seeing or talking to him is showing its outcomes. Malcolm feels and looks like a stranger to him; someone he needs to trust all over again.
Jude slowly comes back to his senses more and more and as he does, he realizes how monotone the questions sound, how superficial and shallow. Whatever he replies with won’t make a difference to them because the questions are just out of kindness. They have something else in their mind, Jude thinks. “I started getting paranoid lately when it’s just me in the house.” He finally blurts it out, and just like how he thought, they nod and keep looking at him with dilated pupils and unstable breaths. He curses at himself for caring. He wants to be selfish and take Willem into his arms, he wants to touch every single part of him, he wants to bury his nose and smell him, even kiss him. But he doesn’t, he can’t, not when they look so out of character. “What happened to you guys?” Jude asks instead, he is better at lying than them, so he knows they won’t understand how fake his question is as well, just like theirs. They might not know it, but he himself knows. He doesn’t care about what happened to them, he just wants Willem. And that makes him despise himself even more.
“Judy…” Willem exhales, steps into the house, and wraps his arms around Jude tightly, securing him in his place, as if somebody is going to come and snatch him away from them. The moment Willem takes him in his arms, Jude figures out this cannot be real. No matter how real his dreams felt, they never felt this close, this detailed. They were always vague about Willem because no matter how many times he watched Willem’s movies or videos, he would be nothing but a blur in his head. How is this real, how are you real?
Willem quickly breaks the embrace, takes Jude’s face into his hands, and kisses his cheek gently. Willem’s lips touching him feels like an award for surviving through all those days without him. “There was an accident.” Willem finally says, “A truck hit the car right in front of us, Jude… Right in front of us. There was blood everywhere.” Willem’s words are disconnected from each other, they had long pauses and it seemed like he didn’t even know what emotions he was feeling, let alone describe them.
He takes a quick small step back to distance himself from Willem. “The driver… didn’t hit you?” he asks while sighing in relief, he almost even smiles, not realizing how stupid and arrogant the question sounds. “What?” Malcolm responds instead, “God no, Jude. Why would you say that?”
He blinks a couple of times and figures he should be surprised, maybe shocked even. But he isn’t, he still remembers every detail, the driver -how could he forget-, his name and what vehicle he drove, what beer company he worked for, and exactly how much money he took from him… “God.” Jude finally speaks and asks the question he already knows the answer of, “How bad was it, Willem.”
Willem. Speaking his name to Willem himself is a paradise he yearned for years. Willem opens his mouth, but words don’t come out of it. Malcolm and Sophie sense his stress and also steps into the house. They all guide Willem to the couch in the living room and Jude goes to the kitchen to take a glass of water for Willem. His steps in the kitchen are so fast, so childishly quick that it doesn’t even take more than ten seconds to give him the glass.
When he has the chance of seeing Willem, any time he spends elsewhere would be wasted time.
“There was a family of four… Two kids.” Malcolm whispers, he is still shaking, “Their poor bodies were all over the ground.”
Sophie shushes Malcolm and looks at Jude, as if Malcolm’s words would affect Jude’s mental state or triggers him in any way. He laughs at Sophie in his mind. I saw all your dead bodies, helped people identify Willem, do you really think some random people would affect me?
“It could’ve been me…” Willem says, he picks his words carefully. He is covering his eyes with his hands, “We stopped at the flower shop on the side of the road,” Willem gives a glance at Jude, “It only took me a minute to get it, Judy. If I didn’t stop there, it would’ve hit us instead.” He says and Jude can feel the tears forming in Willem’s eyes from the way he speaks. Willem doesn’t sound like he is scared he almost died; he sounds guilty. “It could’ve been me…” he had said, but the only reason he said it like that must be because he didn’t want to upset Jude. It should’ve been me, what he was trying to say. He should’ve been the one to get hit, instead of the family.
Soil? Jude thinks, all the horrible, endless nightmare-like days went without Willem was avoided because he was out of a bag of soil? He curses at the universe, or life, or whatever god there may be. Fuck the family who died, Jude thinks selfishly, I already once accepted the fact that I would give up on Malcolm, JB, and Harold all at once just to have you back. And he was back, all because of some stupid soil?
The soil that you asked from him. His conciseness suddenly reminds him. Then the realization comes like boiling water pouring down on his entire body. Was he the reason this happened?
“I’m so sorry, Willem,” Jude speaks, but he is still lying. “How is the driver?” he continues. “The fucker is fine, barely a scratch. Apparently, he was drunk.” Malcolm answers, his words cut like razors, they carry so much anger it almost lits the room on fire, he remembers feeling this same rage once as well. Jude takes Willem’s hands onto his own ones -they feel so tender, rough but warm- “I will see what I can do about this, I promise you…” he comforts Willem, “I will not let him get away with this.”
Of course, these words are nothing but a way to comfort Willem. Jude never went out of his way to work on a case that wasn’t introduced to him by the company or colleagues first.
He doesn’t want to act anymore; he wants to care about this family that died. So, he searches into his soul to find the flames he once set on fire, the fire that burned everything that was behind the reason for the car crash. But when you set something tremendous on fire, it doesn’t just stop once the job is done. It keeps burning, keeps seeking for more and more to destroy. And what it found next was Jude himself.
He reminds himself of the hatred when he saw the driver’s face and how satisfying it felt when he took every single penny from him -and his family- as if it would be enough to buy Willem back from the dead.
He searches and searches, but he can’t find it.
He knows the reason behind it very well; he is simply not angry at the driver, how could he be, after all, he didn’t hit Willem. It wasn’t Willem’s car, Willem was safe. How could he be angry at him? If he was standing next to him right now, Jude might even thank him, “Thank you.” He would say, “Thank you for not picking him this time.”
Who he is angry at isn’t the driver anymore. It’s himself. He was the reason why they died. And after coming to terms that this was somehow real, Jude feels guilty. ‘But Willem is safe,’ his mind appears at him for comfort, ’Isn’t it worth it, Jude? He is safe and sound. You didn’t even know the family.’
It was true, not him or neither Willem knew who they were. But Willem had seen their bodies. All the sorrow and guilt he is going through right now is because of Jude. He is the reason behind Willem’s trauma.
The dinner goes awkwardly standard. Conversations die easy and the only constant noise is the forks and knives hitting the plates. Jude tries not to stare at Willem for long periods, to not make him suspicious of anything. Look at your food for 30 seconds, then ask a question to Malcolm that Willem would also answer, then you can look into his eyes as much as you want as he speaks. Finding shortcuts like this was something Jude was good at, so he could fabricate as many excuses to stare at Willem, his home. Not that Willem would mind Jude’s eyes on him, but Jude wanted to act normal. He wasn’t going to reveal what was going on before he finds any clues. That is if he can find any.
Oh, how terribly I missed you, Willem.
In the past two years, he read and memorized Willem’s emails so much so that he could think of how Willem would react in a situation. That was a coping mechanism he figured out a while after Willem’s death. When he sought guidance or needed affection from Willem, he would dive into his mind and let his imagination react as Willem. Willem would do this if he were here, say this and kiss like this. But now, he doesn’t need to do that, or anything similar. He doesn’t need to starve himself to see him or let go of Willem entirely to move on.
Willem is right there, right next to him, and when Willem is next to Jude, he knows he is safe, he knows this is where he is meant to be.
Somehow, none of them realizes there is something wrong with Jude. It is probably because they’re dealing with their demons and struggles right now. This gives some time for Jude to focus on what the hell is going on. But the answers he finds are close to none and the more questions he finds the faster time passes.
Next thing Jude knows, it is time for bed. He already prepared the guest room for Malcolm and Sophie, so he just tells them goodnight and lets them settle there. But even then, even after hours of their arrival, he isn’t ready for sharing a bed with Willem, not yet, not this soon. He can barely go on looking at his eyes without having a heart attack, how is he suppose to lay next to him? So, he busies himself with dishes, then reorganizes some of the kitchen shelves. He spent so long without Willem that the house’s interior changed over the years. He is now used to taking the glasses from the third cabin instead of the first one and the plates from the upper shelf rather than the cabinet below. So, he takes them one by one and adjusts them to how he is used to. But Jude also knows that he can’t stay away from the bedroom forever. Willem is still shocked. Sure, he made a couple of jokes as they were eating dinner or told stories about his latest projects, smiled like how he always does, but Jude knows how good of an actor he is and this is nothing but an act. Willem needs help right now, switching the places of plates and glasses isn’t a good excuse to be away from him. Not when he just got him back.
He counts his steps to the bedroom one by one, when the number reaches thirteen, he is by the door. Jude first knocks on the door -he doesn’t want to scare Willem, just in case- and enters slowly. The room isn’t lit completely. Only the lamp that’s next to Willem’s side of the bed is on and he is half laying on the bed, holding a book Jude knows wouldn’t be interesting to Willem’s liking. His eyes weren’t even on the pages, he was staring at the ceiling.
Willem’s eyes change their location and find Jude, and Jude can see how fast they soften, his heart breaks into million pieces all at once. He quickly builds himself back up but it’s barely holding it together. Hold on Jude, he commands himself, you can’t let him see that you’re struggling, not when he is like this. “Judy…” Willem says, his voice carries all the emotions he was holding back throughout the day. “I’m here, Willem.” He quickly walks towards Willem and holds his hand. Willem’s eyes fill with tears and he closes them shut before he starts crying.
Willem holds back Jude’s hand with his left and onto Jude’s shirt with his right hand. He is fighting himself not to pull Jude in but Jude knows that’s what he actually wants, what he needs right now. So he exhales, doesn’t think about his problems, and lets Willems pull him beside him, next to the arms he belongs.
Willem breaks down, “The family’s kid looked like him.” He whispers. Jude knows Willem wants to shout and break and probably destroy the whole house apart. So why isn’t he? Why is Willem still holding his feelings inside, is it because Malcolm’s here? Or is it because of Jude?
“Who?” Jude whispers, covering Willem’s back with his arms and forming a hug. “Willem it’s okay, I’m right here. Talk to me.” He says and Willem inhales hesitantly and blurts a word out, but he can’t finish his sentence. “Hem…” he manages to say, and that is enough for Jude to understand.
Hemming.
Of course, he knows who Hemming is, he has heard his name maybe hundreds of times from Willem’s childhood memories. Willem’s past was never a closed box, Jude has heard snippets of his home, his family, and about his brother many many times. His eyes would lose their focus each time he mentioned his brother as if he is trying to imagine himself there with him. From what Jude knows, Hemming was a good person, yes he couldn’t react or do things like a regular person would do but he gave comfort to Willem and Jude was forever grateful for that.
But whenever he hears stories about Hemming, he feels as if he is learning more about Willem than his brother. How Willem would take him on walks each morning and tell him stories when it was sleep time. He learns it again and again, how kind Willem is, how pure-hearted he must be to take care of his older brother like that, with so much passion. So, each time the topic of Willem’s past comes up, Jude finds himself falling for him all over again.
Sometimes, he wondered if Willem was interested in being friends with Jude because he reminded him of Hemming. That thought occurred more and more after Willem confessed to him. Was he seeing something in Jude that would remind him of Hemming? Was he imagining his brother whenever Jude needed help psychically? After all, Willem helped dozens of kids who had disabilities, and wasn’t that because they reminded him of his brother?
Thankfully, Jude later figured out that wasn’t the case. He tried testing him many times. Just like the time he tested if Harold was one hundred percent sure about adopting him. He sometimes used his wheelchair in the house even when he didn’t need to, he used his legs as an excuse to cancel scheduled important events, would go out of his way to let Willem help with things that Jude would normally be able to do. These things weren’t something he was used to doing, -getting help from others made him feel weak, but this wasn’t getting help; this was to observe- then, he would look at Willem, see the expression on his face. Was it similar to Caleb’s? Was Willem seeing his disabilities, not as his personality but as something that was standing in the way of being himself?
But however many times he looked at Willem, he saw no difference. Not even once, not even if he was tired or angry. It was as if Willem was seeing Jude as a whole, as if each and every single part of his personality was required to be on the stage to complete “Jude”. He was certain of it when he tested him for the last time. They were fighting -Who knows about what, it’s been so long since Willem died that all their fights feel insignificant-, and Jude struggled to take a file he needed to grab from the shelf, he couldn’t reach. Of course, like many times in the past, his legs were aching -they weren’t amputated yet- and Jude just couldn’t grab them.
He tried and tried and eventually gave up, their words were still on the air, arguing and shouting and trying to force their opinions onto each other. Then Willem got up, took the file Jude couldn’t reach, gave it to him, and returned, arguing as if nothing had happened. That’s when Jude understood, it meant nothing to Willem.
If Willem took pity on Jude’s disability and stopped the fight once he saw him struggling, then Jude would know how it was just a barrier. But Willem never saw it like that. The struggles that came with Jude were a part of Jude, not something that should be excluded.
In the bedroom, they stay in that position for a while, Willem’s crying slowed down. Tears left their spot for soft whimpers and sobs. Their position changed as well; The hug turned into sleeping in each others arms. Jude feels extremely lucky that Willem is in no state of realizing how fast his heart is beating. Because if he did, Willem would get up and rush him to Andy, assuming Jude was having a heart attack.
But he can’t go on like this either, he missed Willem. Their usual position in bed -Willem hugging Jude’s back- doesn’t feel enough, not when Jude can only see the walls. Jude wants more of Willem, all of him.
So, he does something that he never did before, he slowly turns around -Willem gets surprised as well, but he doesn’t react- and lets Willem’s hands get free of him. He doubts for a second, not because he is afraid he would be unable to, but because he might not handle being this close to Willem after everything. Not now, Jude scolds himself to take action, not when you got your second chance.
They lay on the bed, facing each other for god knows how long. Then, Jude closes the distance, burying his head onto Willem’s chest and hugging him so tight that Willem lets out a soft sound. He inhales, taking in Willem’s warmth and scent -Oh how different and cheap the perfume’s smell felt now- but he needs more, he pulls onto Willem even more and their bodies feel as if they are one. It takes a couple of seconds for Willem to react. He first kisses Jude’s hair, then hugs him back. They are both crying silently, but being next to each other is enough comfort for them to know that they are safe and whatever they’re fighting for isn’t stronger than them.
Jude cries and cries and cries. For what he went through these last two years, for having Willem back, and most importantly, for the endless guilt of being the reason for killing a family.
He can tell Willem is asleep now, his breathing is in sync, and Willem’s fingers don’t draw circles around his shoulder anymore. He wants this moment to never end, if he had the power, he would take the chance of freezing and staying in this exact moment forever, sacrificing everything else about his life without a doubt. But he knows he can’t.
He knows that the past two years without Willem wasn’t some sort of an ever-lasting nightmare or an effect of sickness. He remembers reading about a man falling asleep and dreaming an entire life for himself. The man would meet a woman, marry her, and have two kids. After he wakes up the next morning, he doesn’t even realize that the life he woke up to wasn’t the bed he shared with his wife. He had no wife to begin with, it was all a dream.
But Jude knows this isn’t what happened with him. It can’t be fake; the reason he knows this leads to the root of many of his problems; his past. Jude’s past has never been a passive observer, it never waited until Jude gave an opening to attack. They were always on the hunt, trying to break all of Jude’s defence’s at once, jumping and dashing forward, biting every inch of the walls Jude built up over the years. That’s why his past has always been with him, he carries them with him. Every day with Brother Luke and every step he took running away from Dr. Traylor.
It feels like all of the days without Willem emerged into one and joined those monsters, they formed an alliance with the other monsters there and attacked at once. They are all trying to find their way back in, to feed until they can’t do it anymore.
The monsters never came from things that were fake or imaginary, they were always real -except for that one time Jude imagined Harold taking advantage of him, but that was due to a fever- The creature that the past two years turned into is massive, probably way bigger than any other monster lurking around Jude’s head. He knows they can’t be fake or just an imagination of the mind. He is sure of it, they were real.
What he is not sure of is how he is going to go on. How different the events are going to be with all of them still alive? All the time travel movies he has seen in his life often dealt with the “Butterfly Effect”; even a change of something affecting the future drastically. But Jude isn’t worried about that, whatever challenges life throws at him, he knows he can handle it when Willem is next to him.
Then Jude realizes. If he wasn’t embraced by Willem’s arms so tightly, he would even get up from the information his mind just came up with;
He has lived through the worst.
A life without Willem , a life where he disappointed every single person that has ever known and cared for him. A life that took him to the day where he sat on that cold bathroom floor and forced a syringe into his artery willingly. The things he felt back then are what he is feeling now but he is suddenly more self-aware this time.
If how he lived his life the way he wanted it turned out like this -the worst case scenario, without a doubt- then even the smallest difference he would make from now on would only make things for the better.
What if he spoke about his feelings more, or smiled more, or forced to take part in a social event Willem wanted them to join this time? What if he just went to Harold and hugged him -they haven’t done that since Caleb-, what if he thanked -instead of apologizing- Andy for all the trouble he has caused him. This and this and this and this and this. What’s the worst thing that could happen? He already successfully killed himself once.
Jude promises himself that no matter what he does from now on, he will not let the same ending happen to him, not again. He doesn’t know what gave him this second chance, he might never even find out, but it doesn’t matter. He has been given one and is not going to waste it.
He spends the entire night watching Willem asleep. His fingers are so curious, touch starved yet so shy that it takes him hours to go from Willem’s shoulders to his chest. It is pitch black, so he can’t see him at all, but he knows he is there, he can hear his soothing breathing and his chest rising slowly. His warmth is radiating, and it feels as if it is creating a shield around Jude’s body. He doesn’t need to fight the demons and monsters all alone now, he has Willem’s strength and protection with him. And he hopes his own warmth is providing the same thing to Willem.
He needs to change, and change seems so easy when Willem is still next to him. Even if the change is the slightest, smallest act, it can’t ever get worse than the ending he got.
The butterfly effect, he reminds himself.
Then, for the first time since Willem’s death, Jude St. Francis falls asleep peacefully.
the end.
–
[AN]
This series… Jude is an amazing character, I think Hanya Yanagihara portrayed the “If you don’t seek help, this is what happens” theme very well and this fic is in no way to insult her writing, I’m not saying my version is better or the right ending for the book! I’m just a sucker for characters getting the ending they deserve so I’m putting my own spin on this, in my version of the ending, Jude decides to seek the help he needs.
I hope you liked this!! Writing Willem and Jude supporting each other was SUCH a therapy for me. This book affected me so much and being able to give them some comfort is the only thing helping me accept the ending of the book without making me go through an existential crisis. Thank you SO SO much for taking your time to read this fic. If you enjoyed it, leaving a comment would mean the world to me, I would love to hear your opinions on it!
I’m really not sure if I’ll continue this series, I think there’s space for one more chapter where Jude meets the rest of the characters. Writing a character that’s so beautifully and carefully written was very difficult, I had to pause writing and ask myself if Jude would think like this or if he did, what would be the reason behind it. I hope they didn’t feel out of character to you. Thank you!!!
Yes I did finish the little life and yes I did cry multiple times throughout the whole entire book but I swear to god that nothing I’ve ever read in my entire life has broken me as much as Harold calling jude “my sweetheart, my baby” after jude refuses to eat and has thrown his plate at the wall and jude breaking down for he has never been anyone’s baby until this moment, he has never got the chance to throw a tantrum, and cry and scream and been forgiven, he has never gotten the chance to be a child until now.
my life was never the same after reading “the only trick of friendship, i think, is to find people who are better than you are. not smarter, not cooler, but kinder and more generous, and more forgiving and then appreciate them for what they can teach you and try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself no matter how bad or good it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. but the best, as well”
