A Little Life

by Hanya Yanagihara

He now viewed a successful relationship as one in which both people had recognized the best of what the other person had to offer and had chosen to value it as well.

The person he loved was sick, and would always be sick, and his responsibility was not to make him better but to make him less sick.

The fact is, he finds himself less and less able to summon Willem’s specifics without depending on props: He cannot remember what Willem’s voice sounds like without first playing one of the saved voice messages. He can no longer remember Willem’s scent without first smelling one of his shirts. And so he fears he is grieving not so much for Willem but for his own life: its smallness, its worthlessness.

This section, and this paragraph specifically, made me cry in public

All the most terrifying Ifs involve people. All the good ones do as well.