A Little Life

by Hanya Yanagihara

But these were days of self-fulfillment, where settling for something that was not quite your first choice of a life seemed weak-willed and ignoble. Somewhere, surrendering to what seemed to be your fate had changed from being dignified to being a sign of your own cowardice. There were times when the pressure to achieve happiness felt almost oppressive, as if happiness were something that everyone should and could attain, and that any sort of compromise in its pursuit was somehow your fault.

He was astonished but relieved by how easily they accepted that, and grateful too for their self-absorption. None of them really wanted to listen to someone else’s story anyway; they only wanted to tell their own.

how grateful he would have been for a secret child whom he’d get to meet and would have Willem’s smile; how scared and yet how excited he would have been for a secret letter containing a long-held confession. How thankful he would have been for an excuse to hate Willem, to resent him, for a mystery to solve that might occupy years of his life. But there was nothing. Willem’s life was over. He was as clean in death as he had been in life.

Though, of course—if you were here, wouldn’t he still be as well?