To Paradise

by Hanya Yanagihara

They were silent for a long time, and although David was thinking many things, he mostly thought about how good this moment was, lying next to Charles in a warm room, with snow outside. He thought that he should tell Charles that he would hold the air pump for him, but he couldn’t. He wanted so much to give Charles something, some measure of the consolation that Charles had given him, but he couldn’t. Much later, he would wish, again and again, that he had said something, anything, no matter how clumsy. In those years, fear—of sounding dumb, of being inadequate—kept him from the generosity he should have shown, and it was not until he had accumulated many regrets that he had learned that his comfort could have taken any form, that what had been important was that it was offered at all.