flynn_gillian_gone_girl (1) (858987), страница 79
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Un, basically.In my mind, I whaled on her with the hammer until she was like a broken toy,muttering un, un, un until she sputtered to a stop. And then it wasn’t enough, so Irestored her to perfection and began killing her again: I wrapped my ngers around herneck—she always did crave intimacy—and then I squeezed and squeezed, her pulse—“Nick?”I turned around, and Amy was on the bottom stair in her nightgown, her head tiltedto one side.“Play nice, Nick.”AMY ELLIOTT DUNNETHE NIGHT OF THE RETURNHe turns around, and when he sees me standing there, he looks scared. That’ssomething useful. Because I’m not going to let him go. He may think he was lying whenhe said all those nice things to lure me home.
But I know di erent. I know Nick can’t lielike that. I know that as he recited those words, he realized the truth. Ping! Because youcan’t be as in love as we were and not have it invade your bone marrow. Our kind oflove can go into remission, but it’s always waiting to return. Like the world’s sweetestcancer.You don’t buy it? Then how about this? He did lie. He didn’t mean a fucking thing hesaid.
Well, then, screw him, he did too good a job, because I want him, exactly like that.The man he was pretending to be—women love that guy. I love that guy. That’s the manI want for my husband. That’s the man I signed up for. That’s the man I deserve.So he can choose to truly love me the way he once did, or I will bring him to heeland make him be the man I married. I’m sick of dealing with his bullshit.“Play nice,” I say.He looks like a child, a furious child.
He bunches his fists.“No, Amy.”“I can ruin you, Nick.”“You already did, Amy.” I see the rage ash over him, a shiver. “Why in God’s namedo you even want to be with me? I’m boring, average, uninteresting, uninspiring. I’mnot up to par. You spent the last few years telling me this.”“Only because you stopped trying,” I say.
“You were so perfect, with me. We were soperfect when we started, and then you stopped trying. Why would you do that?”“I stopped loving you.”“Why?”“You stopped loving me. We’re a sick, fucking toxic Möbius strip, Amy. We weren’tourselves when we fell in love, and when we became ourselves—surprise!—we werepoison. We complete each other in the nastiest, ugliest possible way.
You don’t reallylove me, Amy. You don’t even like me. Divorce me. Divorce me, and let’s try to behappy.”“I won’t divorce you, Nick. I won’t. And I swear to you, if you try to leave, I willdevote my life to making your life as awful as I can. And you know I can make it awful.”He begins pacing like a caged bear.
“Think about it, Amy, how bad we are for eachother: the two most needful human beings in the world stuck with each other. I’ll divorceyou if you don’t divorce me.”“Really?”“I will divorce you. But you should divorce me. Because I know what you’re thinkingalready, Amy. You’re thinking it won’t make a good story: Amazing Amy nally kills hercrazed-rapist captor and returns home to … a boring old divorce. You’re thinking it’s nottriumphant.”It’s not triumphant.“But think of it this way: Your story is not some drippy, earnest survivor story.
TVmovie circa 1992. It’s not. You are a tough, vibrant, independent woman, Amy. Youkilled your kidnapper, and then you kept on cleaning house: You got rid of your idiotcheat of a husband. Women would cheer you. You’re not a scared little girl. You’re abadass, take-no-prisoners woman. Think about it. You know I’m right: The era offorgiveness is over. It’s passé. Think of all the women—the politicians’ wives, theactresses—every woman in the public who’s been cheated on, they don’t stay with thecheat these days.
It’s not stand by your man anymore, it’s divorce the fucker.”I feel a rush of hate toward him, that he’s still trying to wriggle out of our marriageeven though I’ve told him—three times now—that he can’t. He still thinks he has power.“And if I don’t divorce you, you’ll divorce me?” I ask.“I don’t want to be married to a woman like you. I want to be married to a normalperson.”Piece of shit.“I see.
You want to revert to your lame, limp loser self? You want to just walk away?No! You don’t get to go be some boring-ass middle American with some boring-ass girlnext door. You tried it already—remember, baby? Even if you wanted to, you couldn’tdo that now. You’ll be known as the philandering asshole who left his kidnapped, rapedwife. You think any nice woman will touch you? You’ll only get—”“Psychos? Crazy psycho bitches?” He’s pointing at me, jabbing the air.“Don’t call me that.”“Psycho bitch?”It’d be so easy, for him to write me o that way.
He’d love that, to be able to dismissme so simply.“Everything I do, I do for a reason, Nick,” I say. “Everything I do takes planning andprecision and discipline.”“You are a petty, selfish, manipulative, disciplined psycho bitch—”“You are a man,” I say. “You are an average, lazy, boring, cowardly, woman-fearingman. Without me, that’s what you would have kept on being, ad nauseam. But I madeyou into something. You were the best man you’ve ever been with me. And you know it.The only time in your life you’ve ever liked yourself was pretending to be someone Imight like. Without me? You’re just your dad.”“Don’t say that, Amy.” He balls up his fists.“You think he wasn’t hurt by a woman too, just like you?” I say it in my mostpatronizing voice, as if I’m talking to a puppy.
“You think he didn’t believe he deservedbetter than he got, just like you? You really think your mom was his rst choice? Whydo you think he hated you all so much?”He moves toward me. “Shut up, Amy.”“Think, Nick, you know I’m right: Even if you found a nice, regular girl, you’d bethinking of me every day. Tell me you wouldn’t.”“I wouldn’t.”“How quickly did you forget little Able Andie once you thought I loved you again?” Isay it in my poor-baby voice. I even stick out my lower lip. “One love note, sweetie? Didone love note do it? Two? Two notes with me swearing I loved you and I wanted youback, and I thought you were just great after all—was that it for you? You are WITTY,you are WARM, you are BRILLIANT. You’re so pathetic.
You think you can ever be anormal man again? You’ll nd a nice girl, and you’ll still think of me, and you’ll be socompletely dissatis ed, trapped in your boring, normal life with your regular wife andyour two average kids. You’ll think of me and then you’ll look at your wife, and you’llthink: Dumb bitch.”“Shut up, Amy. I mean it.”“Just like your dad. We’re all bitches in the end, aren’t we, Nick? Dumb bitch, psychobitch.”He grabs me by the arm and shakes me hard.“I’m the bitch who makes you better, Nick.”He stops talking then.
He is using all his energy to keep his hands at his side. Hiseyes are wet with tears. He is shaking.“I’m the bitch who makes you a man.”Then his hands are on my neck.NICK DUNNETHE NIGHT OF THE RETURNHer pulse was nally throbbing beneath my ngers, the way I’d imagined. I pressedtighter and brought her to the ground. She made wet clucking noises and scratched atmy wrists. We were both kneeling, in face-to-face prayer for ten seconds.You fucking crazy bitch.A tear fell from my chin and hit the floor.You murdering, mind-fucking, evil, crazy bitch.Amy’s bright blue eyes were staring into mine, unblinking.And then the strangest thought of all clattered drunkenly from the back of my brainto the front and blinded me: If I kill Amy, who will I be?I saw a bright white flash.
I dropped my wife as if she were burning iron.She sat hard on the ground, gasped, coughed. When her breath came back, it was injagged rasps, with a strange, almost erotic squeak at the end.Who will I be then? The question wasn’t recriminatory. It wasn’t like the answer wasthe pious: Then you’ll be a killer, Nick. You’ll be as bad as Amy.
You’ll be what everyonethought you were. No. The question was frighteningly soulful and literal: Who would I bewithout Amy to react to? Because she was right: As a man, I had been my mostimpressive when I loved her—and I was my next best self when I hated her. I had knownAmy only seven years, but I couldn’t go back to life without her. Because she was right: Icouldn’t return to an average life.
I’d known it before she’d said a word. I’d alreadypictured myself with a regular woman—a sweet, normal girl next door—and I’d alreadypictured telling this regular woman the story of Amy, the lengths she had gone to—topunish me and to return to me. I already pictured this sweet and mediocre girl sayingsomething uninteresting like Oh, nooooo, oh my God, and I already knew part of mewould be looking at her and thinking: You’ve never murdered for me. You’ve never framedme. You wouldn’t even know how to begin to do what Amy did.
You could never possibly carethat much. The indulged mama’s boy in me wouldn’t be able to nd peace with thisnormal woman, and pretty soon she wouldn’t just be normal, she’d be substandard, andthen my father’s voice—dumb bitch—would rise up and take it from there.Amy was exactly right.So maybe there was no good end for me.Amy was toxic, yet I couldn’t imagine a world without her entirely. Who would I bewith Amy just gone? There were no options that interested me anymore.
But she had tobe brought to heel. Amy in prison, that was a good ending for her. Tucked away in abox where she couldn’t in ict herself on me but where I could visit her from time totime. Or at least imagine her. A pulse, my pulse, left out there somewhere.It had to be me who put her there. It was my responsibility. Just as Amy took thecredit for making me my best self, I had to take the blame for bringing the madness tobloom in Amy. There were a million men who would have loved, honored, and obeyedAmy and considered themselves lucky to do so. Con dent, self-assured, real men whowouldn’t have forced her to pretend to be anything but her own perfect, rigid,demanding, brilliant, creative, fascinating, rapacious, megalomaniac self.Men capable of being uxorious.Men capable of keeping her sane.Amy’s story could have gone a million other ways, but she met me, and bad thingshappened. So it was up to me to stop her.Not kill her but stop her.Put her in one of her boxes.AMY ELLIOTT DUNNEFIVE DAYS AFTER THE RETURNI know, I know for sure now, that I need to be more careful about Nick.
He’s not astame as he used to be. Something in him is electric; a switch has turned on. I like it. ButI need to take precautions.I need one more spectacular precaution.It will take some time to put in place, this precaution. But I’ve done it before, theplanning. In the meantime, we can work on our rebuilding. Start with the facade. Wewill have a happy marriage if it kills him.“You’re going to have to try again to love me,” I told him.
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