Gone Girl(138)
‘We can’t really sleep in the same house—’ I began.
‘I want to stay here with you.’ She took my hand. ‘I want to be with my husband. I want to give you the chance to be the kind of husband you want to be. I forgive you.’
‘You forgive me? Amy, why did you come back? Because of what I said in the interviews? The videos?’
‘Wasn’t that what you wanted?’ she said. ‘Wasn’t that the point of the videos? They were perfect – they reminded me of what we used to have, how special it was.’
‘What I said, that was just me saying what you wanted to hear.’
‘I know – that’s how well you know me!’ Amy said. She beamed. Bleecker began figure-eighting between her legs. She picked him up and stroked him. His purr was deafening. ‘Think about it, Nick, we know each other. Better than anyone in the world now.’
It was true that I’d had this feeling too, in the past month, when I wasn’t wishing Amy harm. It would come to me at strange moments – in the middle of the night, up to take a piss, or in the morning pouring a bowl of cereal – I’d detect a nib of admiration, and more than that, fondness for my wife, right in the middle of me, right in the gut. To know exactly what I wanted to hear in those notes, to woo me back to her, even to predict all my wrong moves … the woman knew me cold. Better than anyone in the world, she knew me. All this time I’d thought we were strangers, and it turned out we knew each other intuitively, in our bones, in our blood.
It was kind of romantic. Catastrophically romantic.
‘We can’t just pick up where we were, Amy.’
‘No, not where we were,’ she said. ‘Where we are now. Where you love me and you’ll never do wrong again.’
‘You’re crazy, you’re literally crazy if you think I’m going to stay. You killed a man,’ I said. I turned my back to her, and then I pictured her with a knife in her hand and her mouth growing tight as I disobeyed her. I turned back around. Yes, my wife must always be faced.
‘To escape him.’
‘You killed Desi so you had a new story, so you could come back and be beloved Amy and not ever have to take the blame for what you did. Don’t you get it, Amy, the irony? It’s what you always hated about me – that I never dealt with the consequences of my actions, right? Well, my ass has been well and duly consequenced. So what about you? You murdered a man, a man I assume loved you and was helping you, and now you want me to step in his place and love you and help you, and … I can’t. I cannot do it. I won’t do it.’
‘Nick, I think you’ve gotten some bad information,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t surprise me, all the rumors that are going about. But we need to forget all that. If we are to go forward. And we will go forward. All of America wants us to go forward. It’s the story the world needs right now. Us. Desi’s the bad guy. No one wants two bad guys. They want to like you, Nick. The only way you can be loved again is to stay with me. It’s the only way.’
‘Tell me what happened, Amy. Was Desi helping you all along?’
She flared at that: She didn’t need a man’s help, even though she clearly had needed a man’s help. ‘Of course not!’ she snapped.
‘Tell me. What can it hurt, tell me everything, because you and I can’t go forward with this pretend story. I’ll fight you every step of the way. I know you’ve thought of everything. I’m not trying to get you to slip up – I’m tired of trying to outthink you, I don’t have it in me. I just want to know what happened. I was a step away from death row, Amy. You came back and saved me, and I thank you for that – do you hear me? I thank you, so don’t say I didn’t later on. I thank you. But I need to know. You know I need to know.’
‘Take off your clothes,’ she said.
She wanted to make sure I wasn’t wearing a wire. I undressed in front of her, removed every stitch, and then she surveyed me, ran a hand across my chin and my chest, down my back. She palmed my ass and slipped her hand between my legs, cupped my testicles and gripped my limp cock, held it in her hand for a moment to see if anything happened. Nothing happened.
‘You’re clean,’ she said. It was meant as a joke, a wisecrack, a movie reference we’d both laugh at. When I said nothing, she stepped back and said, ‘I always did like looking at you naked. That made me happy.’
‘Nothing made you happy. Can I put my clothes back on?’
‘No. I don’t want to worry about hidden wires in the cuffs or the hems. Also, we need to go in the bathroom and run the water. In case you bugged the house.’
‘You’ve seen too many movies,’ I said.
‘Ha! Never thought I’d hear you say that.’
We stood in the bathtub and turned on the shower. The water sprayed my naked back and misted the front of Amy’s shirt until she peeled it off. She pulled off all her clothes, a gleeful striptease, and tossed them over the shower stall in the same grinning, game manner she had when we first met – I’m up for anything! – and she turned to me, and I waited for her to swing her hair around her shoulders like she did when she flirted with me, but her hair was too short.
‘Now we’re even,’ she said. ‘Seemed rude to be the only one clothed.’