Gone-Girl-by-Gillian-Flynn

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE
THE NIGHT OF THE RETURN
He turns around, and when he sees me standing there, he looks scared. That’s
something useful. Because I’m not going to let him go. He may think he was
lying when he said all those nice things to lure me home. But I know
different. I know Nick can’t lie like that. I know that as he recited those
words, he realized the truth. Ping! Because you can’t be as in love as we were
and not have it invade your bone marrow. Our kind of love can go into
remission, but it’s always waiting to return. Like the world’s sweetest cancer.
You don’t buy it? Then how about this? He did lie. He didn’t mean a
fucking thing he said. 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 man I 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 heel and 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 flash over him, a shiver. ‘Why in
God’s name do you even want to be with me? I’m boring, average,
uninteresting, uninspiring. I’m not 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 so perfect 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’t ourselves when we fell in love, and when we became ourselves –
surprise! – we were poison. We complete each other in the nastiest, ugliest