What Alice Forgot - Liane Moriarty [149]
“She’s been through a lot,” said Nick. “Gina’s accident. You and me. And she always feels things so deeply.”
“What do you mean, Gina’s accident?” Alice thought about Madison’s nightmare. Get it off her.
“Madison was with you,” said Nick. “She saw it happen. You don’t remember it, do you?”
“No,” said Alice. “Just the feeling of it.” Although that feeling of sick horror seemed impossible here today, with the sun and sea, ice creams and whales.
“There was a storm,” said Nick. “A tree fell on Gina’s car. You and Madison were driving behind.”
A tree. So that horrible image of a black leafless tree swaying against a stormy sky was real.
“It must have been horrendous for both of you,” said Nick quietly. He lifted a handful of sand and let the grains fall through his fingers. “And I didn’t—I wasn’t—”
“What?”
“I wasn’t as supportive as I should have been,” said Nick.
“Why weren’t you?” asked Alice curiously.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” said Nick. “I just felt detached. I felt like you wouldn’t want my sympathy. I felt like—I felt that if you’d had the choice, you would have preferred that I’d died rather than Gina. I remember I tried to hug you and you pushed me away as if I made you sick. I should have tried harder. I’m sorry.”
“But why would you think I’d prefer you to die?” asked Alice. It seemed such a silly, childish, wrong thing to think.
“We weren’t getting on that well at the time. And you two were such good friends,” said Nick. “I mean—that was great—that was fine—but . . .” His lips did something funny. “You told Gina that you were pregnant with Olivia before you told me.”
“Really?” Why would she have done that? “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, well, it was only a small thing.” He stopped. “Also, once I overheard you saying something about our sex life. Or lack thereof. I mean, I know women always talk about sex together. It was just the tone in your voice. It was such contempt for me. And then, when she and Mike broke up, and you were going out to bars with her, trying to help her pick up men, I got the feeling that you were jealous. You wanted to be a single woman with her. I was in the way. Cramping your style.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Alice. She felt like some other woman had been horrible to Nick. As if he were describing an awful ex-girlfriend who had broken his heart.
“And then Gina died. And that was it. You froze up. That’s how it felt. You were like ice.”
“I don’t understand why I did that,” said Alice. If Sophie had died, she would have cried for hours in the safe, comforting circle of Nick’s arms.
“Is that why you didn’t come to the funeral?” she asked.
Nick shrugged.
“I had to be in New York. It was a huge meeting. Something we’d been planning for months, but I told you a million bloody times I was happy to cancel. I kept asking if you wanted me at the funeral, and you said, ‘Do what you want.’ So, I thought, maybe you’d actually prefer it if I wasn’t there. I wanted to go. She was my friend, too, once upon a time. You always seem to forget that. She drove me crazy the way she bossed you around, but I still cared about her. It just got so confusing after she and Mike split up. I wanted to stay friends with him, too, and you saw that as a betrayal of Gina. So did she. She was so mad with me. Each time I saw Gina, she’d say, ‘Seen Mike lately?’ and you’d both be shooting me evil looks as if I was the villain. I didn’t see why I had to dump a good mate just because of one drunken—anyway, we’ve been over it a million times. I’m just trying to say that I felt so, I don’t know, awkward, when she died. I didn’t know how I was meant to act. I just wanted you to say, ‘Of course you should cancel the trip. Of course you should come to the funeral.’ I felt like I needed your permission.”
“So all our problems were because of Gina and Mike,” said Alice. These two strangers had destroyed their marriage.
“I don’t think we can blame them for everything,” said Nick. “We argued. We argued over the most trivial things.”
“Like what?”
“Like, I don’t know, cherries. One day we were going over to Mum’s place for dinner