_OceanofPDF.com_The_Girl_on_the_Train_-_Paula_Hawkins

Cathy is waiting for me when I get home. She’s standing in the kitchen,
aggressively drinking a glass of water.
“Good day at the office?” she asks, pursing her lips. She knows.
“Cathy . . .”
“Damien had a meeting near Euston today. On his way out, he
bumped into Martin Miles. They know each other a little, remember,
from Damien’s days at Laing Fund Management. Martin used to do the
PR for them.”
“Cathy . . .”
She held her hand up, took another gulp of water. “You haven’t
worked there in months! In months! Do you know how idiotic I feel?
What an idiot Damien felt? Please, please tell me that you have another
job that you just haven’t told me about. Please tell me that you haven’t
been pretending to go to work. That you haven’t been lying to me—day
in, day out—all this time.”
“I didn’t know how to tell you . . .”
“You didn’t know how to tell me? How about: ‘Cathy, I got fired
because I was drunk at work’? How about that?” I flinch and her face
softens. “I’m sorry, but honestly, Rachel.” She really is too nice. “What
have you been doing? Where do you go? What do you do all day?”
“I walk. Go to the library. Sometimes—”
“You go to the pub?”
“Sometimes. But—”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She approaches me, placing her hands on
my shoulders. “You should have told me.”
“I was ashamed,” I say, and I start to cry. It’s awful, cringeworthy, but
I start to weep. I sob and sob, and poor Cathy holds me, strokes my hair,
tells me I’ll be all right, that everything will be all right. I feel wretched.
I hate myself almost more than I ever have.
Later, sitting on the sofa with Cathy, drinking tea, she tells me how
it’s going to be. I’m going to stop drinking, I’m going to get my CV in
order, I’m going to contact Martin Miles and beg for a reference. I’m
going to stop wasting money going backwards and forwards to London
on pointless train journeys.
“Honestly, Rachel, I don’t understand how you could have kept this
up for so long.”
I shrug. “In the morning, I take the 8:04, and in the evening, I come
back on the 5:56. That’s my train. It’s the one I take. That’s the way it
is.”