_OceanofPDF.com_The_Girl_on_the_Train_-_Paula_Hawkins

“In the early days, I used to see him all the time. Like, in the street, or
I’d see a man in a bar and be so sure it was him that my heart would start
racing. I used to hear his voice in crowds. But that stopped, a long time
ago. Now, I think he might be dead.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I don’t know. He just . . . he feels dead to me.”
Kamal sits up straighter and gently moves his body away from mine.
He turns so that he’s facing me.
“I think that’s probably just your imagination, Megan. It’s normal to
think you see people who have been a big part of your life after you part
company with them. In the early days, I used to catch glimpses of my
brother all the time. As for him ‘feeling dead,’ that’s probably just a
consequence of his being gone from your life for so long. In some senses
he no longer feels real to you.”
He’s gone back into therapy mode now, we’re not just two friends
sitting on the sofa anymore. I want to reach out and pull him back to me,
but I don’t want to cross any lines. I think about last time, when I kissed
him before I left—the look on his face, longing and frustration and anger.
“I wonder if, now that we’ve spoken about this, now that you’ve told
me your story, it might help for you to try to contact Mac. To give you
closure, to seal that chapter in your past.”
I thought he might suggest this. “I can’t,” I say. “I can’t.”
“Just think about it for a moment.”
“I can’t. What if he still hates me? What if it just brings it all back, or
if he goes to the police?” What if—I can’t say this out loud, can’t even
whisper it—what if he tells Scott what I really am?
Kamal shakes his head. “Perhaps he doesn’t hate you at all, Megan.
Perhaps he never hated you. Perhaps he was afraid, too. Perhaps he feels
guilty. From what you have told me, he isn’t a man who behaved
responsibly. He took in a very young, very vulnerable girl and left her
alone when she needed support. Perhaps he knows that what happened is
your shared responsibility. Perhaps that’s what he ran away from.”
I don’t know if he really believes that or if he’s just trying to make me
feel better. I only know that it isn’t true. I can’t shift the blame onto him.
This is one thing I have to take as my own.
“I don’t want to push you into doing something you don’t want to do,”
Kamal says. “I just want you to consider the possibility that contacting
Mac might help you. And it’s not because I believe that you owe him
anything. Do you see? I believe that he owes you. I understand your
guilt, I do. But he abandoned you. You were alone, afraid, panicking,