_OceanofPDF.com_The_Girl_on_the_Train_-_Paula_Hawkins

grieving. He left you on your own in that house. It’s no wonder you
cannot sleep. Of course the idea of sleeping frightens you: you fell asleep
and something terrible happened to you. And the one person who should
have helped you left you all alone.”
In the moments when Kamal is saying these things, it doesn’t sound
so bad. As the words slip seductively off his tongue, warm and honeyed,
I can almost believe them. I can almost believe that there is a way to
leave all this behind, lay it to rest, go home to Scott and live my life as
normal people do, neither glancing over my shoulder nor desperately
waiting for something better to come along. Is that what normal people
do?
“Will you think about it?” he asks, touching my hand as he does so. I
give him a bright smile and say that I will. Maybe I even mean it, I don’t
know. He walks me to the door, his arm around my shoulders, I want to
turn and kiss him again, but I don’t.
Instead I ask, “Is this the last time I’m going to see you?” and he nods.
“Couldn’t we . . . ?”
“No, Megan. We can’t. We have to do the right thing.”
I smile up at him. “I’m not very good at that,” I say. “Never have
been.”
“You can be. You will be. Go home now. Go home to your husband.”
I stand on the pavement outside his house for a long time after he
shuts the door. I feel lighter, I think, freer—but sadder, too, and all of a
sudden I just want to get home to Scott.
I’m just turning to walk to the station when a man comes running
along the pavement, earphones on, head down. He’s heading straight for
me, and as I step back, trying to get out of the way, I slip off the edge of
the pavement and fall.
The man doesn’t apologize, he doesn’t even look back at me, and I’m
too shocked to cry out. I get to my feet and stand there, leaning against a
car, trying to catch my breath. All the peace I felt in Kamal’s house is
suddenly shattered.
It’s not until I get home that I realize I cut my hand when I fell, and at
some point I must have rubbed my hand across my mouth. My lips are
smeared with blood.