_OceanofPDF.com_The_Girl_on_the_Train_-_Paula_Hawkins

you were a total mess. Why is this important?” I can’t find the words
right away, I take too long to answer. He goes on: “Look, I have to go.
Don’t call anymore, please. We’ve been through this. How many times
do I have to ask you? Don’t call, don’t leave notes, don’t come here. It
upsets Anna. All right?”
The phone goes dead.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 18, 2013
EARLY MORNING
I’ve been downstairs in the living room all night, with the television on
for company, fear ebbing and flowing. Strength ebbing and flowing. It
feels a bit like I’ve gone back in time, the wound he made years ago
ripped open again, new and fresh. It’s silly, I know. I was an idiot to
think that I had a chance with him again, just on the basis of one
conversation, a few moments that I took for tenderness and that were
probably nothing more than sentimentality and guilt. Still, it hurts. And
I’ve just got to let myself feel the pain, because if I don’t, if I keep
numbing it, it’ll never really go away.
And I was an idiot to let myself think that there was a connection
between me and Scott, that I could help him. So, I’m an idiot. I’m used
to that. I don’t have to continue to be one, do I? Not any longer. I lay
here all night and I promised myself that I’ll get a handle on things. I’ll
move away from here, far away. I’ll get a new job. I’ll go back to my
maiden name, sever ties with Tom, make it hard for anyone to find me.
Should anyone come looking.
I haven’t had much sleep. Lying here on the sofa, making plans, every
time I started drifting off to sleep I heard Tom’s voice in my head, as
clear as if he were right there, right next to me, his lips against my ear—
You were blind drunk. Filthy, stinking drunk—and I jolted awake, shame
washing over me like a wave. Shame, but also the strongest sense of déjà
vu, because I’ve heard those words before, those exact words.
And then I couldn’t stop running the scenes through my head: waking
with blood on the pillow, the inside of my mouth hurting, as though I’d
bitten my cheek, fingernails dirty, terrible headache, Tom coming out of
the bathroom, that expression he wore—half hurt, half angry—dread
rising in me like floodwater.