_OceanofPDF.com_The_Girl_on_the_Train_-_Paula_Hawkins

the rank, stale air, I may have been able to see a figure walking towards
me, spitting rage, fist raised, but it wasn’t true. The terror I felt wasn’t
real. And when the shadow struck, leaving me there on the ground,
crying and bleeding, that wasn’t real, either.
Only it was, and I saw it. It’s so shocking that I can scarcely believe it,
but as I watch the sun rise it feels like mist lifting. What he told me was a
lie. I didn’t imagine him hitting me. I remember it. Just like I remember
saying good-bye to Clara after that party and her hand holding mine. Just
like I remember the fear when I found myself on the floor next to that
golf club—and I know now, I know for sure that I wasn’t the one
swinging it.
I don’t know what to do. I run upstairs, pull on a pair of jeans and
some trainers, run back downstairs. I dial their number, the landline, and
let it ring a couple of times, then I hang up. I don’t know what to do. I
make coffee, let it go cold, dial Detective Riley’s number, then hang up
straightaway. She won’t believe me. I know she won’t.
I head out to the station. It’s a Sunday service, the first train isn’t for
half an hour, so there’s nothing to do but sit there on a bench, going
round and round, from disbelief to desperation and back again.
Everything is a lie. I didn’t imagine him hitting me. I didn’t imagine
him walking away from me quickly, his fists clenched. I saw him turn,
shout. I saw him walking down the road with a woman, I saw him
getting into the car with her. I didn’t imagine it. And I realize then that
it’s all very simple, so very simple. I do remember, it’s just that I had
confused two memories. I’d inserted the image of Anna, walking away
from me in her blue dress, into another scenario: Tom and a woman
getting into a car. Because of course that woman wasn’t wearing a blue
dress, she was wearing jeans and a red T-shirt. She was Megan.