_OceanofPDF.com_The_Girl_on_the_Train_-_Paula_Hawkins

He leans back on the sofa, his legs spread wide apart, the big man,
taking up space. “It was your fault. The whole thing was actually your
fault, Rachel. Anna didn’t end up having dinner with her friends—she
was back here after five minutes, upset and angry because you were out
there, pissed as usual, stumbling around with some bloke outside the
station. She was worried that you were going to head over here. She was
worried about Evie.
“So instead of sorting things out with Megan, I had to go out and deal
with you.” His lip curls. “God, the state of you. Looking like shit,
stinking of wine . . . you tried to kiss me, do you remember?” He
pretends to gag, then starts laughing. Anna laughs, too, and I can’t tell
whether she finds it funny or whether she’s trying to appease him.
“I needed to make you understand that I didn’t want you anywhere
near me—near us. So I took you back up the road into the underpass so
that you wouldn’t be making a scene in the street. And I told you to stay
away. And you cried and whined, so I gave you a smack to shut you up,
and you cried and whined some more.” He’s talking through gritted
teeth; I can see the muscle tensing in his jaw. “I was so pissed off, I just
wanted you to go away and leave us alone, you and Megan. I have my
family. I have a good life.” He glances over at Anna, who is trying to get
the child to sit down in the high chair. Her face is completely
expressionless. “I’ve made a good life for myself, despite you, despite
Megan—despite everything.
“It was after I’d seen you that Megan came along. She was heading
down towards Blenheim Road. I couldn’t let her go to the house. I
couldn’t let her talk to Anna, could I? I told her that we could go
somewhere and talk, and I meant it—that was all I was going to do. So
we got into the car and drove to Corly, to the wood. It was a place we
sometimes used to go, if we hadn’t got a room. Do it in the car.”
From my seat on the sofa, I can feel Anna flinch.
“You have to believe me, Anna, I didn’t intend for things to go the
way they did.” Tom looks at her, then hunches over, looking down at the
palms of his hands. “She started going on about the baby—she didn’t
know if it was mine or his. She wanted everything out in the open, and if
it was mine she’d be OK with me seeing it . . . I was saying, ‘I’m not
interested in your baby, it’s got nothing to do with me.’” He shakes his
head. “She got all upset, but when Megan gets upset . . . she’s not like
Rachel. There’s no crying and whining. She was screaming at me,
swearing, saying all sorts of shit, telling me she’d go straight to Anna,
she wasn’t going to be ignored, her child wasn’t going to be