_OceanofPDF.com_The_Girl_on_the_Train_-_Paula_Hawkins

RACHEL
• • •
MONDAY, JULY 15, 2013
MORNING
Cathy called me back just as I was leaving the flat this morning and gave
me a stiff little hug. I thought she was going to tell me that she wasn’t
kicking me out after all, but instead she slipped a typewritten note into
my hand, giving me formal notice of my eviction, including a departure
date. She couldn’t meet my eye. I felt sorry for her, I honestly did,
though not quite as sorry as for myself. She gave me a sad smile and
said, “I hate to do this to you, Rachel, I honestly do.” The whole thing
felt very awkward. We were standing in the hallway, which, despite my
best efforts with the bleach, still smelled a bit of sick. I felt like crying,
but I didn’t want to make her feel worse than she already did, so I just
smiled cheerily and said, “Not at all, it’s honestly no problem,” as though
she’d just asked me to do her a small favour.
On the train, the tears come, and I don’t care if people are watching
me; for all they know, my dog might have been run over. I might have
been diagnosed with a terminal illness. I might be a barren, divorced,
soon-to-be-homeless alcoholic.
It’s ridiculous, when I think about it. How did I find myself here? I
wonder where it started, my decline; I wonder at what point I could have
halted it. Where did I take the wrong turn? Not when I met Tom, who
saved me from grief after Dad died. Not when we married, carefree,
drenched in bliss, on an oddly wintry May day seven years ago. I was
happy, solvent, successful. Not when we moved into number twentythree,
a roomier, lovelier house than I’d imagined I’d live in at the tender
age of twenty-six. I remember those first days so clearly, walking
around, shoeless, feeling the warmth of wooden floorboards underfoot,
relishing the space, the emptiness of all those rooms waiting to be filled.
Tom and I, making plans: what we’d plant in the garden, what we’d hang