_OceanofPDF.com_The_Girl_on_the_Train_-_Paula_Hawkins

MORNING
Megan is still missing, and I have lied—repeatedly—to the police.
I was in a panic by the time I got back to the flat last night. I tried to
convince myself that they’d come to see me about my accident with the
taxi, but that didn’t make sense. I’d spoken to police at the scene—it was
clearly my fault. It had to be something to do with Saturday night. I must
have done something. I must have committed some terrible act and
blacked it out.
I know it sounds unlikely. What could I have done? Gone to Blenheim
Road, attacked Megan Hipwell, disposed of her body somewhere and
then forgotten all about it? It sounds ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But I
know something happened on Saturday. I knew it when I looked into that
dark tunnel under the railway line, my blood turning to ice water in my
veins.
Blackouts happen, and it isn’t just a matter of being a bit hazy about
getting home from the club or forgetting what it was that was so funny
when you were chatting in the pub. It’s different. Total black; hours lost,
never to be retrieved.
Tom bought me a book about it. Not very romantic, but he was tired
of listening to me tell him how sorry I was in the morning when I didn’t
even know what I was sorry for. I think he wanted me to see the damage
I was doing, the kind of things I might be capable of. It was written by a
doctor, but I’ve no idea whether it was accurate: the author claimed that
blacking out wasn’t simply a matter of forgetting what had happened, but
having no memories to forget in the first place. His theory was that you
get into a state where your brain no longer makes short-term memories.
And while you’re there, in deepest black, you don’t behave as you
usually would, because you’re simply reacting to the very last thing that
you think happened, because—since you aren’t making memories—you
might not actually know what the last thing that happened really was. He
had anecdotes, too, cautionary tales for the blacked-out drinker: There
was a guy in New Jersey who got drunk at a fourth of July party.
Afterwards, he got into his car, drove several miles in the wrong
direction on the motorway and ploughed into a van carrying seven
people. The van burst into flames and six people died. The drunk guy
was fine. They always are. He had no memory of getting into his car.
There was another man, in New York this time, who left a bar, drove
to the house he’d grown up in, stabbed its occupants to death, took off all
his clothes, got back into his car, drove home and went to bed. He got up
the next morning feeling terrible, wondering where his clothes were and