The Girl on the Train: A Novel

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2013

MORNING

I don’t lose. He should know this about me. I don’t lose games like this.

The screen on my phone is blank. Stubbornly, insolently blank. No text messages, no missed calls. Every time I look at it, it feels like I’ve been slapped, and I get angrier and angrier. What happened to me in that hotel room? What was I thinking? That we made a connection, that there was something real between us? He has no intention of going anywhere with me. But I believed him for a second—more than a second—and that’s what really pisses me off. I was ridiculous, credulous. He was laughing at me all along.

If he thinks I’m going to sit around crying over him, he’s got another think coming. I can live without him, I can do without him just fine—but I don’t like to lose. It’s not like me. None of this is like me. I don’t get rejected. I’m the one who walks away.

I’m driving myself insane, I can’t help it. I can’t stop going back to that afternoon at the hotel and going over and over what he said, the way he made me feel.

Bastard.

If he thinks I will just disappear, go quietly, he’s mistaken. If he doesn’t pick up soon, I’m going to stop calling his mobile and call him at home. I’m not just going to be ignored.

At breakfast, Scott asks me to cancel my therapy session. I don’t say anything. I pretend I haven’t heard him.

“Dave’s asked us round to dinner,” he says. “We haven’t been over there for ages. Can you rearrange your session?”

His tone is light, as though this is a casual request, but I can feel him watching me, his eyes on my face. We’re on the edge of an argument, and I have to be careful.

“I can’t, Scott, it’s too late,” I say. “Why don’t you ask Dave and Karen to come here on Saturday instead?” Just the thought of entertaining Dave and Karen at the weekend is wearing, but I’m going to have to compromise.

“It’s not too late,” he says, putting his coffee cup down on the table in front of me. He rests his hand on my shoulder for just a moment, says, “Cancel it, OK?” and walks out of the room.

The second the front door closes, I pick up the coffee cup and hurl it against the wall.

EVENING

I could tell myself that it’s not really a rejection. I could try to persuade myself that he’s just trying to do the right thing, morally and professionally. But I know that isn’t true. Or at least, it’s not the whole truth, because if you want someone badly enough, morals (and certainly professionalism) don’t come into it. You’ll do anything to have them. He just doesn’t want me badly enough.

I ignored Scott’s calls all afternoon, I turned up to my session late and walked straight into his office without a word to the receptionist. He was sitting at his desk, writing something. He glanced up at me when I walked in, didn’t smile, then looked back down at his papers. I stood in front of his desk, waiting for him to look at me. It felt like forever before he did.

“Are you OK?” he asked eventually. He smiled at me then. “You’re late.”

The breath was catching in my throat, I couldn’t speak. I walked around the desk and leaned against it, my leg brushing against his thigh. He drew back a little.

“Megan,” he said, “are you all right?”

I shook my head. I put my hand out to him, and he took it.

“Megan,” he said again, shaking his head.

I didn’t say anything.

“You can’t . . . You should sit down,” he said. “Let’s talk.”

I shook my head.

“Megan.”

Every time he said my name he made it worse.

He got to his feet and circled the desk, walking away from me. He stood in the middle of the room.

“Come on,” he said, his voice businesslike—brusque, even. “Sit down.”

I followed him into the middle of the room, put one hand on his waist, the other against his chest. He held me by my wrists and moved away from me.

“Don’t, Megan. You can’t . . . we can’t . . .” He turned away.

“Kamal,” I said, my voice catching. I hated the sound of it. “Please.”

“This . . . here. It’s not appropriate. It’s normal, believe me, but . . .”

I told him then that I wanted to be with him.

“It’s transference, Megan,” he said. “It happens from time to time. It happens to me, too. I really should have introduced this topic last time. I’m sorry.”

I wanted to scream then. He made it sound so banal, so bloodless, so common.

“Are you telling me you feel nothing?” I asked him. “You’re saying I’m imagining all this?”

He shook his head. “You have to understand, Megan, I shouldn’t have let things get this far.”

I moved closer to him, put my hands on his hips and turned him around. He took hold of my arms again, his long fingers locked around my wrists. “I could lose my job,” he said, and then I really lost my temper.

I pulled away angrily, violently. He tried to hold me, but he couldn’t. I was yelling at him, telling him I didn’t give a shit about his job. He was trying to quieten me—worried, I assume, about what the receptionist thought, what the other patients thought. He grabbed hold of my shoulders, his thumbs digging into the flesh at the tops of my arms, and told me to calm down, to stop behaving like a child. He shook me, hard; I thought for a moment he was going to slap my face.

I kissed him on the mouth, I bit his lower lip as hard as I could; I could taste his blood in my mouth. He pushed me away.

I plotted revenge on my way home. I was thinking of all the things I could do to him. I could get him fired, or worse. I won’t, though, because I like him too much. I don’t want to hurt him. I’m not even that upset about the rejection anymore. What bothers me most is that I haven’t got to the end of my story, and I can’t start over with someone else, it’s too hard.

I don’t want to go home now, because I don’t know how I’m going to be able to explain the bruises on my arms.