Just as Hawkins establishes Rachel as an unreliable narrator and encourages readers to question her perspective and her motivations, so too does Rachel find herself in the position of receiving information from a person she doesn’t fully trust. Meanwhile, Rachel’s reflections about Tom always chasing her down and calming her when she was drunk contradicts his stories about Rachel being out of control and violent while intoxicated. This subtly implies that perhaps Tom can’t be fully trusted either.