In a Dark, Dark Wood

by Ruth Ware

She said that when she was a girl and in a rage with a friend, she used to write her friend’s name on the soles of her feet in chalk, and walk until the name was gone. She said by the time the chalk had worn away, her resentment would have faded, too.

“People don’t change,” Nina said bitterly. “They just get more punctilious about hiding their true selves.”

If there’s one thing I dislike more than being hurt, it’s being seen to be hurt.

I have not spoken to him for ten years, but I thought of him every single day.

The James Cooper I thought I knew never existed. He was a figment of my imagination. A false memory, implanted by my own hopes.