The Hunting Party

by Lucy Foley

that’s the thing about old friends, isn’t it? Sometimes they don’t even realize that they no longer have anything in common. That maybe they don’t even like each other anymore.

They say you spend your first year at university trying to shake off all the “friends” you make in your first week,

Samira’s a management consultant, I’m a lawyer, Julien works for the hedge fund, Nick’s an architect, Giles is a doctor, Bo works for the BBC, Mark for an advertising firm. Emma works for a literary agency—I

Wounds inflicted at that sort of raw, unformed time in our lives tend to cut the deepest—and leave the worst scars.

For once I wasn’t aware of my fatness, or my weirdness, or—briefly, joyously—the absence inside, because I was borrowing from her light: I was like the moon to her sun, and it was meant to be.

I’d like, now, to get to know people who know me for me—not for who I used to be. Who won’t expect me to step back into a role that I don’t quite fit into anymore.