The Hunting Party

by Lucy Foley

Some people, given just the right amount of pressure, taken out of their usual, comfortable environments, don’t need much encouragement at all to become monsters. And sometimes you just get a strong sense about people, and you can’t explain it; you simply know it, in some deeper part of yourself.

There are people who hold out for love, capital letters Love, and don’t stop until they’ve found it. There are those who give up because they don’t find it. Boom or bust—all or nothing. And then, perhaps in the majority, there are those who settle.

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