Member-only story
All Because of a Girl Named Alva
Guys fawned over girls like her.
I thought I understood girls like Alva Fine.
But I suppose I didn’t.
Girls like them had ruled me all my life. Their tumbling curls, their heady laughs, their innocuous touches — everything to drive a man wild, I would imagine. But I guess I wasn’t like the other guys. I watched them with wariness as if they were hunters and I were the prey. Girls like them? They made me wonder what the hell was going on in the battle of the sexes.
My friend Jeremy didn’t seem to understand either. “Maybe we’re just different,” he said. “I mean, I’ve never had a girlfriend either, but them? They act like animals.”
“Maybe that’s because society taught them that’s how they had to be,” I murmured, and Jeremy looked at me as if I had grown two heads.
“Would you rather they be damsels locked in towers? Lighten up, Landon.”
I shrugged and stared at the periwinkle ceiling of Jeremy’s parents’ basement. The TV hummed out a low rumble from a commercial, but Jeremy and I had stopped listening to the television just to have this one-on-one. I liked when I was with Jeremy. He cut out all the bullshit and shot arrows true right to the heart of the matter.
