Only If You're Lucky

by Stacy Willingham

One day we were strangers and the next we were friends. That’s usually how it works with girls.

But friends for life is a myth, a fable. A feel-good fairy tale we tell ourselves to avoid having to think too hard about facing the world alone.

Some words should be ours to own, at-times-vicious yet tender terms of endearment we toss around like glitter that suddenly taste sour in the mouths of men. Girls is one of them.

That’s the beauty of fiction, of words: when your life becomes too boring, too bland, too hard or depressing or chaotic or calm, they allow you to simply float away and inhabit another, try it on for size. With so many options so ripe for the picking, it would be a shame to only taste just one.