And as soon as someone developed feelings for her, she quickly rejected him. As if something inside her had shattered, and anyone who got too close to her cut themselves on the shards. Then, at seventeen, she completely backed away from men. Any sort of approach seemed to absolutely disgust her, prompting rumours that she was more interested in women. Or was just weird. Alva didn’t care. Instead, she studied obsessively and read books on philosophy: Sartre, and a great deal of Kierkegaard.
