Page 13 of I Always Will

She liked it even less when she saw who was sitting next to Alexandria.

In her frustration at being so far apart, Hailey hadn’t looked at who they were sitting next to, only that it wasn’t each other. She was beside Farid Javadi, a quiet, studious boy she and Alexandria were friends with. Not super close, but he had been sat beside Alexandria in one of their classes last year and the two got along well. And, where there was Alexandria, there was Hailey, so Farid had gotten to know them both.

If she couldn’t be seated beside Alexandria, Farid was a great choice.

But Alexandria was sitting beside Rhys Alwin.

He wasn’t popular, per se. He was friends with almost everyone and extremely loud and talkative. There was definitely a core of popular kids in their year. Rhys was on the periphery of that. Hailey had always thought it was because he was too annoying for the popular group to hang out with all the time. Though, the one time she’d mentioned how annoying he was to one of their friends, she’d been told she just didn’t like him because he had a crush on Alexandria.

It wasn’tjustthat.

He was loud and obnoxious and so very forceful with his opinions. From the minute he’d decided that he had a crush on Alexandria and wanted her to go out with him, he’d been telling everyone. He’d ask her out multiple times a week. He gloated when he sat near her in classes. He was insufferable. And Alexandria hated the attention. She’d asked him multiple times to tone it down and he never really had.

He was going to be awful now they were sitting next to each other.

Hailey glowered at him as he slid into his seat, wiggling his eyebrows at his mates, each of them smirking back at him. She wondered briefly how much trouble she’d get in for fighting with him if she lunged at him in class. She knew it would be a lot. Plus, he’d probably win. She wasn’t much of a fighter. Instead, she considered whether Mr. Fenrow might consider changing his seat if she explained the situation, but she knew that wouldn’t work either. Mr. Fenrow wouldn’t do it for a crush and Alexandria would die of mortification if Hailey told him about it.

Farid looked at her before following her line of sight. “Oh. Sorry Rhys is sitting with your girlfriend. Do you think he’s going to try to steal her away?”

Hailey frowned. “What? No? She’s not my girlfriend.” She felt herself blushing. There were probably a million other things she should be saying, things that would definitely haunt her later for not having said them, but all that was stuck in her head was that Farid thought they were dating. They were just friends, she was protecting her friend. And they were both straight.

“Is she not?” He looked at her with raised eyebrows, genuinely surprised. “Sorry. I just thought you two were together. I’m pretty sure everyone thinks you are.”

Hailey frowned over at Rhys who was trying to engage Alexandria in conversation, seemingly against her will. “Not everyone.”

Farid nodded sympathetically. “Okay, everyone who knows gay people exist, and knows it’s okay, thinks you’re together.”

As Hailey thought about that, she realised they had gotten a few comments about how close they were. She thought it was just gross bullying. Most people in their area didn’t even talk about gay people, or, if they did, it tended not to be complimentary.

But here was Farid, being completely cool about it. Just stating that they were girlfriends.

And there was Hailey’s heart doing some odd little twinge at the idea. It wasn’t a bad twinge. It was the kind of twinge that made you reassess your life and everything in it.

She’d known when she came to secondary school that dating would likely become part of people’s lives. Enough of her relatives and neighbours liked to lean over condescendingly and ask if she had alittle boyfriendyet. But it was always that—a boyfriend. And she hadn’t been remotely interested in the concept. Honestly, she assumed she was just too young and that her hormones would kick in at some point, and then she’d be interested. But it hadn’t happened yet.

She looked over at Alexandria. What if the hormones and the feelings had kicked in, she just hadn’t realised what they were because they were for a girl and literally nobody around them had been making that seem like a legitimate option?

Her parents had always seemed to think Hailey would get a boyfriend, a husband, a man. And she had no idea what it felt like when people were interested in boys, so she had no idea whether how she felt about Alexandria was… that. Who was she even supposed to ask about stuff like that? Who could she tell without getting into trouble? Without being hated?

Mr. Fenrow called the class to attention and Hailey tried to listen, she really did, but it felt as though a swarm of bees had invaded her brain, making it loud and fuzzy and distracted. She had no idea what she was doing, no idea who she even was.

“For what it’s worth,” Farid whispered, looking down at their shared textbook, “if you were together, I think that would be okay.”

Hailey felt like she might throw up. She was confused, hurt, and a little angry. How had it taken all this time for her to realise she might not be straight? How had nobody even discussed this as a legitimate option for her? How was it that the first person to apparently see who she was and to support her was Farid Javadi—a boy who was the same age as her and who had thus far only really been her friend because they were both friends with Alexandria?

She wanted to stand up and scream, to throw things, to yell and cry and demand answers from all of the adults who had failed her.

And, most of all, she wanted to know if this was what a crush felt like. Whether she liked her best friend as more than a friend. And whether it would be okay if she did.

Five

Present Day

Hailey was having a hell of a Sunday. She’d gone for a run early in the day, before work, and had gotten home wishing she hadn’t. Her route always took her by her old secondary school. It was part of the charm of continuing to live locally to where you’d grown up—everything was familiar and everything held memories.

And that school held alotof them.

The other benefit of living where you’d grown up was that, over time, the memories dimmed a little. You still remembered them, but they didn’t sting like they used to.

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