Page 43 of I Always Will

It wasn’t his fault, he was just a memory of all the things she’d had and agreed to let go. He was the one who’d clued her in on the fact that she was in love with Alexandria. She’d probably have gotten there herself at some point, but that wasn’t what had happened. Farid had been there. He was Alexandria’s friend. He was probably still allowed to contact her. He knew Hailey and everything that she’d done wrong. And all of it was too much.

He’d already been aware of their decision to cut each other off, so, when Hailey had dissolved into panicked tears, he hadn’t required an explanation. His arm had wrapped around her and led them off somewhere private to let her cry into his shoulder for as long as she needed.

And she had.

She’d sobbed until her throat was raw. She’d cried about all the wrong decisions she’d made, all the ways she missed Alexandria, all the thoughts she had about jumping on a train to Edinburgh and winning Alexandria back. And how she couldn’t do that because they’d agreed. They knew it would hurt, but they knew growing apart would hurt more. They’d danced around the idea of a long-distance relationship without really calling it that. Maybe things would have been easier if they had called it that, but that wouldn’t have stopped the worry that they’d grow apart, become frustrated with one another, start arguing and tarnish every good memory they had of each other. Hailey desperately didn’t want to become her parents, not ever and definitely not with Alexandria. This way was supposed to be easier.Leaving on a highshe thought she’d called it, knowing full well she didn’t actually believe that but thinking this was for the best. It was what Alexandria needed.

Now, every week, Farid came over for takeaway and a film night and he let Hailey cry out everything she needed to and told her it would get better in time. Hailey wondered whether that would be more believable if she didn’t know he thought they’d made the wrong decision by cutting contact with each other. And every time he said it, Hailey couldn’t help but wonder whether he was telling Alexandria the same thing when she called.

Knowing he might helped in some odd way, like she and Alexandria were in this together, even if they’d never been so far apart. But she couldn’t bring herself to ask.

And so the grief morphed and changed. It grew with her in odd ways, and her mum—without knowing what Hailey was grieving over—told her it had a way of doing that but, one day, you’d wake up and realise it was still a part of you, but a part you could handle. Hailey wondered whether that was why her parents’ divorce had taken so long. Grief, she had now learned, was a complicated beast. It seemed entirely possible that, even in the collapse of their relationship and all of the joy they had ever derived from one another, grief kept them clinging on when they needed to let go.

Maybe she and Alexandria had been right to let go when things were still good. Maybe one day, she’d look back and feel okay about the memories and all the things they could never be for one another. She doubted either of her parents would ever get that after what they’d become together.

But that didn’t make it easy now.

When she hurt, she wanted Alexandria, but even when she was okay, she wanted her. Every happy, funny, bizarre thing that happened in the day, she wanted to tell Alexandria. Sometimes that was every bit as hard as the pain. It was a different kind of sorrow but every road led her back to the worst day of her life so far and all the things she’d lost.

They’d cried, together and apart, so many times in the months running up to August.

When the deadline for uni choices had rolled around in March, it had felt like an awful guillotine being held above their heads, set on a timer that would expire all too soon. They’d talked about their choices, about the things they both needed. They’d both known long before those conversations that they were about to make the first decisions of their adult lives and their paths were heading in very different directions, but it didn’t make it easy when the deadline rolled around.

They’d clung to each other extra tightly that day. They’d gone back to Alexandria’s house after classes, the air around them heavy with unsaid things. Hailey had tearfully snapped at Mrs. Daley that Alexandria looked perfect when they’d helped themselves to dinner and she’d made a comment about Alexandria’s weight. The Daleys had saved her in a lot of ways—given her a safe place to be when home was too much, fed her, and, in their own way, cared for her—and she wasn’t ungrateful but she hated Mrs. Daley’s comments about Alexandria’s weight. She was perfect. Every single inch of her. Glorious and beautiful and intelligent and just the most incredible person ever. She was the prettiest person Hailey had ever seen. She didn’t need to lose weight. She was perfectly healthy.

Most days, they shrugged it off and Hailey reassured Alexandria she was perfect later, when they were alone. That day… Hailey hadn’t had pretending in her.

She’d apologised later, but she didn’t actually regret what she’d said, only how she’d said it.

And then the day was over. Decisions were final. And they had sobbed quietly on each other as they squeezed into Alexandria’s bed together, neither mentioning what was wrong. Knowing they didn’t have to.

The next day, Hailey had been exhausted. She’d felt like a ghost walking through her own life. And the world had gotten heavier every day between there and August.

Results day came and she’d never realised how deeply proud you could be of yourself and the person you loved whilst also being devastated. Not for a moment had she imagined Alexandria wouldn’t get the grades for Edinburgh, but when she did, when they’d nervously queued together to get their envelopes, their hands clasped tightly—not caring, for the first time, who might see—the guillotine had come crashing down. It tore her insides from her, ripped her life apart, and all she could see was their numbered days.

They’d promised themselves they were saying goodbye on August 31st. They’d have a couple of weeks to finish getting ready for uni and to grieve and remember that they wanted to always remember each other like this—in love and happy and perfect—rather than losing each other to the mist. And then they’d both be gone. Alexandria much further than Hailey, but still both gone.

Hailey had never expected the end of her childhood to feel so abrupt that it could be pinpointed on a calendar, but that was August 31st. She’d felt it as they’d clung to each other, exchanged one last gift, and whispered terrified, enduring ‘I love you’s into kisses and shoulders. She’d felt it when it had gotten too late and Mr. Daley had insisted on taking her home. She’d felt it when, for the first time ever, Alexandria hadn’t come on the drive with them. She felt it when Mr. Daley told her they were making the right decision to let childish friendships die. And she’d felt it every day since. She wasn’t sure it would ever go away.

She would forever be two people—with Alexandriaandafter Alexandria.

She wantedwithback more than her heart could take.

Her eyes swam and her throat was thick with pain, and the past, and the present that wasn’t the one she wanted. She flipped her phone open and shut, the snap the only thing that felt real outside of Alexandria. They’d promised to delete each other’s numbers. She hadn’t done it yet. She didn’t have the strength. She wanted to call her so badly. She needed to hear her voice.

But she’d promised.

She pushed herself off the bed and pulled a small, decorative box from her wardrobe. Inside it lived all the Alexandria things she couldn’t bring herself to be without. Photos, notes, trinkets, mixtapes and CDs she’d made them both copies of.

And Alexandria’s parting gift.

A journal. A beautiful, exquisite, expensive journal. Engraved with Hailey’s initials.

Tucked inside its pages was an envelope, one Hailey had opened and read twice before she couldn’t take it anymore and shut it up in the box.

She ran her fingers over the journal. She felt Alexandria’s words through the pages and the cover, coursing through her—hot, painful,necessary.Words that told her how Alexandria hated that this was the end of their story, that she’d dreamt a different ending for the two of them—that she always would. Words that asked her to use the journal to forge a new path. Words that told her Alexandria would love her always. Words that told her to write a new story for herself; to write the life she wanted; to be proud and loved because she always was. By Alexandria. Even in her absence.

It was the most beautiful and the most painful gift she’d ever been given.

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