Page 19 of I Always Will

Hailey looked at her. She looked sad and guilty. “A little bit,” she whispered, so quietly even Alexandria could barely hear her.

Alexandria felt like she might throw up. She knew it was ridiculous—she wasn’t the one going through this—but she was scared for her friend. “Do they… Would they… Have they… hurt you?”

Hailey looked at her, puzzled for a moment. “Oh. No. They don’t fight like that. It’s just the stress and the yelling and the anger… It’s a lot.”

Just.As if that weren’t enough.

“You should stay at mine tonight,” Alexandria blurted before she had really thought it through. She just wanted her friend to be safe. Hailey was the person who had been the nicest to her in senior school, she was the closest friend Alexandria had here, and this was something she could do to help.

Hailey paused, her brush raised from the page, as she looked at Alexandria. The look lasted so long that Alexandria felt herself turning red and began fidgeting in her seat. She usually tried not to fidget, her parents told her it was unbecoming, but she was worried she’d said the wrong thing.

“Are you serious?” Hailey asked eventually.

Not sure whether it was the correct answer or not, Alexandria nodded. Her parents had friends over all the time, kids from their street would just come in and out with her when she was younger, and lots of people brought babies over for playdates with Daniel. Sure, she didn’t usually bring a lot of friends home from school, but it would probably be okay. Especially if her mum and dad knew why it was important. They didn’t have anything special happening tonight, she was pretty sure.

“That would be awesome,” Hailey said, a grin taking over her face, and some of the exhaustion seemed to leave her. She looked almost like regular Hailey. “Your mum and dad would be okay with it?”

“Yeah, I don’t see why not. You can wait outside while I ask, if you want? But I think it will be okay.”

She pursed her lips. “Do you think your mum would call my mum to tell her? I don’t know if she’ll just yell at me to get home if I call her.”

Alexandria watched her, saddened by the idea of Hailey getting yelled at by her parents and being told to come home just so she can listen to the pair of them yell at each other. “Yeah, I’ll ask her.”

Hailey smiled at her and Alexandria was sure she was close to tears. It might not be much, but maybe she could give Hailey one, fun night away from the yelling and the fighting, and at least that was something.

They painted in silence for a couple of minutes before Hailey turned to her again. “Thanks, Alexandria. You’re really nice. I was so worried because…” She looked around them nervously. “Well, because my dad goes out to the pub after work on Fridays and, last week, he came home yelling and drunk. He broke a plate Mum had saved him some dinner on. I thought maybe the same thing was going to happen again this week…”

Alexandria had seen several people around school hugging their friends. She hadn’t made any friends she was that close to yet. Even Hailey hadn’t hugged her and Hailey definitely seemed the type to be a big hugger. Alexandria thought she might not be a big hugger, but, as she looked at the sorrow in Hailey’s eyes and the relief that she would get a night away, something in Alexandria’s stomach compelled her to reach her hand out to squeeze Hailey’s. It was just for a moment, just a little thing, not like a hug, but a sign that Hailey could trust her, that she was there, and she’d try to keep Hailey safe.

Hailey squeezed back before they let go and turned back to their work, and she even got back into their usual discussion, chatting about the pieces they were recreating, and talking about how her haystack looked more like a golden sheep than hay. Alexandria could still see that, underneath, she was upset, but she was lighter again, a little more like herself. And she knew she had a friend she could trust.

Seven

Present day

Alexandria stared at her phone, the messages coming in thick and fast. It was late. She’d stayed at work longer than usual, mostly to have a good reason to avoid her phone. But now, she was back home in her little flat, sitting at the breakfast bar, her stomach grumbling discontentedly, and her phone filled with messages from a group chat she didn’t want to be a part of.

She’d been back home for two days. Two days of being away from Hailey Davis again. But two days of having Hailey feel closer than ever. Her number was on Alexandria’s phone, she worked with Alexandria’s future sister-in-law, had become fast friends with her brother, and she was following Alexandria around constantly.

Not literally, but it felt like it. Every notification that came in felt as though Hailey was right there. And a lot of them were her.

As expected, Daniel and Esme were both big talkers in the group chat, and they had reason to be; it was their wedding. However, Alexandria had expected Hailey to remain fairly quiet in the chat. Staying quiet wasn’t especially Hailey’s style—or it hadn’t been twenty years ago—but in this most awkward situation that they found themselves in, Alexandria had been hoping they would find their way through it by both remaining relatively quiet. They’d answer when they needed to, but they’d stick to the topic and stay on-task with the wedding.

She had not expected Hailey to just start chatting as though they were all old friends.

It was, perhaps, complicated because she and Haileywereold friends. She and Esme were current friends. And Daniel was someone she’d known once upon a time, too, kind of. But they weren’tjustold friends. This wasn’t connecting with someone you’d grown apart from and lost somewhere along the way. This was Hailey. And Alexandria.

Seeing Hailey chatting, being her usual self, and gaining glimpses into her life—all of it was more painful than Alexandria would have expected. They had seventeen years and a whole load of life between them, surely it shouldn’t feel quite the way it did? Surely she should be over Hailey by now?

Alexandria didn’t want to admit that’s what it was. She wanted to keep everything she’d ever felt locked up tight in the cabinet of her heart and never let it escape, but that didn’t seem to be working very well.

Over the years, she’d made her peace with the fact that nobody else was going to make her feel the way Hailey did. She had a full life she was happy with, even if it didn’t involve a grand romance. She was fine without it. She had herself, her job, her friends, her hobbies. Her life was everything she could have hoped for it to be. And, over the years, she made efforts to think about Hailey less, to slowly fall out of love with her, and she never told anyone about it because that would be making it real and painful.

But, every time she went back home, she knew Hailey was somewhere nearby and it felt like all the progress she’d made was undone, her feelings filled back up, and she was left working them down again until her next visit. It was a vicious cycle she’d been going through for almost twenty years. Up until this weekend, she’d been sure it was working, too. Even in spite of the CDs she often found herself burning for Hailey.

When she was home, she kept a low profile, she avoided going anywhere she thought she might run into Hailey, and, with increased incidences of success and dwindling probabilities that they would run into each other, Alexandria’s heart felt a little less wrecked each time.

Then her brother decided to marry Hailey’s employee. And use her as the caterer. And make Alexandria join a group chat with her.

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