Page 22 of I Always Will

“Yeah. My mum reckons he doesn’t really want to.” She shrugged. The movement was awkward with the way she was lying, but the sentiment was conveyed. “She thinks his missus threatened to leave if they didn’t get married and he didn’t want to be back in the dating pool.”

Alexandria lay down gently beside Hailey. “That’s kind of sad to think about. Doesn’t she deserve better than that? Shouldn’t she get to marry someone who wants to marry her? He’s not being very nice, staying with her because he doesn’t want to put in the effort with someone else.” She frowned. She’d never met Hailey’s uncle, but she didn’t love his attitude.

“Yeah.” Hailey sighed heavily, rolling onto her back. “The older we get, the more I think nobody is happily married. It’s all supposed to be for love, but look at the people around us. My parents hate each other and have had the most ridiculous and drawn-out breakup in all of history, I think.”

Alexandria scoffed. She wasn’t sure whether Hailey was entirely correct, but she wasn’t too far off.

Her parents’ breakup had been prolonged and ugly and was leaving them with two kids who weren’t sure they’d even want contact with their parents once they finally did get a divorce. Hailey and Matthew hadn’t told their parents that—Alexandria didn’t blame them—but it was a fact.

Their dad had bought them both new Motorola flip phones so he’d be able to stay in touch with them when he finally moved out but they still didn’t know when that would be, especially since the purchase had enraged Hailey’s mum. She was convinced he was now trying to buy their love and take them away from her. So, they stayed in the same cramped, terraced house. Hailey had been moved to the box room so their dad could sleep in the same room as Matthew, and their parents continued to row and fight and basically make life miserable for everyone involved.

Hailey really might have a point about marriage.

“Then there’s my uncle, getting married not because he’s in love and wants to tell the world that he’s going to love his wife forever, but because he’s too chickenshit to let her go and date other people.” She looked at Alexandria. “And then there’s your parents. I don’t get them at all. They might love each other, but it’s in such a businesslike way that I’m never really sure.”

Part of Alexandria wanted to argue, wanted to believe in something good, but Hailey wasn’t wrong. Her parents weren’t especially affectionate, even with each other. There was probably respect and love. Maybe? Things weren’t anything like Hailey’s house, but it wasn’t some great love story here, either. She hummed. “Yeah, I guess it isn’t like in the films. It’s definitely not like love in the songs.”

“Exactly. And that’s what it should be like.” She jumped up, shaking her head, to grab the Discman from on top of Alexandria's chest of drawers. “It should be marrying your best friend, and wanting to spend time with them every day. It should be that one person you can’t wait to talk to, the one you hate being away from for long periods of time simply because life is better when they’re around. It should be the person you don’t want to live without, not the person you think you can put up with just because they’re there.”

Alexandria rolled over onto her stomach, watching Hailey rifle through CDs for the one she wanted. She was fairly sure it was going to be a mix they’d made together or that Hailey had gifted her, and she was excited to see which one it was, but she was also distracted by Hailey. Her words, her conviction, her beauty…

She knew she shouldn’t think those things about her best friend, but Hailey was the most beautiful person she’d ever seen. She was all of the things Hailey thought your spouse should be, and so much more.

She wondered whether she should be more upset to find herself in love with her best friend. She’d been wondering that since she realised but she couldn’t change it, even as she worried about her safety and the kind of life she’d live if she ended up with a woman—would people attack her? Would they disown her? Would things be hard every day?

Or would it be like this? Would it be happiness and beauty and talking about everything, all the time?

On some level, she supposed she was thankful to Rhys Alwin and his deeply uncomfortable crush on her. His waxing lyrical about it had, after all, clued her into her own feelings and the fact that all of the things he said he felt about her were things she felt about Hailey. She was still pretty sure she liked boys, too, but it was undeniable that the person she liked the most was Hailey. The person she wanted to kiss was Hailey. The person she wanted to be around all the time, the one she missed, the one who made her heart pound impossibly fast was Hailey. And, other than worrying about keeping it quiet to save their friendship, she hadn’t felt particularly upset about it. It was unfortunate, falling for her straight best friend, but it was magic, too. She felt alive and comfortable and accepted, even if she wasn’t out yet, even to Hailey.

Maybe one day she’d be ready to tell her. For now, she worried that Hailey would ask her how she’d figured out she was bi and she had no idea how she’d get through explaining that without owning up to her enormous crush.

Hailey flopped back down on the bed beside her, handing her one of the earphones that connected to the Discman. Alexandria felt herself blushing as she took it. They listened to music together all the time, but, when it was just the two of them, lying down together, sharing a set of earphones, something inside Alexandria burned. It had been a confusing and unfamiliar feeling at first. Now, she understood it better, but it still made her feel weird—tingly, floaty, flying, electric.

“You know,” Hailey said as the first song kicked in, “we’d have a better marriage than any of the married people around us.”

Alexandria felt like her insides had fallen out of her body. She heard her heart pounding in her ears. The music felt far away, but not so far away that she hadn’t recognised it as possibly the most romantic CD Hailey had ever made for her. A recent gift and one Alexandria tended to put on, through her headphones, late at night, in the dark, under her covers where she’d think of Hailey and blush bright red as her heart thought only of how Hailey was everything to her that the singers sang about. And that didn’t help.

Her mind fought to make sense of Hailey’s statement. How many ways were there to interpret that? If she went with the wrong one, that would be embarrassing and she’d potentially have outed herself. That would not be okay. When she got around to telling Hailey she was bi, she wasn’t going to do it when they were lying in bed together, discussing marriage, and listening to romantic songs. She could only imagine how awkward and uncomfortable that might make Hailey.

“Uh, how do you mean?” she finally murmured, trying desperately to prevent her voice from wobbling.

Hailey tilted her head to the side, smiling softly at her. It was almost too much for Alexandria. They’d watched enough films and TV shows to see this move a million times and the couple always liked each other. They usually ended up kissing.

Alexandria could almost cry with how much she wanted that with Hailey.

“Well,” Hailey said, still grinning, “you’re my best friend, we see each other all the time, you’re my favourite person ever… I think we’d be mint at being married. Loads better than my mum and dad, or Uncle Gregg, or your parents.”

Breathing was hard to do when it felt like your insides were exploding, Alexandria was realising. She tried hard to keep her body under control but her best friend, who she was in love with, was talking about the two of them being married and being good at it. How was she supposed to feel anything other than overwhelmed? She felt like she had spun straight off her axis and off into the middle of nowhere, but, it turned out, the middle of nowhere had everything she’d ever wanted.

“Plus,” Hailey continued, clearly unaware of what she was doing to Alexandria, “grown-ups are always going on about how they’re busy, there’s no time for stuff. It’s such a lie. Like, yeah, they’ve got work and everything, but we’ve got school. We’ve got school, and homework, and clubs, and our parents telling us to do stuff, and we still find time together. I just don’t think they’re trying hard enough. They’re always calling us lazy, but we’re not the ones neglecting our… best friends and stuff.”

Alexandria could barely make sense of what was being said. She knew she was supposed to respond but no words presented themselves.

Hailey was talking like they were…together.

Her hands felt awkward and she had no idea what to do with her arms. Was she too close to Hailey? Had she been this physically aware of herself just a moment ago? Why wouldn’t her limbs cooperate? Why was her tongue suddenly too big for her own mouth?

What was Hailey getting at?

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