Page 39 of I Always Will

“No, no. My fault,” she said, hastily shutting her bag and pushing it back under the desk.

“Have you got contraband?” He looked around surreptitiously.

She stared at him. “No? What on earth would I even have?”

He laughed quietly. “I’m just kidding, but you did look a little suspicious.”

“Oh.” She felt her face flame and looked around shiftily. “Just… thinking about universities.”

He logged into the computer before spinning his chair slightly to look more fully at Alexandria. “Ah. The Hailey-Edinburgh Question.”

“Is that a mathematical thing?” she asked, attempting for light and joking. She didn't think she made it.

He shot her a look that told her she didn’t. “No. Just the premise on which your whole existence is currently hanging.”

“Seems a little dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Doyou?”

She sighed heavily. What was the point of pretending or trying to get out of it? They both knew what was going on. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Go to the university that’s right for you. You can’t go to the place that’s right for Hailey if it’s not the one for you.”

“But shouldn’t what’s right for her be a factor in my decision? Because that’s factoring in our friendship and how much she means to me.”

He frowned, pursing his lips as he opened his browser and logged into his own university application form in UCAS. “I think if you’re really friends with someone, and you care about them, you want what’s best for them, even if it takes them far away from you. Plus, good friends can make the distance work. It’s not like there’s no trains between the two places.”

“But it’s not… We’re not… It’s…” She sighed heavily. “It’s… complicated.”

He rolled his eyes. Even in the midst of her struggle, it amused Alexandria a little. She had been friends with Farid for years now and she enjoyed seeing how he’d relaxed a little, and become more comfortable over the years. Especially at calling out her nonsense.

He cleared his throat but lowered his voice. “It’s only complicated because you two are basically together but refuse to acknowledge it, probably in some weird bid to avoid getting hurt or having to ever break up or something. But it doesn’t work like that.Feelingsdon’t work like that. You’ve got a relationship in everything but name and that doesn’t make things like this easier. From what I can see, it makes things harder. You’re stuck wondering what you are and what you’ll become if you move away. You need Edinburgh like Hailey needs to stay here, but you can’t have a real conversation about what you’ll be when you move because you’re not naming that you’re dating. Can’t agree to a long-distance relationship if you refuse to acknowledge you’re in a relationship in the first place.”

Alexandria didn’t know what to say. How was it always things about Hailey that left her feeling that way?

She hadn’t known that Farid knew they were… more than friends, but she wasn’t surprised he did. He was quiet, intelligent, and one of the most observant people she knew. He was also going to be studying statistics at university and, as someone in the same field, Alexandria figured she should have known he’d be able to follow the patterns and discern the likely outcomes.

“So I just go and we don’t talk about it? We just stop talking altogether?” she asked.

He frowned. “Where did I say that? For someone so bright, you are awfully obtuse.”

She laughed, but it was an unhappy sound. “Then, what?”

“Oh, I don’t know…” He scratched his chin comically. “You could try talking about what you and Hailey are, what you need for university, and how you’d like to be long-distance girlfriends.”

“You’re just assuming that’s what I want?”

He shot her a look like she was insulting his intelligence.

He probably had a point.

He huffed. “I know that’s what you want. And it’s what she wants too. Well, I think, ideally, she’d want you both to go to the same uni, but she’s not silly, she knows what Edinburgh means to you, and, more than anything, she wants you to be happy.”

“You sound like you’re forty when you talk like that,” she laughed.

“You can remind me of that when I’m actually forty. We’ll see if I’ve made the horrifying decision not to change as a person,” he laughed, but they both knew he meant it. It was hard to see it now, it felt like they’d always be this way, but adults had been telling them for years that they’ll change when they go to university or join the ‘real world’ and get jobs. It felt hard to understand, but it seemed to be how things were supposed to work.

But that was also the rationale her parents had been using on her lately. Well, her whole life, really. They told her and Daniel time and time again that nothing from their childhoods would last. You could be popular in school and forgotten the minute you leave. You could think you have best friends you’ll never be without, but as you got older, you changed and became different people and it was ridiculous to assume the people you’d known as a teenager were going to change in the same ways you did. You grew, got jobs, built families, and became different people.

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