Page 42 of I Always Will

“Really?” It wasn’t that Hailey thought she couldn’t, or that she hadn’t been hoping for it, she’d just always assumed that if Susan started coming around, it wouldn’t be in a conversation with Richard. For all the ways Susan was insistent on being proper and polite, Hailey had always gotten the impression that Richard was even more set in his ways.

“Yeah. She mentioned that she sometimes missed her own maiden name and that she’d wondered about the custom, and maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if both families were honoured, especially if there are going to be kids involved. She made the point that, if I got married and took some guy’s name and gave that name to the kids, that would be nice, but maybe it would be nicer if they had a hyphenated last name.”

Like Davis-Daley.

Was being around Alexandria ever going to be anything other than complicated? Would she ever regret a single second with her, even if they made all her heart ache?

“What did your dad say?” she asked carefully.

“That it was traditional to take the man’s name and that Daniel and Esme should stop trying to rewrite the rulebook. He said I’d at least have an excuse to do things a new-fangled way if I married a woman, but Daniel and Esme have no excuse.”

“New-fangled? That’s what he said?”

“Yep. So Daniel told him maybe it wasn’t to be difficult but because he respected his wife. Mum said maybe this was just the modern way to do things and it might have been nice if Daniel and I had some connection to her maiden name. And Dad got grumpy and told us that if we wanted to engage in traditional institutions like marriage, we had to respect them, and that he respected Mum just fine. He says he’s given her everything she could want in a life and taking his name was hardly that much of an ask for all that. So, my mum backtracked a bit, and Daniel and I left.”

And, as her heart broke for Alexandria, Hailey finally understood why she hadn’t been able to resist calling. That was a lot to hear from your dad at any time. Hearing it now added extra weight Hailey could imagine only too well. Plus, her mum was finally showing signs of coming around on one thing about Dan’s wedding and her dad had to tear it down with a ridiculous show of patriarchal power?

Alexandria had always hated the casual misogyny her father engaged in. The older they’d gotten, the more common Hailey had realised it was—seemingly perfectly reasonable people who, when one tiny thing happened that they felt was a challenge to the patriarchy, would turn into completely different people. Except, they weren’t different people, they just managed to hide it under their everyday outfits of control. Alexandria had probably realised it too, but that wouldn’t make it easier that her dad was one of those people.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen now,” Alexandria whispered, her voice small, scared, and barely above a whisper.

“Whatever does, I’ll be right there by your side,” Hailey promised and she meant it.

“What do I do? My dad thinks any marriage I might enter into is some New Age weird thing, he’s exerting some ridiculous claim of ownership and demand for gratitude over my mum, and Daniel’s thinking about uninviting him from the wedding. He and Mum would blow up if they weren't invited.”

“They don’t even want the wedding to happen.”

Alexandria sighed. “I know, but it’s about appearances.”

“Except, it’s not,” Hailey insisted earnestly. “You know it’s not. It’s about Dan and Esme and the way they love each other. And it’s about them making that promise to each other, surrounded by the people who love, support, and accept them in all of the things they actually are.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right. No. I know you’re right. Why is it so hard to just tell them that? To just call out how ridiculous and alienating they’re being to their faces?”

Hailey blew out a breath. “Because they trained you not to. For years. They worked on making you both into the perfect little children for their lifestyle production without realising that you’re already perfect exactly as you are.”

Alexandria took a shuddering breath. “Thank you.”

Hailey looked out at the still night around her. It didn’t feel so lonely anymore. “I’m glad you called,” she whispered, as if, by keeping her voice low, neither of them would have to let in exactly how much she meant it.

“Me too,” she replied, just as quietly. “Thanks for picking up.”

“I always will.”

Seventeen

Seventeen years ago

It was four months since Hailey had last spoken to Alexandria. Four months in which her life had changed immeasurably, and she knew Alexandria’s had too. Four months in which she feared she’d lost who she was. It seemed to be coming back some days, but the ebbs and flows of grief and longing still took their toll. She’d tried hard to be her usual self, to put the loss away and make new friends, be part of her university, and absorb herself in her classes. Sometimes it worked. Others… not so much.

She’d made friends and having fun with them was becoming easier with each passing day, but she still hadn’t been able to tell them about Alexandria. In explanation of her oddly mercurial moods, she’d mentioned something about a breakup—even if she wasn’t sure it constituted that, not really—but that was it. Friendship breakups weren’t seen in the same light as romantic ones, and she knew she’d never get away with months of grief if she called it that. As if friendships weren’t every bit as consequential as romantic relationships. And, either way, she didn’t know which one she and Alexandria had been. A romantic relationship, probably, even if not in name. But she’d lost that and their friendship in one fell swoop and it was like life just carried on around her. There was no time to stop and grieve the way she needed to. There was nobody to help her out of the pits of despair that consumed her late at night. For seven years, the one who could was Alexandria. And now she was gone. Off in Edinburgh—technically in a whole other country—living her life and probably having a wonderful time without Hailey.

She stared at the ceiling of her room—a standard-issue room in halls, in a flat she shared with an eclectic bunch of housemates she’d probably have had a better time uniting if she’d been her regular self.

She wondered whether Alexandria thought of her.

When she was hurting, it was easy to think Alexandria didn’t care, that she’d moved on with her life, and was better off without Hailey. But, deep down, she knew Alexandria and that wasn’t her. None of this would be any easier for her than it was for Hailey. They’d made the choices they had to for themselves and their futures, but they’d both lost so much. There was no way Alexandria wasn’t feeling it every bit as much as Hailey was.

Making friends wasn’t easy for Alexandria, either. Hailey hoped she’d found her people, that the grief didn’t consume her so thoroughly that she was lost and alone in a sea of happy people in a city she was new to. Maybe she was being just like Hailey. Maybe she’d made friends and didn’t tell them the cause of the dark clouds that sometimes rolled in and took hold of her. Maybe she called Farid and cried on him too. He had always been Alexandria’s friend first, but, when Hailey ran into him in the library one day, she’d spiralled through a host of emotions so powerful Alexandria could have been the one standing before her.

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