Page 1 of I Always Will

One

Ten years ago

Stalking your ex on social media was not the best use of a Saturday night. It was, however, where Hailey Davis found herself. Again.

Were they even really exes?

As if that made it better.

She groaned, turned up the music playing in her living room, snapped her laptop shut, and sank further into her sofa. She pulled her current journal towards herself. It was one in a long line of journals, tonight just one more entry in a long line of entries. Every one of them for Alexandria.

You really need to get out of my head, Alexandria. Or maybe it’s not about my head. Maybe it’s my heart you need to get out of. It’s pretty rude to just move in uninvited and refuse to leave. Forever. It’s been seven years. I’m supposed to be over you by now. But nooo. Here we are, seven years later, and I’m stuck spending my Saturday nights scouring the internet for any new information on you. It’s very annoying. Also, if you could post a little more information about your life, I’d actually really appreciate that.

We’re halfway between 15 and 35, do you know that? I’m not married yet. Neither are you. As far as I can tell. I wonder if you’ll still not be married by the time we hit thirty-five. You know what happens then, right? We have a contract. You can’t go back on a contract, Alexandria. Do you know what happened to the last guy who tried to break a contract with me, Alexandria? I poured a vat of beans on him. Cold, baked beans. All over his fancy little suit.

Well, okay, I didn’t. But I wanted to. Homer, one of my employees, stopped me. It was very annoying, actually. But, in my mind, I poured the cold beans all over him. Don’t think I won’t do the same thing to you.

Ha. I’m ridiculous.

Do you even still have your copy of the contract? I bet you threw it out years ago. Just me and my ridiculous love for you, holding onto it, hoping that keeping it means one day you’ll come back. Maybe you will. Maybe you do still have it. Maybe you’ll come back around with a spouse and I’ll run into you in the street when I just happen to be carrying a vat of cold beans and I’ll throw it over you and them. And you’ll have to explain why I did that. And why you’re leaving them. Because you have a contract.

And because you never stopped loving me. Just as I never stopped loving you.

We’d be safe now, you know? I don’t talk to my parents anymore. Matt’s barely in the picture either. He’s not as much of a homophobe as our parents, we just lost touch. And any amount of homophobe is too much if you ask me. But the world’s changed a bit. We wouldn’t be the only gay kids at school anymore. We’d go to queer stores and restaurants and gatherings. We’d have our little found family of weird queers we love more than anything except each other. We’d be okay, I think.

Or, you can continue to stay away. Break the contract. And I’ll throw beans on you.

I won’t really. I know why you’re gone. It was both of our doing. But, Alexandria, do you ever regret a choice more than anything else in your life? Do you ever regret this choice?

I do.

???

Twenty-four years ago

Hailey Davis was going to rule secondary school. She stepped forward in line along the pale green wall, ignoring the butterflies in her stomach, and forcing her confident, winning smile onto her face. It didn’t matter that she was nervous. Everyone was nervous today. The nerves weren’t going to stop her from being herself—the very best version of herself, just as her mum had told her this morning—or from making friends.

The first day of secondary school was always going to be nerve-racking, she’d realised that long ago. Now that it was here, it was exciting, sure, but it was even more bizarre than she’d been expecting.

For her whole life so far—and with her dad long gone for work in the mornings—Hailey’s mum had gotten her up in the morning, helped her get ready for school, given her breakfast, and walked her to school with her younger brother, Matthew. Today, her mother had gotten her up, given her breakfast, held back a little as Hailey got herself ready for school, taken pictures of her while holding back tears, and then left. She’d checked that Hailey had her key to the house, and just left. Taken Matthew and gone. Leaving Hailey alone. All alone. In a house that seemed suddenly massive and empty, even with the morning radio still playing. There was seldom silence in Hailey’s house but this felt oddly close to it. Unnerving.

Hailey had stood in the kitchen panicking for all of one minute before she’d pulled herself together. She’d wanted this, she’d been waiting for this. And it wasn’t like she had any other choice.

It was, oddly, a longer walk to her brother’s school than it was to her new school. The primary school was ten minutes away. Sheridan Secondary School was about seven. Five if youwalked briskly, as her mum put it.

She supposed neither was especially far. That was the advantage of the area they lived in. Everyone on the street knew you and everything was pretty close by.

Of course, the drawback was thateveryone on the street knew you.

Not at secondary school, though.

They were one town in a larger city. She knew everyone in her street and several people in the surrounding streets, but go further afield and she knew fewer and fewer people. Sheridan was going to draw people from a much larger catchment area than her primary school. Some of the pupils would even have to take a bus, or face a considerable walk to school.

There were going to be people she knew, of course. Her primary school was a feeder school for two local secondary schools, so, statistically speaking, about fifty percent of her year group was also going to be there, but it was a small primary school and there were going to be so many new people, so many new friends, and only two of her main friends from primary school—Jess and Liam.

She wasn’t romantic about it. She knew, deep down, no matter how many times they’d said they were going to meet at the school gates every single morning of secondary school, they were going to grow apart. The three of them would make new friends, new enemies, and live entirely different lives now they had a bigger playing ground. It was just what happened in life. People grew apart. Her mum told her that all the time—don’t hang onto people and ruin your life by refusing to grow.

Hailey wasn’t actually certain whether that was advice her mum generally chose to follow or not. Given the cracks she witnessed increasingly frequently in her parents’ marriage, she was tempted to think not. Although, marriage was a little bit different than friends from primary school. Or so her mum said.

---