Page 18 of I Always Will

Mrs. Begum handed a pack of cards with pictures of watercolour works on them to the front row. They each had to take one and pass the rest back.

As the cards reached them, Alexandria took one, handed them to Hailey, and watched as Hailey simply took the top one and passed the rest on.

It wasn’t like her.

Sure, they hadn’t known each other for that long, but Alexandria knew Hailey was not the type of person to take the top one just because that was the expectation. That was Alexandria. Hailey was the person who rifled through the stack to ensure she got one she actually liked. She was subtle with it—Mrs. Begum hadn’t caught her doing it, so she hadn’t been corrected on it—but she’d told Alexandria that, if she had to recreate something, she was going to at least make sure it was something she liked the look of.

It was sound logic. Alexandria hadn’t gotten one she disliked so far, but, even if she had, she would still have taken it, because that was the instruction. And, as she watched Hailey just pass the cards back, she realised that watching her be someone who mindlessly followed the directions without care was wrong. It was like she’d been taken over by an imposter, like this wasn’t the real Hailey.

Alexandria wanted to say something. She wanted to help. But she wasn’t sure how.

Mrs. Begum set them to work on their pieces and moved from the front of the class to check in with students. She usually took quite a while with each person she stopped with, so they had some time. They were allowed to talk quietly as they worked, so long as they were actually working as they chatted.

Hailey was usually the first one to speak. She’d wrench her sketchbook open and immediately start asking whether Alexandria liked the pieces they’d each gotten to recreate. She’d start talking and she basically wouldn’t stop until class was over. She was a master of talking while she worked and Alexandria had gotten used to it. She’d come to like it.

She’d come to likeHailey—this chatty, lively, friendly girl who had apparently taken it upon herself to befriend Alexandria.

But not today.

She pulled her sketchbook towards herself slowly, like the weight of it was pulling her down. She picked up a brush without any debate of which one would be best for the effects she needed to recreate. She started painting without considering where on the page it would look best.

It was unbearable.

After ten minutes, Alexandria couldn’t take it any longer. “Are you okay?” she whispered, shuffling her seat a little closer to Hailey while keeping her head down over her work.

“I’m good, yeah,” Hailey replied, flashing her a quick smile that did nothing to reassure her.

Alexandria’s heart clenched. She knew Hailey was lying but was she supposed to pretend she didn’t? Was she supposed to ask more questions? Should she insist she knew Hailey wasn’t okay?

Hailey sighed heavily, dipping her brush in their shared water, and shook her head. “Sorry.” She paused, looking quickly at Alexandria. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep.”

Alexandria’s shoulders relaxed. That was fairly common and normal and okay, right? It was usual to be a bit down or grumpy if you were exhausted. But… what was the cause? Was it bad? “I’m sorry,” she said. “Is everything okay?”

Hailey blew out a breath and slouched down in her seat, keeping her brush over her page. “My mum and dad were… arguing, I guess. They’ve been doing that a lot lately. It makes it hard to get to sleep.”

Alexandria winced. She hadn’t seen Hailey in any mood other than happy up until this point, but she could see the way the arguing was hurting Hailey. She could see it and she didn’t like it. She needed to help but she had no idea how to, no idea what to say, even. Not really. They were just kids and this was huge, adult stuff. “I’m really sorry. It must be horrible hearing that.”

“Yeah…”

There was something so broken about her. Seeing someone like Hailey broken was even worse than seeing other people sad. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen sadness before, but never from someone who was usually so upbeat. She hadn’t realised how jarring that could be. She’d seen it on TV once, a character talking about how horrible it was when the happiest people broke. Until this moment, she hadn’t really understood it.

“I think they’re going to break up,” Hailey whispered a moment later. “They should. They’re so mean to each other. But, like, they’re still my mum and dad, you know?”

Alexandria nodded. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like if her parents broke up. Lots of the people she knew had parents who were broken up, but, when you only knew your parents together, it was hard to imagine what life would be like if it changed. And that was a huge change. “Are they mean to you?” she asked, her voice impossibly low so the people around stood no chance of hearing them.

Hailey scooted a little closer, moving her work with her. “Not really. Not to my face, anyway. But, when they fight, they say mean things. My dad tells my mum that we drain all the money, that we don’t do as he says, that she needs to teach us some respect. She yelled at him for hours last night about how he was our dad, he should be doing more, that she couldn’t do everything… She said he hadn’t been interested in me from the minute I was born, so he had no right to complain about anything, and he only tries with Matthew because he’s a boy.”

Alexandria’s stomach ached. She’d learned all about Matthew over the past couple of weeks—he was Hailey’s little brother and she loved him. He annoyed her sometimes, but she still loved him. She’d learned a lot about Hailey’s mum too. But she’d learned almost nothing about Hailey’s dad. Until about a week ago, she’d thought he didn’t live with them. As she saw the hurt on Hailey’s face, she thought it might be better if he didn’t. He did not sound like a nice man.

“At least Matthew’s going to be out tonight,” Hailey said with a shrug before returning to her painting and adding in the yellow for the haystacks she was working on.

“Where’s he going?” Alexandria asked.

“He’s got a sleepover at his best friend’s house.” She came the closest she had all lesson to smiling, but it faded as quickly as it had come. “So he won’t have to hear the arguing. And at least we don’t have school tomorrow, so I can have a lie-in, I guess.”

Alexandria thought back over the other classes they’d had together today. Hailey had seemed a little tired, but she had been mostly herself in the morning. They hadn’t seen each other at lunch, which had made Alexandria a little sad. The day before, Hailey had insisted they have lunch together. It had been a million times better than sitting with her primary school acquaintances. She’d been kind of hoping for the same thing today, but Hailey had been nowhere to be found. Now, she thought she might have found the reason.

“Are you worried about going home?” she asked, her heart pounding in her chest.

---