Page 47 of I Always Will

The day had been full of safe things to talk about. She cast around for one. “Any news from your parents?” she asked, knowing that would change the mood.

She knew it was cowardly but she wasn’t ready yet. So many years of pain couldn’t just be put away. They’d gone through so much together and she needed a clear mind if they were going to have conversations about their time apart, about them. She needed a sign that Alexandria was even open to those conversations. Something more than her sleepily mentioning she’d been single for seventeen years.

And so she listened to Alexandria’s updates. She talked about safe things. She protected both their hearts until neither could last any longer and the pair of them drifted off to sleep.

Nineteen

Present Day

Alexandria sagged in her seat on the slightly chilly train. It had been a weird week, what with her calling Hailey after the whole thing with her parents on Sunday, and not really knowing why she was doing it but refusing to hang up. She hadn’t known what to do or say after they’d hung up on Sunday night, so she’d been kind of relieved when Hailey took the decision out of her hands. It had been a little thing, really, but getting that text to check she was doing okay during her lunch break on Monday had set Alexandria’s heart fluttering and put to bed the way she’d been chastising herself all morning.

The fact she’d called Hailey was still weird. She had other friends, other people she could have called, people she’d actually been around over the last seventeen years. There was no good explanation for why she’d called Hailey. She just had. It felt right. And now, she couldn’t quite bring herself to regret it. Even if things were weird.

They’d spoken every day this week. She was even sure they’d fallen asleep on the phone together one night, though, when she’d woken up, the call had been disconnected. She’d been trying hard not to think about whether it had really happened or whether it was just a dream.

No matter what it was, or how weird, Alexandria loved it. Being the person who got the debrief on Hailey’s day gave her so many of the things she’d spent seventeen years wanting.

She was the person Hailey called when something had gone awry at Mash-N-Go—such as when Esme had been so distracted by the wedding that instead of making up a cheese sauce, she’d made custard. And then poured it on an unsuspecting customer’s breakfast. Hailey hadn’t even known they had custard mix in the shop. Alexandria was the one who reassured Hailey and who then laughed with her about the chaos.

Hailey was the one who asked Alexandria how work was going and who wanted to be kept up-to-date on any news from her parents. Alexandria hadn’t had anything like that since Hailey the first time around. She was beyond grateful to have someone who cared, someone she could talk to about the fact that Daniel had uninvited both of their parents from the wedding, and about how she hadn’t heard from either of them since. And Hailey was the one who told her that town rumours implied Susan had moved out of the family home, for the time being at least.

Even in the midst of Daniel’s disappointment in their parents, her own dismay, and the chaos that was the run-up to the wedding, talking with Hailey was nice. It was unbelievably complicated, sure, but it was still nice. It felt like coming home to the only place that had ever felt right, and it made Alexandria wonder, again, whether they’d made the right decision going their separate ways so long ago.

Having gone through all of the grief, after years of missing her, and now having her back, Alexandria wasn’t sure they’d chosen correctly.

Back then, they’d both been so terrified of being beaten up or thrown out or ostracised that they hadn’t even been able to name what they were to each other. A valid concern since she’d recently found out that Hailey’s parents probably would have thrown her out if they’d announced their relationship. And, even now, Alexandria still worried in some places about being beaten up for being bisexual. So it wasn’t as though she couldn’t understand her younger self, but there was a particular form of heartbreak associated with grieving a girlfriend who had never officially been yours. Especially when, seventeen years later, you were still stuck on her.

She’d never attempted to explain the whole situation to anyone other than Farid, but she knew they wouldn’t understand even if she did. How could they understand still being in love with your girlfriend-that-wasn’t, still grieving a relationship that never really was? How could anyone understand that, to this day, she kept her copy of that marriage contract because, deep down, she’d always been hoping they’d find their way back to one another when they’d never officially been together in the first place? The lack of a label had made zero difference to how they felt, but it made it hard for others to comprehend.

She squeezed her eyes closed. She was tired and drained and wound tight at what was happening with her parents and what she needed to do for the wedding and whether she was going to see Hailey this weekend…

She wanted to. She’d told Hailey she’d be back this weekend, and her heart had crumpled slightly when Hailey’s only response was to suggest that maybe they’d run into each other again.

Alexandria couldn’t tell whether Hailey really was that nonchalant about the two of them, or whether it was a coping strategy to avoid admitting she wanted to see Alexandria too. Whatever it was, Alexandria’s sorry little heart hurt when she thought about it.

Of course, realistically, they were bound to see each other. They’d seen each other every weekend Alexandria had been back for the wedding preparations. It was even more inevitable now that they were talking to each other again. For, if it didn’t happen accidentally, Alexandria wasn’t sure she’d be able to stay away.

There weren’t a great many things Alexandria had been unable to resist in her life, but Hailey Davis had been irresistible since the first day they’d met.

When they were younger, she’d loved Hailey so fiercely it scared her. Her parents had told her how nobody met The One at eleven, that she needed to go off to university and live her life and not look back. They’d never named Hailey, but it was obvious to Alexandria that they’d suspected.

It was a sentiment she’d heard a million times over. You don’t meet your soulmate when you’re a child. You don’t give up your plans for your life for a secondary school girlfriend. It was never going to last. You needed to live your life, figure out who you were, and find someone when you were a little older who worked with you. Someone who wanted the same things you did.

It had seemed impossible that they could make it work. She dreaded the idea of Hailey growing away from her, of the two of them fighting like Hailey’s parents, of feeling her slipping through her fingers. It had hurt like hell cutting her off, but Alexandria had told herself over and over again that it was the right thing to do, that they were kids and they couldn’t make it work.

But then, she’d never gone away. Hailey had stayed just as forcefully in her heart and in her being as if she’d been right there beside her. No amount of hurting or crying or trying to forget changed anything. No amount of staying away from her stopped Alexandria from loving and wanting her.

After enough years, Alexandria had told herself it wasn’t even Hailey anymore, it was some dream version of her she was holding onto. Reality was different, her wildest imaginings were unfair to who Hailey actually was. But then she was there again. Every bit as perfect as Alexandria had been imagining all these years.

And Alexandria was every bit as in love with her as she always had been.

She opened her eyes knowing there was no use in dwelling on Hailey—they’d had seventeen years to sort that out and, clearly, what would be, would be. She was half an hour away from Newell and had bigger issues. Like, how Daniel was doing after uninviting their parents to his wedding. And whatever the fallout from that whole thing was going to be. Their parents were not the type to go quietly.

She ate the baguette she’d bought in the train station, listened to her audiobook, and gazed out of the window while wishing the darkness outside didn’t reflect the train car back so clearly that it looked as if she were watching the other passengers. In other circumstances, it would have been a relaxing journey.

However, even stressing as she had, for basically the entire trip, it hadn’t once occurred to her that she would step out into the main station and find her mother waiting for her. But, the doubletake she did as her eyes caught on that familiar wool coat confirmed that it was her mum standing in the half-empty station, waiting for her.

She frowned and approached slowly. She couldn’t remember a time she’d ever seen her mother so conflicted or contrite. “Mum? Hello.”

---