I always will, p.1
I Always Will, page 1
© 2022 Jacqueline Ramsden
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:
jramsdenwriter@gmail.com
Cover design © Jacqueline Ramsden, jacquelineramsden.com.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to real events or people, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.
I Always Will
Jacqueline Ramsden
For everyone whose life is in flux
Contents
Content warnings:
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Epilogue
About the Author
Content warnings:
Off-page homophobia, abusive family dynamics, including comments about weight, divorce, and off-page drinking/drunk behaviour
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 you walked 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 that everyone 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.
The walk was short and she arrived in plenty of time. Jess was already waiting at the gates for her when she arrived, looking genuinely terrified of the much larger grounds and the adult-sized year elevens walking past her. The relief on her face when she saw Hailey was echoed in Hailey’s chest—though she’d never admit that out loud—and Hailey knew then that they would be each other's friends until everything around them stopped feeling like panic.
Together, they’d waited for Liam to show up, and the three of them had headed across the asphalt playground towards the main hall where they would be welcomed.
That hadn’t been too bad either. Everyone else in the queue around them had looked as terrified as they did. Hailey had wondered whether the second day—when all year groups were back—would be worse or better.
She filed that away to ask her mum about when she got home.
Jess and Liam had chatted quietly with her, she’d forced on her smile, attempted to look confident and friendly, and shuffled forwards as the line allowed.
And then they’d been split up.
A pair of teachers stood at the door to the hall, greeting the new pupils, asking their names, and sending them off to the correct area of the hall. Seats had been set up in form groups, and your form group was going to be yours for the next five years. Better get a good one, Hailey thought to herself as the young, blonde teacher next to her looked for her name.
“Ah, yes, Hailey Davis,” she smiled down at Hailey. “7T with M
Hailey followed the direction of her finger and couldn’t help but notice neither Jess nor Liam had been sent that way.
She nodded. “Thanks, Miss.”
Luckily, most of the kids in her form hadn’t seemed to know anyone else there either. Mostly, they just sat silently, looking at the planner and documents they had been given to avoid speaking to each other and waiting for someone to tell them what to do with themselves and their lives.
They’d been introduced to the school and the staff in the room, they’d been given their timetables and assured people would be around to help direct them for the first few days. The headteacher had also implied that, should they continue getting a little lost later in the week, the older pupils would be more than happy to help direct them. Hailey had frowned very slightly at that. She might be new here, but even she knew it would depend massively on the type of older pupil you asked for help. There were some, she was certain, who wouldn’t care enough to give helpful directions to a lost year seven. It wasn’t malicious, they just didn’t care. There were others who would get a kick out of sending you in the wrong direction. That wasn’t a judgement either, it was just part of being around teenagers who were stuck in school all day.
But it was nice the headmaster thought the best of everyone.
Luckily, finding the maths building had not been difficult. Though, Hailey was sure that having Maths on a Monday morning would become difficult soon enough. She supposed at least it wasn’t first period. That was reserved for history, which she liked, but they hadn’t made it to today because of the extended welcome assembly.
In all honesty, she didn’t mind maths either, it was just a class she had to pay more attention in. And who had the energy for that on a Monday morning?
She stepped forward again, now at the front of the line, and waited for the teacher to ensure the person in front of her made it to their seat. The teacher didn’t look too bad—a little serious and like she wouldn’t take any nonsense, but that was fine. Perhaps everyone looked like that here. This wasn’t primary school anymore and teachers weren’t going to be as fluffy and welcoming as they had been back there.
“Hello, I’m Mrs. Rhone,” the teacher said, looking down at Hailey. “And who might we have here?”
“Hailey Davis, Miss,” she replied, forcing her voice to be confident and assured. No matter what she didn’t know, she was confident in who she was.
Mrs. Rhone smiled. It wasn’t as warm as the smile Miss Torbin had given her when she’d handed Hailey her timetable, but it was the kind of smile that was assessing, appraising, and Hailey could get on board with that too. She knew she had to impress Mrs. Rhone, and she would, but she’d still be herself as she did it. “You’re in the back corner, far left, next to Alexandria. You may talk to your shoulder partner while everyone is getting situated, but please keep the volume to a reasonable level.”
“Yes, Miss,” Hailey replied, her eyes locked on her seat and her very stiff-looking shoulder partner.
Hailey knew the back row was a coveted position, chosen—in a situation with no seating plan—by those who were cool and liked to chat. She knew the purpose of a seating plan was to throw off friendship groups and avoid clusters like that. She did not know how Mrs. Rhone had managed to put the most serious, conscientious pupil in the whole class in the back corner before she’d even met them. It was an odd sort of miracle for a teacher.
Alexandria stiffened further when Hailey stopped at the seat next to her, jumping like the chair had been scrapped along a metal floor, rather than being dragged over carpet. It wasn’t the softest carpet in the world—it was that navy blue, industrial stuff that would give you one hell of a carpet burn—but it wasn’t metal.
“Hello,” Hailey said warmly. “I’m Hailey Davis. Nice to meet you.” Alexandria might be nervous around new people, but this was Hailey’s time to shine.
Alexandria looked up at her. She had big, wide hazel eyes, and a slightly too-fast breathing pattern. She was terrified. “Hello.”
Hailey’s smile transformed into something more smirk-like. She was delighted Alexandria was talking to her, but she had not expected such a formal tone from someone who was eleven years old. Perhaps she should have. It did fit with her initial assessment of Alexandria, but the scared little expression she’d gotten in response to saying hello had her expecting something softer, more unsure.
“I’m Alexandria Daley,” she continued in that overly formal tone. Hailey wondered whether that was always how she spoke.
It could be. Everything about her was pressed and perfect. Her uniform crisp and new. Hailey supposed most of their uniforms were—unless they’d had them passed down from older siblings—but something about Alexandria’s made it look like it had been starched to within an inch of its life. Her long hair was pulled back in a neat braid that fell perfectly down the middle of her back and was nothing like the haphazard ponytail Hailey was sporting.
It was only as she dropped into her seat—her pencil case and new planner pulled out of her bag and placed at the front of her desk as their head teacher had instructed they do in every class—that she fully registered what Alexandria’s name was. She looked around the room, hoping to spot someone she knew. Sure enough, there was Liam—last name Yannis—sitting on the other side of the room, awkwardly looking at his shoulder partner and then away again.
The other side of the room. The other side of the alphabet.
They were sitting in alphabetical order by last name.
She coughed a surprised laugh which caused Alexandria to look at her questioningly.
She shook her head. “We’re sitting in alphabetical order.”
Alexandria raised her eyebrows. “Well. Yes.”
Hailey forced herself not to roll her eyes. She absolutely was going to make friends with Alexandria, but the girl didn’t seem to want to make it easy.
“You know what that means?” she asked, grinning at Alexandria.
She scowled. “That we’re not here to learn our ABCs?”
Hailey laughed. She might be moody, but she was funny. They would be great friends. Eventually. “Not that. Well, also that, I suppose, but if you think maths class in secondary school is for learning the alphabet, I don’t know how to help you.”
Alexandria scowled harder and moved to protest.
“It means,” Hailey said, cutting her off and pulling out her timetable, “that, if we’ve got other classes together and the teachers decide to sit us in alphabetical order, we’ll probably be sitting together a lot.”
Alexandria’s bottom lip disappeared into her mouth as she thought. “Well, possibly, but there are a lot of variables that would go into such a possibility.”
Ah, maths nerd, Hailey thought, grinning to herself. “Sure. But it’s not an impossibility. So, what classes do you have?”
Alexandria winced slightly before sighing and carefully removing her own timetable from her planner. She was going to carefully transcribe it into the timetable spot in her planner tonight, Hailey could only imagine. Probably with colour-coded pens.
Hailey was just going to stick hers in with glitter glue.
They assessed their schedules and noticed they had several classes together. Alexandria didn’t seem especially thrilled by the prospect; though, as far as Hailey could tell, she wasn’t thrilled about much. Hailey, however, was delighted and found herself hoping her teachers would sit them next to each other again.
Sure, Alexandria seemed a little posh and stubborn, but Hailey was sure that was just nerves. Their area wasn’t really fancy enough for her to be actually posh and annoying. She was just serious and it was the first day of a new school. She seemed smart and at least somewhat willing to chat and, because Hailey was the consummate optimist, she was convinced it was the beginning of a brilliant friendship.
And she’d grinned like it was when she’d walked into her Geography and Art classes later in the day and found herself right beside Alexandria Daley again. By the time they got to the last class of the day—Science—she’d even begun to love the exaggerated eye roll Alexandria gave her as she walked towards their shared desk.
