"I know," Lily sobbed.
"God, Alyx, I know. And I missed you so much out there... I missed how Marshall made me laugh, but I missed how *you* made me think—the way you saw colors where I only saw shapes, how in the middle of our chaos, you were the point of balance."
"I missed *you* in a different way, of course, but just as deeply. And when I came back, the first thing I wanted was to get that balance back. I wanted to get *you* back."
Alyx closed her eyes. It was too much for her in that moment, such sincerity arriving so late and so full of something she had wanted to know. "Well, your timing is terrible," she murmured, the anger giving way to exhaustion.
"Because now *I'm* the one who needs to learn to be alone. To be Alyx without the 'and Marshall,' without the 'and Lily.' Just Alyx." She finished, hiding her hands in the pockets of Marshall's old sweater.
"Where are you going?" Lily asked, her voice now just a trace of sound.
"To a place where the kitchen countertops are granite and the light is good in the mornings," Alyx replied without looking at her—a detail Lily would understand.
A clear echo of the past that was still present for her, a remnant of their conversations about domestic dreams.
Lily caught it instantly. A new torrent of tears welled in her eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispered over and over. "I'm sorry for leaving.
I'm sorry for not fighting for the three of us.
I'm sorry for not seeing it before.
I'm sorry, Alyx.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
Alyx nodded, swallowing the lump in her own throat. "I'm sorry too," she said, and she truly meant it. Not just for the broken dream or the twisted, lost love, but also for the woman standing shattered before her—who was not only the cause of her pain but also one of the great loves of her life.
"Will we see each other?" Lily's question was a barely audible thread of sound, yet filled with hope.
Alyx, not knowing what to say for a moment, stayed silent. Then she finally said softly, "New York isn't that big." "But you have to want to be found. And right now, Lily... right now, I need to get lost."
Ted's Narration, 2030
"And that morning, without us knowing it, your Aunt Lily and Aunt Alyx... we were silent witnesses to that heartbreaking conversation, kids..." He was cut off mid-sentence by his older daughter.
"You were listening, Dad? And Uncle Marshall? Why didn't he try to convince Aunt Alyx to get back together, all three of them?" his daughter asked, skeptical, as she had never heard this story about her aunt and uncle before and had always believed their relationship was just love and support.
Even Ted's younger son was surprised by the story, though he tried not to show his interest, being in that adolescent phase where other things seem more important than romantic or emotional tales.
"Well, something you should know is that neither Robin nor I, who were in my room waiting, expected that kind of conversation that morning—let alone to be witnesses behind a door. And even though I wanted to, perhaps imprudently, go out and mediate, your Aunt Robin stopped me. You know, she understood—and later explained to me—that it was an important moment that needed to happen between Lily and Alyx. Of course, she was right. That moment of sincerity was something Alyx needed, or later, all her pent-up emotions from so many months might have exploded in a much worse way."
"Wow, I always thought Aunt Alyx was as affectionate and expressive as she is now," said Ted's older daughter, surprised to learn this side of Alyx.
"No, sweetie. Your Aunt Alyx used to hold back a lot with us. Not even Marshall or Lily, who had been with her for six years at that point, truly knew her. In general, we only knew certain measured facets of her personality. But that year, after the breakup with Lily and Marshall, we saw many sides of her—from the best to the most self-destructive—that we had overlooked before."
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