"I know," Lily whimpered.
"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—how you saw colors where I only saw shapes, how in the midst of our chaos, you were the point of balance."
"I missed you in a different way, sure, 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—so much sincerity, and yet arriving so late. "Your timing is terrible," she murmured, the anger giving way to fatigue.
"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 while hiding her hands in the pockets of Marshall's old coat.
"Where are you going?" Lily asked, her voice now just a trace of sound.
"To a place where the kitchen counters 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 past conversations about domestic dreams, still present for her.
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 throat. "I'm sorry too," she said, and she truly was—not just for the shattered dream or the twisted, lost love, but also for the woman standing broken 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 barely a whisper, yet full of hope.
Alyx didn't know what to say for a moment, remaining silent. Until she softly said, "New York isn't that big," she said. "But you have to want to find each other. And right now, Lily… right now I need to get lost."
Ted's Narration, 2030
"And that morning, without their knowledge, your Aunt Lily and Alyx—we were silent witnesses to that heartbreaking conversation, kids…" He was interrupted mid-sentence by his older daughter. "You were listening, Dad, and Uncle Marshall? Why didn't he try to convince Aunt Alyx to come back for the three of them?" she asked doubtfully, since she hadn't heard the story of her aunt and uncle before and always believed it 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 teenage phase where they care more about other things than romantic or emotional stories.
"Well, something you should know is that neither Robin nor I, who were in my room that morning, expected that kind of conversation, much less to be witnesses behind a door. Though I wanted to—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 for Lily and Alyx. Of course, she was right. That moment of sincerity was something Alyx needed, or later her contained emotions from so many months could have exploded worse."
"Wow, I always thought Aunt Alyx was affectionate and expressive like she is now," said Ted's older daughter, surprised to learn this side of Alyx.
"No, daughter, your Aunt Alyx used to control herself a lot around 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 some measured facets of her personality. But that year after the breakup with Lily and Marshall, we saw many of her sides—from the best to the most self-destructive ones—that we had overlooked."
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