The smell of freshly brewed coffee and dry paint was the new perfume of Alyx's apartment. A week had passed since the conversation in the park, since the "permission granted." A week of sporadic but steady text messages from Lily sending photos of her reorganized apartment—The raccoon corner is now a reading nook! ...It still smells a bit like raccoon—and from Marshall sharing absurd memes about environmental lawyers.
Alyx would reply, sometimes with a word, an emoji, or other days with a recommendation for an art documentary Lily should watch. It was a glacial pace, as she had warned, but it was a pace. And each interaction didn't leave her feeling empty but... curiously complete, as if she were redefining the borders of her emotional territory with every "ping" received and answered.
Ted's Narration, 2030
Ted took a sip of his tea before continuing.
"Kids, when a structure has collapsed, there are two impulses: to stare at the rubble, or to flee as far away as possible.
Marshall and Lily, in that autumn of 2006, felt both at once. And the most logical escape for a couple that had just rediscovered each other among the ruins was the same one millions of couples before them had taken: Atlantic City."
"It wasn't a plan. It was a spark, ignited on a rainy Saturday afternoon in the apartment, with Marshall watching an infomercial about knives that could cut through cans. Lily dropped the phrase like someone tossing a match into a puddle of gasoline."
Marshall and Ted's Apartment, 2006
"Sometimes I think we should run off to Atlantic City and get married there. Like a reboot. No families, no disappointed looks, no ghost of the wedding I canceled."
Marshall, who was trying to fold a shirt, froze. It wasn't the proposal that surprised him, but the tone. There was no romantic fantasy left, only practical desperation.
"Seriously?" he asked, leaving the shirt. "Like we're teenagers?"
"Like we're us," Lily corrected. "But a version that's already been through the fire. That has nothing to prove. Just... the desire to start without the weight of everything we broke."
The idea took root, not as a dream, but as a necessity. A ceremony that was theirs alone. A way to symbolically wipe the slate clean. And, crucially, a way to move forward together without having to solve the puzzle of the three of them first.
In every sense, it was a shortcut. And both of them knew it. But after months of walking through an emotional desert, a shortcut seemed like a divine gift.
"Let's do it!" said Marshall, a broad, slightly wild smile lighting up his face. "This weekend. Just us. Well, and Ted and Robin and Barney... and Alyx, if she wants."
The name fell between them with the weight of a mountain. Marshall's enthusiasm cooled a degree. Lily swallowed hard.
"Of course," she said, her voice carefully neutral. "Of course Alyx should be there. She's... she's part of this."
But saying "part of this" was the knot they still didn't know how to untie. How do you invite someone to your escape into a future of two, when you've just asked for permission to approach a future of three?
Alyx received the invitation in a group text from Ted, full of ring and dice emojis. "Operation Atlantic City Wedding! This weekend! Who's in? (Lily and Marshall, stop pretending this is a surprise, you already told us.)"
The news hit her square in the chest with the dull force of a fulfilled premonition. It wasn't jealousy; it was the recognition of a pattern. They were moving forward, making couple decisions, and she was once again the invited spectator, the friend granted the honor of witnessing their happiness.
Her first instinct was to say no—that she had a Muay Thai class, that she could invent a trading crisis, anything. But then she looked at her canvas. The building was almost complete, strong, with windows that reflected a park and two blurry figures. A building that could withstand looking outward, toward the world, without crumbling.
"Details?" she wrote in the group.
The flurry of responses was immediate. Barney with plans for illegal gambling. Robin complaining she had nothing to wear. Ted worried about logistics. And then, a direct message from Lily.
-It would mean a lot to us if you came. Seriously. It wouldn't be the same.-
It was a masterstroke—honest and loaded with a vulnerability Alyx couldn't ignore. It wasn't an obligation; it was a request. And she had said they could try to get closer.
"I'm in," Alyx wrote before her rational mind could stop her. "But I manage my own gambling budget."
Lily's reply was a simple heart. Not a red one, but the yellow, neutral, and friendly emoji.
The drive to Atlantic City in Ted's car was a cacophony of nerves and repressed excitement. Barney wouldn't stop talking about "Shing Hasabu Shing," a game he claimed to master. Robin and Ted argued about the best route. Marshall and Lily, in the back seat, held hands with a grip that betrayed more anxiety than romance.
Alyx rode in silence, watching the industrial landscape of New Jersey pass by the window. She felt like an anthropologist observing a tribal ritual—fascinating and alien. The promise of a wedding was the campfire around which everyone danced, and she was there, taking notes, trying to understand the ceremony.
"And you?" Barney interrupted from the front seat. "Gonna try your luck at the tables? With your... predictive abilities, you could clean out the casino."
The atmosphere in the car froze. Ted shot a murderous look at Barney in the rearview mirror. Robin held her breath. Marshall and Lily tensed.
Alyx kept her gaze on the landscape. "My predictive abilities," she said, her voice clear and cold as glass, "are limited to knowing that if you play 'Shing Hasabu Shing' or whatever it's called, you'll end up losing your pants. And not in the metaphorical sense."
The tension broke with a nervous laugh from Ted. Barney muttered something about "envy of the uninitiated," but the message was clear. The topic of her secret was still a minefield.
Upon arrival, the spectacle of ramshackle lights and the smell of salt air and defeat were a bucket of cold water for the romanticism of the idea. Atlantic City wasn't Vegas; it was the poor, slightly sad cousin trying to sell glamour with discount coupons.
While Marshall and Lily headed straight for the wedding chapel with a determination bordering on panic, the rest of the group scattered on absurd missions: a veil, a bouquet, preventing Barney from dragging them to a strip club.
Alyx found herself walking alone along the boardwalk, the Atlantic wind tangling her hair. She hadn't gone for the veil or the bouquet. She had gone to breathe. To remember why she had said yes to this.
A few steps ahead, she saw Lily emerge from a souvenir shop, her eyes bright and her hands empty.
"There are no veils," Lily said, and her voice sounded on the verge of breaking. "Just baseball caps that say 'Atlantic City: Almost as Good as Vegas.'"
Alyx approached. "You don't need a veil, Lily."
"Of course I do!" Lily looked at her, and in her eyes, Alyx saw not a bride, but a terrified child playing dress-up. "It's part of the... the ritual of pretending this is normal. Of pretending we're not here because we're afraid to face Marshall's family, our friends, to... to everything."
There it was. The ugly, trembling truth, exposed in the salty air.
"Then why are you doing it?" Alyx asked without judgment. "If it's a farce."
"Because it's the only way we found to move forward together," Lily confessed, a tear escaping down her cheek. "It's like jumping off a cliff. You need the momentum, even if you know the water is freezing. Marshall and I... we let go of each other. We need something to tie us back together quickly, before the current separates us forever."
Alyx nodded slowly. She understood. She understood all too well. The fear of drifting, the need for an anchor, even if it was made of plastic.
"Then don't look for a veil," Alyx said, her voice softer than usual. "Find Marshall, take his hand, and jump. With or without witnesses, with or without a veil, the water is going to be cold either way."
Lily looked at her, surprised. It wasn't advice; it was validation—a recognition of their shared desperation, though for different reasons.
"Will you come?" Lily asked. "To the chapel? When we do it?"
Alyx looked past her toward the gray, infinite sea. "Yes," she said. "I'll come."
Not as a spectator, she thought, but as someone standing on the shore, watching two loved ones plunge into the waves. Ready, perhaps, to throw a lifeline if needed, or simply to bear witness that sometimes survival is also an act of love.
If you enjoyed it, leave a Review and Power Stones.
✅ Early access to 10 new chapters
Join The Bro Code Level on Patreon
👉 https://[email protected]/cw/Day_bluefic
@=a