Whitefish River I'm leaving now, as I should be

Yeah, Alyx agreed, though she couldn't help but wonder if it would've been easier if Niamh was angry. She was like her mother in a lot of ways that she refused to acknowledge, so it was no surprise they butted heads. If there was a shouting match, she would have left angry, but feeling righteous about it. Was that better than the queasy sadness that followed her, now, beneath the veneer of excitement and relief?

Inside her was a miasma of guilt for what felt like abandoning her family.

What's the point of chasing birds? Alyx opined. They just, like... Fly away. Granted, she didn't know very much about Penn at all, so maybe he did a lot of pointless things. That seemed like such a boy thing to do. What happened to that guy, anyway? I mean, I never met him, but weren't you guys, like, besties?

She didn't actually know. Fennec, Penn, and Figment had all come back together, and that was the extent of what she knew about their relationship. She wondered if it was a little like how she felt about Val—he was her bestest friend, even if he was kind of her only unrelated friend—but if so, why wasn't Penn around?