Too Late To Love Me I Already Left With His Twins (Lydia and Dave) novel Chapter 286

LYDIA POV

“We are not strangers,” the girl said immediately.

I blinked.

She had walked into my hospital room with her brother, both of them staring at me like I had just personally offended them.

I looked between the two of them.

“Okay.”

she continued, pointing at herself with the confidence of someone presenting evidence in court. “According to Oxford’s dictionary definition, a stranger is a person you do not know. And technically, we are no strangers to you, you know? We’ve been around you for at least twelve hours, and you know our names, right?”

I stared at her.

This girl.

She had barely been in the room for thirty seconds and was already arguing semantics with me.

I couldn’t help the tiny smile that pulled at my lips.

“Okay,” I said again.

She then pointed at her brother.

“So what’s his name?”

I looked at the boy.

He was watching me expectantly.

I frowned slightly, trying to pull the answer from somewhere in my head.

“Eli?”

Her face immediately lit up.

“Gotcha.”

I stared at her.

She folded her arms like she’d just won a very important case.

“We know you, and you definitely know us. So don’t address us as strangers anymore, okay?”

I nodded.

“Okay.”

She smiled.

And honestly, wow.

My alleged daughter was quite assertive.

Like, very assertive.

I wasn’t even sure where she got that confidence from, but I had a feeling I probably had something to do with it.

I looked at both of them.

“Come here.”

They moved closer.

I studied their faces again.

There was something strangely comforting about having them near me.

I still didn’t remember them.

I couldn’t suddenly manufacture memories just because they were standing in front of me looking at me like I was supposed to know exactly who they were.

But there was something.

Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

“Okay,” I said. “If you’re not strangers, then let’s see how much you know about me.”

Eli grinned.

“Okay.”

“What are my favorite foods?”

They both looked at each other.

Then Ava shrugged.

“Kids don’t lie, right?”

I laughed softly.

“They shouldn’t.”

Eli nodded very seriously.

“So, you don’t really have a favorite food.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t?”

“Nope.”

He shook his head.

“It changes with the seasons.”

I stared at him.

“The seasons?”

“Yes.”

Ava nodded like this was the most normal thing in the world.

“Mom is very dramatic about food.”

“I am?”

“Yes.”

Eli started counting on his fingers.

“In summer, you like lighter things. In rainy season, you start wanting soups and things that are hot. Then sometimes you randomly decide you’ve discovered a new favorite food and you eat it for like two weeks straight.”

I laughed.

“That sounds ridiculous.”

“It’s true,” Ava said.

“And your last favorite food was pasta,” Eli added.

“Pasta?”

“Yes.”

He smiled.

“We absolutely love how you make it.”

Ava immediately joined in.

“Especially the creamy one.”

“With the chicken,” Eli added.

“And the vegetables.”

“You complain if we don’t eat the vegetables.”

“You also make the sauce yourself.”

“You don’t like when we touch it before you’re done.”

“You say, ‘Wait, wait, wait, let me finish this properly.’”

I stared at them.

They both laughed.

“You really know a lot about me.”

“Obviously,” Ava said.

“We live with you,” Eli added.

I looked at them for a second.

Live with you.

That sentence was still so strange.

These two little people had apparently lived with me.

They knew how I cooked.

What I ate.

What annoyed me.

What I liked.

What I said.

“That sounds like something I would do.”

The words came out before I could think about them.

Both children became quiet.

I noticed it immediately.

Maybe because that was the first time I’d spoken about myself in a way that didn’t feel completely foreign.

I smiled faintly.

“So what else?”

And they continued.

They told me about mornings when I apparently sang while cooking.

About how Eli once spilled juice on my laptop and thought his life was over.

About how Ava had apparently once hidden under my bed because she didn’t want to go to school.

About movie nights.

About pancakes.

About me apparently forcing them to finish vegetables.

About trips.

About arguments.

About the time Eli apparently convinced me that he had a science project when he had actually forgotten about it until nine o’clock at night.

“I remember that,” I said.

They both froze.

I frowned.

“Or…”

I looked at them.

“Wait.”

They stared at me.

“No, I don’t remember it.”

Their expressions fell slightly.

I quickly smiled.

“But it sounds like something I would do.”

Eli grinned again.

“Exactly.”

And somehow, the room felt lighter.

I didn’t remember these stories.

But I liked hearing them.

I liked hearing how I apparently existed in their world.

Maybe that was enough for now.

Ava suddenly yawned.

A huge one.

She covered her mouth.

“It’s way past lunchtime.”

I looked at the clock.

She was right.

“Eli, what should we have?”

Eli immediately looked thoughtful.

“Hmm…”

He started listing options.

“We had—”

“Let’s go to your favorite café downtown,” I interrupted.