Too Late To Love Me I Already Left With His Twins (Lydia and Dave) novel Chapter 35

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Humbling

Lydia POV

The apartment was terrible.

Not in a dramatic, rats in the–walls kind of way.

Just aggressively disappointing.

Small enough that if I stretched my arms in the kitchen, I could probably touch both walls.

The paint was peeling near the windows.

The fridge made a noise every seventeen minutes like it was reconsidering life.

And the bathroom looked like it had personally survived several economic recessions.

I stood in the middle of it with my suitcase in one hand and my plant cutting in the other and thought:

Well.

This is humbling. 1

Still

It was mine.

Just me.

And silence.

I set my plant by the window.

Unwrapped the photograph I had carried with me for years and taped it carefully to the wardrobe door where it had always belonged.

Then I sat on the bare mattress I had bought that afternoon and stared at the wall.

My hand drifted to my stomach.

It was still flat.

Still easy to pretend nothing had changed.

But everything had.

I lay down that night in a room too quiet for sleep and stared at the ceiling for hours.

Not because I was thinking about Dave.

I refused to give him that.

I was thinking about rent.

Food.

Hospital bills. 1

Baby clothes.

Emergency expenses.

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What it I got shok?

What if I couldn’t work later?

What if something happened and had no one to call?

The questions kept multiplying until they blurred together.

I finally slept sometime close to dawn.

When I woke four hours later, the usual nausea wasn’t there.

I sat up slowly.

Then placed a hand over my stomach.

“Thank you for cooperating today,” I muttered.

Clearly my daughter understood the assignment.

Yes, daughter.

I had decided already.

The universe could argue with me later.

I got dressed in the neatest outfit I had left that didn’t scream formerly rich and currently unemployed and headed out.

The city was busy in a way that made loneliness easier. 1

No one cared who I was.

No one stared.

No one knew I had once lived in a mansion and now counted coins before buying breakfast.

That anonymity felt strangely kind.

I walked for nearly an hour.

Every café.

Every boutique.

Every small office building.

Anywhere with a possibility.

す

At the fifth rejection, I was starting to wonder if pride was technically edible.

Then I saw it.

A paper taped crookedly to the front window of a cafe.

VACANCY – JUNIOR COMMUNICATIONS ASSISTANT

I blinked.

Then looked at the tiny office above the café.

Then back at the sign.

Communications.

Actual communications

Not waitressing

Not cleaning

Not retail.

My feet moved before my brain caught up.

Inside, a woman at the front desk looked up from her computer.

“Hi,” I said, trying not to sound desperate. “I’m here about the vacancy.”

She handed me a form.

“Fill this and take it upstairs.”

The office upstairs looked exactly like the budget had been approved by prayer.

Old desks.

Cheap chairs.

A printer that looked emotionally unstable.

Three people typing furiously in a room too small for all of them.

A man in rolled–up sleeves glanced up when I knocked on the glass office at the end.

“Come in.”

I stepped inside.

He scanned my form once.

Then looked up sharply.

“You have a communications degree?”

Because I am pregnant, broke, alone in a foreign country, and one bad week away from panic.

He studied me for a second.

Then began.

“What would you do it a client’s campaign was getting backlash online and public sentiment was turning negative?”

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“I’d first identify the source of the backlash,” said. “Is it misinformation, genuine offense, or a service failure? Then I’d advise against reactive posting, assess audience sentiment patterns, and draft a response strategy based on whether the issue requires clarification, apology, or redirection.” !

“I’ll take it.”

He frowned.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

Not literally.

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Though emotimally? Debatable

The work was nonstop.

Client briefs

Scheduling posts.

Drafting captions.

Editing campaign decks.

Fixing other people’s mistakes.

Running downstairs for coffee because apparently being the most qualified person in the room also made me everyone’s errand girl

Still

I liked it.

Ever exhausted, I liked it.

Because for the first time in months, I was using my brain for something other than survival.

That mattered.

The only problem was Clara.

Clara had been at the agency two years. 1

Which apparently meant she believed she owned oxygen. 1

By day three, she had corrected my formatting twice despite being wrong both times.

By day four, she had “accidentally” deleted part of my draft before asking why my work was incomplete.

By day five

She dropped a folder on my desk hard enough to make me jump.

“You missed the revision note on page six.”

I opened it.

I had not missed anything.

I looked up.

She was already walking away.

Then she paused.

Turned.

And smiled.

Sweetly.

す

“Oh,” she said. “You’ll want to be careful here. People who can’t keep up don’t last long.”

She walked off before I could answer.

1 stared after her.

Then down at the folder.

Then at my slowly cooling tea.

And thought

Wonderful.

Apparently even in a new country, misery had learned to travel.

P

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