I nodded, even though the gesture felt unnecessary. My attention kept returning to the girls, to the small details that made them real—the way one of them yawned, her mouth opening in a perfect, unguarded expression, the way the other seemed to settle more deeply into the blanket, her breathing steady and soft.
“They look like you,” I said after a moment, though I wasn’t entirely sure if that was true or if I just needed to say something that connected us, something that made this feel less like observation and more like belonging.
“They have your eyes,” Lila replied, and there was something in her tone that made me believe her, even if I couldn’t quite see it yet.
Time moved strangely in that room, stretching and compressing in ways that made it hard to measure, each second feeling both fleeting and heavy, as if it carried more meaning than it should have. I leaned a little closer to the glass, drawn in by something I couldn’t quite name, and that was when the words slipped out before I had a chance to reconsider them.
“I just want to hold them.”
