All Chapters of The Single Dad Next Door Loves Me: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

I should not have left the house. The moment the road curved and the trees swallowed the cabin from view, something in my chest twisted hard enough to make me slow the truck.My hands stayed tight on the wheel anyway. If I turned back now, I would only bring the same weight on me. The same silence.It was the same look in Mia's eyes when she stepped away from me. Not dear exactly. But not trust either. And that cut deeper. Snow fell in thin drifting sheets, the late afternoon light already dulling towards the evening. I drove without thinking, muscle memory played a part. I did not remember deciding to go there but eventually, I did. I only knew the time I passed a line of building, I was alright pulling inro the gravel lot from Nora's Cafe when I fully realized myself.The place looked The same as it always had. Warm light in the windows. Steam fogging The glass. The wooden sign creaking gently in the wind. Ordinary steady, unchanged by the storm moving through my life.mI sat in th

Something has changed. It took me longer than it should have to recognize it but I did. It wasn't subtle, it was precise and everyone could see it if they watched closely.Mia did nothing that could be named. She did not avoid me, she did not turn away when I entered a room and she did not withdraw herself from conversations or leave spaces I occupied. She trained exactly where she had always been, Within reach, within sight, near me at all It was beautiful what she did but when I noticed something that kept repeating itself, I knew I had to get rid of it.At first, it wasn't noticeable but when she used to step into those small spaces that lived between the sentences we made and the glances we have each other, I knew I had to remind her of the problem again.Mia wouldn't listen. She would fill them without effort, as if silence were a surface she was good at crossing.If I did not look at her, she didn't not left her gaze to meet mine. If our hands passed near each other on a table,

I didn't decide to leave in a dramatic moment.It came slowly, like a thought that kept returning until it stopped being a thought and became the only thing that made sense..I can't stay here.At first it sounded extreme, very emotional and like something you say when you're tired or hurt or don't mean.Brur the idea didn't fade. It settled deeper inside me.It stayed steady through days of silence ahd nights of lying awake listening to him move somewhere else in the house, aware of weather pressing against the walls.I can't stay here and survive this. That was the truth under it.It wasn't anger. It wasn't pride. It was the simple fact that loving someone who no longer reached for you while sharing the same space was slowly hollowing me out from the inside…Every room held him. Every quiet moment reminded me of what used to exist there. I oxusjrn retrain my body fast enough to keep up with his distance.So leaving became mercy. Not for him. For me.My cabin was ready now. Nora had

We had festival coming up. A Christmas festival and I liked it.A week later, the festival started after sunset.I knew the timing without checking because the town always moved the same way on Christmas Eve… lights coming on all at once across Main street, music drifting up the valley, kids already loud before the first carol finished.I should have gone.Lily had asked twice that morning, hopeful and bright, already bundled in excitement before her coat.Mia had smiled and told her they would go together.It wasn't entirely a lie. Lucas had called about Bradley again… updates, procedures, the usual slow grind of legal aftermath that never truly ended anything.But I could have delayed it. Could have stepped away for an hour.I didn't. Because near me, Mia oh public now… close enough to brush hands, to stand beside her in warm light, to deep what we were not allowing ourselves to be… felt more dangerous than any confrontation Bradley could stage.Distance was easier to maintain at ho

One minute, I was enjoying the festival lights and the next minute, everything went blurry.The air went tight and my eyelids closed before I could realize what was happening.Consciousness returned to me afterwards. It came in splinters. It was cold at first and then afterwards, it seeped into me from every direction, damp and invasive, pressing through my coat, my jeans and my skin.My cheek rested against rough wood. The air smelled of mold and old earth, stale and closed, like something forgotten.I didn't move at first.My head thribbed on slow, sick pulses. Each beat sent a dull wave through my skull. My mouth tasted wrong, a little metallic. Thick flashes that fluttered and darkness shifted into a dim gray blur.Where…Memory didn't come all at once. It slipped in gagged pieces. Lights, music and the festival.Lily laughing beside me, I remembered the cider stall. I remembered my first strp.tlsafdd there and just then—A hand. Almost too fast, it came across my mouth. My stomac