Page 21 of The Single Dad Grump Next Door

“Because you hate me,” I shoot back, my voice rising. “Because you’ve always hated me. Don’t act like you haven’t been waiting for me to fail.”

“Fail…?”

I let out a quiet sound of frustration and stare down at my stupid hands. “I’m injured. I can’t play. It hurts too much. They put me on a medical leave.”

A long beat of silence passes between us.

Then, “Oh.”

I look up at him. His expression is difficult to read.

Instead of telling me that it’s what I deserve for stealing his spot in the first place, or joking about how the spot is now open for him to take for himself, he cocks his head to side and says, “I don’t hate you, Alina.”

“Really?” I laugh bitterly. “Could’ve fooled me. That’s our thing, isn’t it? Hating each other?”

His jaw tightens. For a moment, I think he’s going to storm out in anger. It’s not like he’s never done that before.

But instead, he steps closer, his gaze steady and unnervingly earnest. I brace myself, expecting a cruel remark.

“You’re wrong,” he says. “I never would’ve wished something like this for you. An injury like that… it’s not something I’d wish on anyone.”

The phraseI wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemycomes to mind.

The sincerity in his voice is like a slap to the face, though. I want to believe he’s lying. That this is some awful attempt to humiliate me further, but his expression remains mostly neutral.

“Don’t pity me,” I hiss at him, clutching the violin tighter.

“I’m not,” he says firmly. “I know, probably better than anyone, how much your career means to you. Losing it…”

He cuts himself off, his throat working as if the words are too difficult to say. I wait for him to finish his sentence, but when nothing but silence settles between us, I realize that he has nothing else to say.

His kindness stings worse than any insult. I hate the way his words threaten to crack the fragile walls I’ve built around my mounting helplessness. I hate thathe, more than anyone else, can make me feel more devastated about this situation.

“You must be so thrilled,” I say, my voice shaking. “The great Alina Sokolov, finally knocked down a peg. You get to stand there, living your perfect little life, and watch me lose everything. It must feel really nice after all this time.”

Gabe’s brow furrows. “Perfect? You think my life is perfect?”

“Isn’t it?” I snap. “You’ve got a career in Hollywood, a beautiful daughter, and goodness knows what else. Meanwhile, I’m falling apart.”

He lets out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, Ali. It’s real perfect. So perfect that I haven’t picked up a violin in years. So perfect that I quit the BSO after two years because I messed up my life plan by accidentally getting my wife pregnant long before either of us planned to. And it’ssoperfect that I was then widowed at the age of twenty-three. Now I’m trying to raise my daughter on my own while pretending like I have it all figured out, just so that she isn’t negatively affected by how undeniablyimperfectmy life is.”

I stare at him, stunned into silence.

The raw honesty in his voice is not only startling, but utterly foreign. The sarcasm and the vehemence are things I recognizecoming from him. Those are familiar. But the vulnerability is strange. It’s like I’m seeing a side of him that I didn’t even know existed.

“You’re not the only one struggling, Alina,” he continues, his tone softer now. “You’re not the only one who’s lost something.”

I look away, my chest tight with conflicting emotions. I want to cling to my anger, to the righteous indignation that has fueled me for so long, but his words chip away at it, leaving me vulnerable and exposed.

His wifedied. He’s not separated or divorced or anything like that. Wren doesn’t have a mother out there, planning to come see her at some point this summer. She probably doesn’t even remember her mom, if Gabe really was that young when she passed away. Wren must’ve been a baby.

“I’m sorry,” I say finally, my voice barely above a whisper.

“Thanks,” he says simply.

For a long moment, the only sound in the room is the faint hum of the dehumidifier. I clutch my violin, my fingers trembling against the worn wood.

“I’m not supposed to play at all this summer,” I admit, the words tumbling out before I can stop them. “But I don’t know what else to do with myself. And I don’t even know what’s wrong with my hands. Like an idiot, I keep hoping that one day they’ll just magically get better and everything will go back to normal.”

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