I ran to my front door, thinking I barely had 15 minutes. Assuming no one was looking, I dashed toward the open window. I tried to peer over the windowsill, thankful that no neighbors were observing.
Their living room looked just like any other. Mike stood with a professional camera, his back to me. Jill faced him with a sweet grin on her lips. I noticed a glimmer of movement near the edge of the room. Mike was looking right at me. Our eyes connected, and I collapsed as his wife yelled, “Someone’s there! Someone is peeping inside!”
Oh, oh, no! I thought. This cannot be happening! I ran back to my house, my pulse racing, and shut the door. What was I thinking? Why did I peep inside their home? Have I upset them? I was frightened they would contact the cops.
The next day, a knock on my door broke the silence. My stomach churned as I looked through the peephole. It was Mike. He held an envelope and slid out a photo. My photo. “Can you explain?” he said, amused.
I confessed to being humiliated. To my astonishment, Mike grinned and asked me over, explaining that he snaps Jill’s portrait every day to express his love. “Jill and I have been together since we were 15,” he explained.
“When we started dating, I made a silly promise. I told her I’d take her picture every single day, same pose, same time, no matter what. It was just a little way of showing her how much she meant to me.”
As I tried to process the heartwarming story, he reached for a thick leather-bound album on the coffee table. He opened the album and flipped through the pages, showing me the photos he had captured.
Since that day, we’ve developed a silent understanding. I never looked through the glass again, but the vision of their daily routine remained with me. It served as a heartening reminder that the most spectacular love tales can emerge from the smallest of actions.