It was just a water bottle. That’s what I almost told myself. Nothing important. But...

It was just a water bottle. That’s what I almost told myself. Nothing important. But...

when I opened the fridge before work, there it was — already filled, cold, waiting for me. He had done it the night before. And I nearly brushed it off like it didn’t matter. That’s the version of me that keeps believing he doesn’t put in effort, while the proof is right in front of me. But this time I stopped. I thought about all the mornings I’ve left without one, all the times he’s noticed what I needed before I even did. I looked at him tying his shoes by the door and I said, ‘Hey… thank you for filling my bottle. For thinking about me when I wasn’t thinking about myself. I noticed.’ He didn’t say much — just gave this little nod and kept lacing up — but the weight in the room shifted. It wasn’t about the bottle. It was about being seen. I use an app called ‘quiet effort.’ It keeps me from missing the love that hides in the smallest routines.