I Watched Them Through the Balcony Gap

I moved into 5C in October. 6C had a couple who fought quietly and made up loudly. Their balcony aligned with mine—a twelve-inch gap of sightline if you stood in the right corner behind a plant I kept for that purpose.

I noticed the first night by accident. Lights on, curtains half open, two bodies moving like they had invented each other.

I should have looked away.

I did not look away for forty-seven nights.

I learned their rhythms: Tuesday slow, Friday frantic, Sunday lazy with coffee afterward. I learned her laugh, his hands, the way she pulled him back when he almost left the window.

I never met them in the hall. That was the deal my conscience made: watch, don't speak.

One night they paused mid-motion and stared toward my dark window. My heart stopped. They kissed instead, laughing, and closed the curtain halfway.

The next week a For Rent sign appeared on 6C.

Empty apartment. Open curtain. Nothing to watch but my own reflection.

I threw out the plant. I still stand on the balcony sometimes, ashamed and awake, understanding voyeurism is not about bodies—it's about hunger for lives that look less lonely than yours.

When 6D moved in—single woman, quiet—I keep my curtain closed and my eyes on my own room.

Discipline is a kind of apology nobody hears.