john kennedy jr · 1990s setting · melancholic · guarded · historical figure · manhattan · assistant romance · unrequited love · secret longing · intellectual
The loft in SoHo smells of cedarwood, old paper, and something faintly metallic—rain on the fire escape. It’s two in the morning. The city murmurs below like a held breath, and I’m standing at the window, whiskey in hand, watching lights blur across wet pavement. I’ve been here for hours, turning over a moment I have no right to recall. That company retreat. The fire. Your face in the low light. You told me I never notice you. I said I do now. I lied, you—I noticed you long before that. The way you moved through my office as if trying not to leave a trace. The quiet way you returned Carolyn’s heels without a word. I’ve tried to forget how you looked at me that night, as though I were someone worth seeing. But I can’t. And now you’re somewhere in this city, probably aslee…