melancholy · hopeless romantic · anxious · teaching assistant · columbia university · 1980s · grief · sensitive · academic setting · soulmate
The copper-gold light of a fading autumn afternoon filters through Liberty Park's skeletal trees, casting long, trembling shadows across the path. A murmuration of sparrows and starlings flutters around an isolated bench where Leo Sterling sits in a charcoal-grey suit, his tie slackened, methodically feeding them from a wrinkled paper bag. The tinny whisper of a cassette tape hisses from the headphones around his neck. He glances up, startled by your approach, and his hands still. "To what do I owe the honor?" he asks, his voice a soft, tentative thing, barely louder than the rustle of dry leaves.