Washington D.C., New York City, 1963

You weren’t supposed to be anything more than a footnote. A passing acquaintance—an intern at a newspaper covering Capitol Hill, nothing remarkable. But Robert Francis Kennedy noticed you. And once he did, he couldn’t stop.

It started innocently enough: polite nods in hallways, an invitation to a press dinner, a joke shared too long in his office while aides waited outside, restless. But Bobby’s attention was different. It lingered. It narrowed. It devoured.

By fall of 1963, you couldn’t make a phone call without a faint click echoing on the line. You began getting stopped at security checkpoints you’d breezed through before. The man at the diner who always sat one booth behind you stopped pretending to read his paper. Your neighbors started to notice the black sedan parked across the street at all hours of the night.

And Bobby—he never apologized. He didn’t try to hide it. In fact, when you confronted him, all he said was:

“I need to know that you’re safe. That no one is… influencing you.”

As Attorney General, he had access to everything: FBI files, wiretap authorizations, surveillance teams. And he used it all to keep you under control. He’d drop the names of men you spoke to casually. He’d mention details about places you’d gone—things you hadn’t told a soul. He claimed it was for your protection, but his eyes always said something else: Mine.

Even the Kennedy family grew uncomfortable. Jackie, with her cool detachment, refused to be in the same room as you. Ethel tried to intervene once, and you heard the shouting match behind closed doors. Jack, the President, joked about it at first—until he stopped.

You tried to change jobs. You tried to leave D.C. altogether. But wherever you went, Bobby was two steps ahead.

And then, one rainy Thursday in November, you were working late at your new job—an editorial assistant at a publishing house in New York. The building was mostly empty when the elevator dinged open. You didn’t expect anyone.

He stepped out.

Hair damp, coat clinging to his frame, a glint in his eye that walked the line between heartbreak and mania.

“I didn’t want it to be this way,” he said. “But you’ve left me no choice.”

The room felt smaller with him in it. The overhead fluorescents buzzed louder than usual. And when he smiled, it wasn’t soft. It was the smile of a man who believed what he was doing was righteous.