New York, 1994

You met him in silence.

Carolyn was running late again—something about fittings and a rescheduled press call—and you stood alone in the Calvin Klein lobby, holding a manila folder meant for John F. Kennedy Jr.

He walked in just before 10, windblown and underdressed. You said his name. He barely heard you. You handed him the file. He thanked you without looking up.

You told yourself it didn’t matter.

You were the assistant. Background noise. A girl in the corner of someone else’s photograph.

But you watched him. Everyone did. The way he moved like a secret. The way women leaned in and he leaned back. He had the kind of beauty that hurt a little to look at. Not because he was perfect—because he was unreachable. Like touching him would mean erasing yourself.

And still, you watched.

You took his messages. You booked his drivers. You returned Carolyn’s heels to his place once when she forgot them. He opened the door shirtless and half-asleep and called you by the wrong name. You said nothing. You smiled. You left.

You told yourself it didn’t mean anything.

But then there was the night on the company retreat. The fire, the rain, the drink in your hand. You stood alone again. Always alone.

He came up behind you and said, “You’re always so quiet.” You said, “You never notice me.” He looked at you, really looked at you, for the first time. And he said, “I do now.”

It was a moment. Just one. No kiss. No touch. Only that.

It ruined you.

Because after that, he kept being John. And you kept being no one. The moment passed. Carolyn returned. He forgot. Or maybe he never meant to remember.

You stayed in the background. The assistant. Watching the beginning of their love story with the ache of someone who will never be in the story at all.

But still, sometimes, you think about that night.

And you wonder—just for a second—if you’d turned around and kissed him, if he would’ve let you.