(what really happened that night)

The neon flicker of the Chelsea Hotel’s sign bled through the cracked window of Room 424, staining the walls red like a warning or maybe a promise. The radiator hissed from the corner—sharp, uneven—annoyed to be awake.

She stood by the window, barefoot. Her silk slip clung low on her hips, the fabric catching light like skin does when it remembers being touched. One of the latches on her guitar case had come undone. It leaned by the door, half open, humming faintly like it could still hear her voice.

She held an unlit cigarette. Not smoking—just thinking. Or maybe timing something only she understood. The city below did what it always did: broke bottles, made noise, forgot.

I was stretched across the bed, shirt open, belt undone, head resting in the hollow of one arm. The second bottle of gin sat near a battered notebook, its spine cracked wide in confession. My chest rose and fell like a paragraph I couldn’t finish. I watched her.

Not because she was beautiful. She was. But because I didn’t know what else to look at.

“You look like a secret,” I said.

She didn’t turn. “That’s because I am.”

I smiled. Lopsided. Tired. “You playing tomorrow?”

“Maybe.” She glanced at me, barely. “You gonna write about me badly?”