Play 281: Love

CHARACTERS
VINCENT, 17
MICHELLE, 17

VINCENT
What should I write?

MICHELLE
I don’t know.

VINCENT
Just give me an idea.

MICHELLE
Love.

(Beat.)

VINCENT
Love?

MICHELLE
Yeah, what’s wrong with that?

VINCENT
I don’t do love well.

MICHELLE
You could try.

VINCENT
I have. It doesn’t end up too well. (beat.) Most the time it comes out tacky as hell.

MICHELLE
So try again.

VINCENT
I don’t really want to.

MICHELLE
Why not?

VINCENT
Well they say write what you know.

MICHELLE
So?

VINCENT
I don’t know love.

MICHELLE
I’m sure you do.

VINCENT
I don’t.

MICHELLE
Come on, you can’t sit there and tell me you’ve never been in love.

VINCENT
I’ve never been in love.

MICHELLE
What about your family, or people you care about?

VINCENT
That’s different. I mean love love.

(Beat.)

MICHELLE
Just because you don’t know it doesn’t mean you can’t write it.

VINCENT
It does in this case.

MICHELLE
I’m sure you’re not giving yourself enough credit.

VINCENT
Whatever.

(Pause.)

VINCENT
I must say, I’m kind of skeptical of love.

MICHELLE
Really?

VINCENT
Yeah. I mean, I’d like to believe in it. That I could get lost in someone else and become this better version of myself. And happy. (beat.) But it doesn’t work like that. You know? Happiness comes from within, that’s what I’ve learned. And people don’t change, not really. At least not for just one person.

MICHELLE
You’re just skeptical because you’ve never been in love.

VINCENT
Maybe.

(Beat.)

But what does love even mean?

MICHELLE
I think it’s pretty obvious.

VINCENT
I mean really though.

MICHELLE
You’ll know it when you see it.

VINCENT
That doesn’t make sense to me. It’s completely subjective, so how could you objectively know what it is? How could you say to yourself, yeah, this is love, and be sure?

(Beat.)

MICHELLE
You just know.

VINCENT
See, I don’t buy that.

MICHELLE
Why?

VINCENT
It’s an abstract concept. It’s this thing that everyone wants, but no one really knows what it means. How can you be sure of something like that?

MICHELLE
I don’t know.

VINCENT
Exactly.

(Pause.)

MICHELLE
So you don’t believe in love?

VINCENT
That’s not what I said.

MICHELLE
What were you saying then?

VINCENT
All I said is I’m skeptical. (beat.) just sounds too good to be true.

MICHELLE
Doesn’t mean it isn’t.

VINCENT
I never said it wasn’t.

(Beat.)

I do wonder what it’d be like though. (beat.) if it’s real of course.

MICHELLE
(Sarcastically)
Of course.

(Beat.)

VINCENT
Maybe I’d be too wary of it for it to actually be real for me.

MICHELLE
I don’t think it works like that.

VINCENT
Why not?

(Beat.)

MICHELLE
I don’t know.

(Long pause.)

VINCENT
Any other ideas?

MICHELLE
You’re not going to do love?

VINCENT
Write what you know.

(Blackout.)