For my 11th birthday, I asked to be adopted.

Host: The night was cold, the city buried beneath a film of rain and neon reflections. Inside a small diner, the air smelled of coffee, grease, and late hours. The windows were fogged, distorting the lights outside like dreams blurred by tears.
Jack sat in the corner booth, his coat damp, his eyes grey and distant, staring at a half-eaten plate of fries. Jeeny sat across from him, her hair still wet, her hands cupped around a mug that steamed like a small fire she was trying to keep alive.

Jeeny: “You ever think about what that means, Jack? ‘For my 11th birthday, I asked to be adopted.’”

Jack: “I think it means the kid wanted something real. Something people promise and rarely deliver.”

Host: The neon sign outside flickered — a blue heart pulsing on and off in the window. A bus roared past, sending a wave of mist against the glass.

Jeeny: “It’s not about reality. It’s about belonging, about the need to be chosen. To feel that someone looks at you and says, ‘You’re mine, you belong here.’ That’s more than survival. That’s love.”

Jack: “Love?” (He let out a dry laugh.) “You make it sound like love is a guarantee. It’s not. People adopt dogs and return them in a week. You think it’s different with kids?”

Jeeny: “You’re comparing a child’s heart to a pet store return policy?”

Jack: “No. I’m comparing human nature to what it really is — fickle, self-serving, full of good intentions that rot when tested. The world doesn’t run on love, Jeeny. It runs on circumstance, economics, and fear of loneliness.”

Host: Jeeny’s eyes darkened, but not with anger — with a kind of sorrow that burned deeper. She leaned forward, her voice trembling but clear, like a small bell in a storm.

Jeeny: “Do you know what it means for a child to ask for that? To want to be adopted? It’s not about getting love — it’s about giving up the illusion that someone’s coming for you unless you ask. That kind of courage is born from abandonment.”

Jack: “Or from desperation. You romanticize pain. But desperation doesn’t make people noble — it makes them reckless. You ever been that hungry for affection, Jeeny? To beg to be loved?”

Jeeny: “Maybe I have. Haven’t you?”

Host: A pause stretched between them. The rain intensified, hammering the windows like a memory demanding to be heard. Jack’s jaw tightened; he looked away.

Jack: “When I was twelve, my father left. No warning, no reason. Just gone. My mother didn’t ask to be loved after that — she learned to survive. That’s the difference. Some of us stop asking.”

Jeeny: “And some of us never stop — because asking keeps us human.”

Host: The air grew heavy. The jukebox in the corner played a soft, crackling tune from another time. A waitress passed, refilling their cups. The steam rose between them like a thin veil.

Jeeny: “There’s a story I read once — during the war in Bosnia. An orphanage full of children who’d lost everything. A journalist wrote that the quietest room was where the babies were. They’d stopped crying after weeks of no one coming. That’s what happens when you stop asking, Jack. Silence becomes survival.”

Jack: “And what would asking have changed? Would it have brought their parents back? Wishing doesn’t resurrect the dead.”

Jeeny: “No, but it resurrects the self. When you stop asking, you start disappearing. That’s what that quote means to me — an eleven-year-old refusing to vanish.”

Host: Jack’s hand gripped his cup. His knuckles turned white. His voice, when it came, was low, edged with both anger and pain.

Jack: “You talk like the world owes us redemption for every lonely child. It doesn’t. Some people never get adopted, Jeeny. Some people die waiting. So what then? Are their lives meaningless because no one chose them?”

Jeeny: “No. But they still mattered. You don’t need to be chosen to be worthy — but when a child asks to be adopted, they’re asking the world to see that worth. That’s not weakness, Jack. That’s defiance.”

Host: The lights flickered again, and for a brief moment, their faces mirrored in the window, two strangers blurred into one reflection.

Jack: “You always turn pain into poetry.”

Jeeny: “Because pain is poetry, if you dare to read it. The child in that quote — she’s rewriting her fate. Asking to be adopted is like saying, ‘I will not let the world forget me.’”

Jack: “You think asking for love makes you powerful. I think it makes you vulnerable.”

Jeeny: “Vulnerability is power. You just can’t stand it because it’s something you can’t control.”

Host: The sound of rain softened, replaced by the hum of a refrigerator, the low buzz of fluorescent light. Jack leaned back, his expression unreadable. Jeeny’s fingers traced the edge of her cup, slow, deliberate.

Jack: “So you think every orphan, every lost soul, every forgotten person should keep begging for love?”

Jeeny: “No. Not begging. Asking. There’s a difference. Begging is surrender. Asking is hope.”

Jack: “Hope gets people killed.”

Jeeny: “So does the lack of it.”

Host: The tension broke like a thread snapping. Jack let out a rough exhale, almost a laugh, half disbelief, half surrender.

Jack: “You always find a way to make me sound heartless.”

Jeeny: “You’re not heartless. You’re just afraid of remembering what it feels like to want something no one promised you.”

Host: Jack looked down at his hands, the scars along his knuckles, faint but real. Outside, the rain had slowed to a quiet drizzle.

Jack: “You know, I read once that in Japan, they fill the cracks in broken pottery with gold — kintsugi, they call it. Maybe that’s what asking to be adopted is — the first crack lined with gold.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s what makes it beautiful. The child isn’t broken — they’re being remade.”

Host: The diner felt warmer now, as though the air itself had softened. The waitress switched off the neon sign, and the last flicker of blue faded into the dark.

Jack: “I guess you’re right. Maybe love isn’t a guarantee. But maybe it’s still worth asking for.”

Jeeny: “That’s all any of us can do — keep asking, even when the world forgets to answer.”

Host: They sat in silence, cups empty, the night thinning around them. Outside, the first light of dawn began to creep through the clouds, turning the wet streets into silver veins.

Jeeny reached out, her hand resting lightly on Jack’s. He didn’t pull away.

Jeeny: “For my 11th birthday, I asked to be adopted. Maybe we all have that same wish — to be seen, to be chosen, to be loved enough to stay.”

Jack: “And maybe the asking is what keeps us alive.”

Host: The camera lingered on their hands, the light catching the faint steam still rising from their cups. The rain had stopped. In the distance, a bus pulled away, its taillights glowing red — two small hearts fading into the dawn.