If you don't love me, it does not matter, anyway I can love for

Host: The rain was falling in fine, silvery threads, tracing lines down the window of a narrow apartment overlooking the old city square. The streetlights shimmered in puddles, bending their glow into trembling ribbons of gold. Inside, the room was half-dark, half-dream — the faint hum of a record player, the smell of coffee, and the quiet ache of something unspoken.

Jeeny sat by the window, her hair damp, her hands cupped around a steaming mug. Jack stood near the door, leaning against the frame, his jacket still wet from the rain, his eyes distant but alive with something unsaid.

For a long moment, neither spoke. The record crackled softly — a cello murmuring a tune too sad to be accidental.

Jeeny: (quietly) “Stendhal once wrote, ‘If you don’t love me, it does not matter — anyway I can love for both of us.’”

Host: Jack turned, his expression unreadable, his voice rough as gravel.

Jack: “That sounds like something people say right before breaking their own hearts.”

Jeeny: “Or right after finding the courage to love without expecting anything back.”

Host: The rain tapped harder now, a thousand tiny fingers against the glass. Jack moved closer, every step slow, deliberate. He picked up a half-empty glass from the table and stared into it as though it held some hidden answer.

Jack: “That kind of love’s a losing game, Jeeny. You give everything, you bleed yourself dry, and what do you get? Echoes.”

Jeeny: “And yet, even echoes prove there was once a voice.”

Host: The lamp flickered, throwing soft shadows across Jeeny’s face. Her eyes were calm, but there was a tremor behind them — not weakness, but tenderness on the edge of breaking.

Jack: “You think love should hurt, don’t you?”

Jeeny: “No. I think love should exist — even when it hurts. Especially then.”

Jack: (bitterly) “That’s poetic. But it’s not living. Love like that is martyrdom — and martyrs always die alone.”

Jeeny: “Not always. Sometimes they die remembered.”

Host: Jack laughed, low and quiet, but it wasn’t humor — it was recognition. He set the glass down, running his thumb over the rim. The sound was soft, circular, haunting.

Jack: “You believe in that Stendhal kind of love — the kind that burns quietly, doesn’t demand, doesn’t fade. You know what I believe in? Reciprocity. Two people choosing each other. Not this… one-sided worship.”

Jeeny: “Love doesn’t need symmetry, Jack. It just needs truth. Even unreturned love is still real — it still moves the world.”

Jack: “Moves it where? Into more pain?”

Jeeny: “Into depth.”

Host: She spoke the last word softly, but it landed heavy. Jack’s shoulders dropped a little. He looked at her — really looked — and saw not a woman begging to be loved, but one unafraid of loving despite it all.

Jack: “You really mean that, don’t you?”

Jeeny: “Every word.”

Jack: “Even if the person never looks back?”

Jeeny: “Even then. Because love, Jack… love isn’t a transaction. It’s a revelation.”

Host: A silence fell — a fragile, golden stillness. Outside, a car horn echoed in the distance, swallowed quickly by the rain.

Jack: “You’re braver than I’ll ever be.”

Jeeny: “No. Just less afraid of losing.”

Jack: “That’s the same thing.”

Host: Jack’s voice cracked slightly on the last word, and he turned away, pretending to adjust his coat. Jeeny watched him, her fingers tightening on the mug, the steam rising between them like the ghost of an unspoken confession.

Jeeny: “You ever love someone you couldn’t have?”

Jack: “Once.”

Jeeny: “And?”

Jack: “I buried it. That’s what men do.”

Jeeny: “That’s what cowards do.”

Host: The words cut through the air — not cruel, but precise. Jack’s jaw clenched. He turned slowly, his eyes now alive with a mixture of anger and something softer — something he didn’t want her to see.

Jack: “And what do you do, Jeeny? You just keep loving into the void?”

Jeeny: “If it’s love, it’s not a void.”

Host: A faint smile tugged at her lips — sad, defiant, luminous. The rain outside softened again, easing into rhythm with her breath.

Jack walked toward the window, stopping just beside her. The reflections of the city lights shimmered across both their faces, fragmented, like pieces of two different worlds touching but never merging.

Jack: “You make it sound beautiful. But I’ve seen what unreturned love does to people. It hollows them out.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it hollows out what’s false. Leaves room for what’s real.”

Host: She set her cup down gently, the porcelain clinking against the wood like a quiet punctuation.

Jeeny: “Do you know why Stendhal wrote that? Because he believed that love is self-sustaining. That it exists by its own gravity. When it’s real, it doesn’t wait to be mirrored — it simply is.”

Jack: “And when it’s not?”

Jeeny: “Then it teaches you what it means to be alive.”

Host: Jack pressed a hand to the windowpane, the cold glass reflecting both their faces — his tense, hers serene.

Jack: “You make love sound like faith.”

Jeeny: “It is. The purest kind. The kind that asks for nothing but gives everything.”

Host: For a while, neither spoke. The rain had stopped entirely now, and the silence that followed felt like the world holding its breath.

Jack: (softly) “And if the person you love never knows?”

Jeeny: “Then love becomes its own knowing.”

Host: The light dimmed as the record reached its final note — a long, aching string that lingered like a sigh. Jeeny rose from the window, stepped toward Jack, and stopped just close enough that their reflections blurred into one.

Jeeny: “You think loving without return makes you foolish. But the truth, Jack… it makes you infinite.”

Jack: (after a long pause) “And tired.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But tired in the way stars are — burning, giving, knowing they’ll fade but shining anyway.”

Host: Her words hung in the air, trembling with light. Jack looked at her for a long time, something unspoken flickering in his eyes — recognition, regret, maybe longing.

Finally, he whispered — almost to himself.

Jack: “If you don’t love me… it does not matter, anyway I can love for both of us.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “Then you’ve understood it.”

Host: The camera lingers on them — two figures by the rain-soaked window, the city’s faint light painting them in gold and grey. The record stops spinning, and the world outside begins again — a car passing, a door closing, life resuming.

But inside, there is a stillness — the kind that exists only between two people who have finally learned what it means to love without needing to be loved back.

Jeeny turns to leave. Jack watches her go, his reflection fading into hers until there is only the soft shimmer of glass, and the faint hum of a heart learning to sing alone — and to mean it.