I'm not really a believer in romantic, happily-ever-after love

Host:
The city evening shimmered in neon reflection — rain gliding across the café windows like slow-moving glass tears. The sound of jazz drifted softly through the background, something melancholic, the kind of tune that remembers being touched once and never quite recovered.
Inside, the café was dim — the glow of hanging bulbs warm but tired, their light trembling across half-empty cups and whispered conversations.

At a corner table by the fogged window, Jack sat slouched, his grey eyes fixed on nothing in particular — maybe the rain, maybe his own reflection fading in the glass. His voice, when it came, was low and dry, like gravel wrapped in silk.

Across from him, Jeeny stirred her coffee with slow rhythm, her brown eyes watching him — patient, intuitive, and impossibly kind. She spoke softly, repeating the quote that lingered like a truth neither wanted to own:

"I'm not really a believer in romantic, happily-ever-after love stories." — Richard LaGravenese

Jeeny:
(quietly)
You look like you just agreed with that before I even said it.

Jack:
(smiling faintly)
Maybe because I did. Happily-ever-after sounds like something you buy, not something you live.

Jeeny:
You think that makes you cynical or realistic?

Jack:
Both. Cynicism’s just realism with bruises.

Jeeny:
(smiling softly)
Then maybe I’m the bruise that still believes in healing.

Jack:
Or you’re the story that refuses to end when it should.

Jeeny:
(leaning forward)
No. I just think love isn’t meant to end perfectly. It’s meant to end truthfully.

Jack:
(smirking)
Which means what — crying at an airport gate instead of dancing at a wedding?

Jeeny:
Maybe both. Maybe the ending depends on the courage it took to feel anything at all.

Host:
The rain intensified, turning the world beyond the glass into blurred streaks of motion — headlights dissolving like memories, faces melting into anonymity. The sound of clinking cups filled the silence between them — rhythmic, fragile, human.

Jack:
You know, I never understood why people treat love like architecture. Draw the plans, build the house, live in it forever.

Jeeny:
Because they confuse comfort with commitment.

Jack:
And fantasy with faith.

Jeeny:
Exactly. The “happily ever after” isn’t the problem — it’s the “ever after” part.

Jack:
(pauses, smiling faintly)
So you believe in love stories, just not eternal ones.

Jeeny:
(smiling back)
I believe in moments that matter — not myths that suffocate them.

Jack:
That’s poetic.

Jeeny:
That’s survival.

Host:
The café door opened, letting in a gust of cold air. Someone laughed near the counter — a sound too bright for the room’s subdued melancholy. Jack watched the door close again, his expression unreadable, his eyes reflecting both the laughter and the loss that followed it.

Jeeny:
You know what’s strange? Romantic love always gets treated like the ultimate human experience — like it’s the peak of meaning.

Jack:
Because it sells better than solitude.

Jeeny:
You think solitude’s more honest?

Jack:
Sometimes. Love makes promises the world can’t keep.

Jeeny:
And yet we keep making them.

Jack:
That’s because we need illusions to live.

Jeeny:
Or maybe we need connection, even if it breaks.

Jack:
(quietly)
Maybe breaking is connection’s truest form.

Jeeny:
(softly)
That’s the saddest thing you’ve ever said — and the truest.

Host:
A car splashed water across the street outside, the sound echoing like an exhale from the night. Inside, the jazz shifted key — slower now, more fragile, as if even the music was confessing something it hadn’t meant to admit.

Jeeny:
I think LaGravenese didn’t mean he didn’t believe in love. Just the story — the fairy tale.

Jack:
Yeah. He writes about love that hurts, love that disappoints, love that lingers.

Jeeny:
Love that’s human.

Jack:
Which is to say — love that ends.

Jeeny:
(smiling faintly)
But endings aren’t the enemy. They’re the proof that it was real.

Jack:
You really think that?

Jeeny:
Of course. Anything that doesn’t end was never alive to begin with.

Jack:
(pausing)
That’s terrifyingly beautiful.

Jeeny:
That’s love.

Host:
The candle on their table flickered, its flame bending and reshaping, small but defiant. The wax pooled at the base, slow and inevitable — like time, like attachment.

Jack:
You ever notice how every great love story is also a tragedy?

Jeeny:
Because art tells the truth we spend our lives avoiding.

Jack:
Which is?

Jeeny:
That love isn’t about forever. It’s about transformation.

Jack:
Transformation?

Jeeny:
Yes. Every time you love someone, you become a different version of yourself. Sometimes better, sometimes worse — but never unchanged.

Jack:
So love’s not the destination. It’s the experiment.

Jeeny:
Exactly. And heartbreak’s the data.

Jack:
(smiling)
You’ve been listening to too many of my science metaphors.

Jeeny:
And you’ve been ignoring your own heart too long.

Jack:
Maybe that’s my experiment — emotional minimalism.

Jeeny:
And the result?

Jack:
Still inconclusive.

Host:
The rain eased, the city outside shimmering beneath streetlights, its reflection stretching endlessly along wet pavement — like a dream too proud to admit it’s over.

Jeeny:
You think people could ever be content without the “happily ever after”?

Jack:
Content, maybe. Happy? Probably not. We’re wired for myth.

Jeeny:
But myths can evolve. Maybe “happily ever after” doesn’t mean perfection anymore. Maybe it just means peace.

Jack:
Peace doesn’t sell tickets.

Jeeny:
(smiling softly)
Neither does honesty — but it saves lives.

Jack:
You really believe that?

Jeeny:
I have to. Because if love isn’t meant to save, it’s meant to see.

Jack:
To see what?

Jeeny:
Who we are when the illusion falls apart.

Jack:
(pauses, quietly)
That’s not romance, Jeeny. That’s resurrection.

Jeeny:
Same thing, if you ask me.

Host:
The rain stopped completely, and the sound of the final drops sliding down the glass filled the silence like punctuation — not an ending, just a breath.

Host:
And as the city lights trembled in the distance, Richard LaGravenese’s words lingered between them — not as rejection, but as revelation:

That love need not promise forever
to prove it was divine.

That the beauty of connection
is not in its permanence,
but in its power to change us —
to make us softer, sharper,
more awake.

That romance is not a fairy tale,
but a fleeting mirror
where two souls recognize themselves
for a moment —
and that moment, though brief,
is eternity enough.

And so, beneath the dim café light,
as the last of the jazz faded into silence,
Jack and Jeeny sat quietly —
not believing in happy endings,
but believing,
still,
in the courage to love again.