Our first and last love is self-love.

Host: The room was drenched in the blue quiet of late evening. A single lamp burned in the corner, its light spilling like liquid amber over the wooden floorboards. The rain outside drummed a soft rhythm against the window, like a heartbeat echoing from the sky itself.

Two figures sat by the window, facing the darkness beyond the glass. Jack — his grey eyes shadowed by thought, a faint frown tracing his face — and Jeeny, her posture calm but her gaze alive with a quiet fire. Between them on the table lay a small notebook, its pages open to a single line, handwritten and underlined twice:

“Our first and last love is self-love.” — Christian Nestell Bovee

Jeeny: (softly) It sounds... lonely, doesn’t it? To say that all love begins and ends with ourselves.

Jack: (without looking at her) Lonely, yes. But also honest. Every love story we tell is just a mirror, Jeeny. We don’t love others — we love how they make us see ourselves.

Host: The lamplight flickered, casting moving shadows that danced across the walls like restless thoughts. The air between them was tense, yet somehow intimate — a bridge between two silences that were learning to speak.

Jeeny: (gently) That’s a bitter way to look at it.

Jack: (shrugging) Truth usually is.

Jeeny: (turning to him) So you think every act of love — every kindness, every sacrifice — is just a form of self-preservation?

Jack: (leaning back, eyes on the rain) Of course. We help because it makes us feel useful. We love because we don’t want to be alone. Even sacrifice is selfish — it gives us meaning, and meaning is the most desperate thing we crave.

Host: His voice was low, almost a confession, yet his tone carried no shame. Only the weight of a man who had stared too long into the mirror and found no comfort there.

Jeeny: (quietly) You make self-love sound like a disease.

Jack: (half-smiling) Maybe it is. But it’s the only one we’re all born with — and the last one we ever lose.

Host: A pause fell, deep and fragile. The rain softened, beating slower against the glass, as though the world itself were listening.

Jeeny: (after a moment) But what about the ones who give everything for others? The mother who sacrifices herself for her child, the lover who stays when there’s nothing left to gain — is that still self-love?

Jack: (eyes narrowing) Of course it is. The mother does it because her identity depends on her child. The lover stays because without the other, they’d be lost. It’s all the same — an act of self-definition. We can’t escape ourselves, even when we try to love someone else.

Jeeny: (firmly) But that’s not love, Jack. That’s attachment.

Jack: (coldly) What’s the difference?

Jeeny: (with passion) Love is when you see someone — really see them — and want their happiness, even when it doesn’t feed your own. It’s not about completion, it’s about freedom.

Host: Her voice trembled not with anger, but with conviction. The light caught in her eyes, turning them to molten brown, alive with both sorrow and fire.

Jack: (quietly) Freedom, huh? Sounds like a good way to lose yourself.

Jeeny: (softly) Maybe that’s the only way to truly find yourself.

Host: The rain stopped. The city below their window glowed — wet streets, reflected lights, distant sirens — the whole world moving like a slow dream. Inside, the room held its own storm, invisible but real.

Jack: (after a long silence) Do you really believe anyone can love without needing something back?

Jeeny: (nodding) I do. But it’s not common. And it’s not easy. It’s the kind of love that’s born when you’ve already made peace with who you are. When your first love — your self-love — is whole.

Jack: (leaning forward) So you agree with Bovee, then. Self-love comes first.

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) Yes. But he said first and last. What happens in between is what makes us human.

Host: The firelight caught the curve of her smile, the soft shadow beneath her chin, the grace of her stillness. Jack watched her, his expression unreadable, like a map folded too many times to trace.

Jack: (murmuring) Maybe that’s the tragedy — we spend our lives trying to love others, only to return to ourselves at the end.

Jeeny: (gently) That’s not a tragedy, Jack. That’s completion.

Host: Her words hung between them, delicate and luminous, like dust suspended in light.

Jack: (after a pause) And what if the self isn’t worth returning to? What if all that’s left is guilt, failure, emptiness?

Jeeny: (softly) Then you start again. You learn to love the one person who’s never left you.

Jack: (bitterly) The hardest one to forgive.

Jeeny: (whispering) Exactly.

Host: The room fell into a deep, aching silence. Jack leaned back, his eyes lost somewhere in the distance, where memory and hope blurred. Jeeny watched him, her hands folded in her lap, her face illuminated by that fragile lamp glow that makes everything look almost holy.

Jack: (quietly) You make it sound like redemption.

Jeeny: (nodding slowly) Maybe that’s what self-love really is. Not narcissism, not ego, but the forgiveness that lets you keep living.

Host: The clock on the wall ticked softly, marking each second like a breath. The rain had stopped completely. Outside, the world glistened — wet pavements, soft light, new silence.

Jack: (murmuring) So our first and last love… is the same one we spend our whole lives trying to earn.

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) Yes. Because every time we break, we meet ourselves again. And if we can still say, “I’m worth loving,” then we’ve already won.

Host: The lamp flickered once more, its light stretching, then settling into a calm, golden stillness. The room seemed to breathe again — the way a wound breathes before it begins to heal.

Jack: (softly) Maybe Bovee wasn’t cynical after all. Maybe he meant that everything begins with the self, but doesn’t have to end there.

Jeeny: (smiling through the quiet) It ends when we’ve finally learned to come home to ourselves — not because no one else will, but because we finally belong there.

Host: The city hummed softly below, a living pulse beneath their window. The light in the room dimmed, the rain clouds parting just enough to reveal the first stars.

Host: In that moment, they both understood — that self-love is not the beginning of selfishness, nor the end of love itself, but the quiet heart of it — the one truth from which all others grow.

And as the night settled, and their reflections merged in the glass, the world outside seemed to whisper its agreement:

Every love begins within — and every soul must learn, before all others, to love its own shadow.