SEAN
And if I asked you about love I’d
get a sonnet, but you’ve never looked
at a woman and been truly vulnerable.
Known that someone could kill you
with a look. That someone could rescue
you from grief. That God had put an
angel on Earth just for you. And
you wouldn’t know how it felt to be
her angel. To have the love be there
for her forever. Through anything,
through cancer. You wouldn’t know
about sleeping sitting up in a
hospital room for two months holding
her hand and not leaving because the
doctors could see in your eyes that
the term “visiting hours” didn’t
apply to you. And you wouldn’t know
about real loss, because that only
occurs when you lose something you
love more than yourself, and you’ve
never dared to love anything that
much. I look at you and I don’t see
an intelligent confident man, I don’t
see a peer, and I don’t see my equal.
I see a boy. Nobody could possibly
understand you, right Will? Yet you
presume to know so much about me
because of a painting you saw. You
must know everything about me. You’re
an orphan, right?
Will nods quietly.
SEAN
Do you think I would presume to know
the first thing about who you are
because I read “Oliver Twist?” And I
don’t buy the argument that you don’t
want to be here, because I think you
like all the attention you’re getting.
Personally, I don’t care. There’s
nothing you can tell me that I can’t
read somewhere else. Unless we talk
about your life. But you won’t do
that. Maybe you’re afraid of what
you might say.
