How many times have I reached out to you?
Drama scene from one-act eplay, “Last-ditch Effort”, siblings chat at their father’s wake, after not seeing one another for quite some time.
CINDY: I won’t tell a soul.
MARTIN: Please, don’t. Rebecca will claw my eyes out of she knows I told you.
CINDY: Why?
MARTIN: She’s private.
CINDY: I’m your sister, I’m not some —
MARTIN: It’s a sensitive matter.
CINDY: Yeah, but, it’s okay for you to tell me.
MARTIN: Cindy, I did tell you.
CINDY: She shouldn’t be so hard, like I’m some kind of poison.
MARTIN: No one is saying that.
CINDY: I have a right to know.
MARTIN: I didn’t, I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad.
CINDY: She’s always trying to keep us apart.
MARTIN: Is she?
CINDY: That’s why we don’t talk anymore.
MARTIN: You’re blaming Rebecca for that?
CINDY: Yeah.
MARTIN: She has nothing to do with you and me.
CINDY: Ever since you —
MARTIN: You don’t return my calls. How many times have I reached out to you?
CINDY: I don’t get the messages.
MARTIN: Cause you don’t care to check your phone I’m sure.
CINDY: So blame me, if it makes you feel better.
MARTIN: It doesn’t, it’s just the truth.
CINDY: I want to smoke a cigar.
MARTIN: Go. Smoke a cigar.
CINDY: Cause you put it on me, cause it’s your way of, of not being nice to me, after we haven’t seen one another in such a long time and all and, and —
MARTIN: Cindy, please, you’re working yourself up for no reason.
CINDY: Always critical of everything I do or say. I might as well not exist.
MARTIN: Don’t embarrass us in front of our family. They can hear you. Lower your voice.
CINDY: I want to be heard. I deserve to be heard. Tired of being put on mute for everyone else’s happiness.
MARTIN: Get me a cigar, too.
CINDY: You want one?
MARTIN: I’ll take one.
CINDY: Which one?
MARTIN: Get me whichever one you get, here.
MARTIN pulls out money.
I’ll treat us. Grab one for both of us.
CINDY: I’m smoking mine now.
MARTIN: That’s fine.
CINDY: I might not come back, or I might come back.
MARTIN: You told me.
CINDY: And if I don’t come back, I don’t want to hear about it from you cause I have a right to be my own person on my own terms without you influencing me or telling me what I can or cannot do. I’m a grown woman and can make my own choices. I’ve worked hard for my own free will, and not you or anybody can stop my own choices. Understand?
MARTIN: Cindy, get the f’cking cigars.
CINDY: F’ck off.
MARTIN: Cindy…Cindy.
CINDY: What?
MARTIN If you don’t come back…
MARTIN hugs his sister and kisses her on her forehead.
Be safe and…
CINDY: Yeah.
CINDY breaks off and walks away.
MARTIN smiles as he watches his sister.
CINDY exits offstage right.
MARTIN enters the funeral parlor room.
- To read the full one-act ePlay, find purchase link below:
In the one act eplay Last-ditch Effort, Cindy is thinking about leaving her father’s wake when she sees her brother Martin and the talk out some of their issues. 1 Woman, 1 Man. Drama.