Transcript

Minx: I brought you some tea and some of those little scones you like. (choked up, hurting for her daughter) What happened to you isn't your fault, it's mine. If I'd been courageous enough to keep you...

Warren enters the room unnoticed.

Minx: (desperate) Cassie, tell me what to do. Tell me what I can do to help you.

Warren: You want to help her? Then quit blaming yourself for what you didn't do.

Minx: (taken aback) Warren, how can you be so heartless? Don't you see she's suffering?

Warren: I don't see her suffering. I see her wallowing in self-pity. You know Cassie, I look at you now and I wonder how did I ever love you.

Cassie cries without looking at Warren.

{next scene}

Minx: (protective) I will not let you stand here and abuse this girl.

Warren: And how am I abusing her? By telling her the truth? By saying that what she did to an innocent woman is a disgusting way to handle the end of a love affair.

Minx: Warren, I want you to leave. Cassie's on the edge.

Warren: (firm) You'll be the one who's leaving, Minx.

Minx: I will not subject her to any more...

Warren: You told me that she hasn't left this room for days. You told me that. You said you can't get through to her, now maybe I can. Please leave us. We need to settle accounts once and for all.

Minx: (quietly budging) Be careful.

Minx leaves the room. Cassie rises from her chair.

Warren: (to Cassie) What are you doing?

Cassie: (innocent) Me? Nothing. I'm just hanging around trying to figure out how my life got ruined. Although the pieces are starting to fall into place now that I realize you never loved me.

Warren: I never said that.

Cassie: No, excuse me if I didn't get a direct quote, your message was clear.

Warren: I know I don't love the woman I'm looking at right now. I loved the woman that looked exactly like you. She was kicked around by life, you know. And every time she was kicked down, she stood right back up and she laughed in the face of all the things that tried to defeat her.

Cassie: (protests) I stopped laughing when you stopped loving me and chose Angela.

Warren: (resolute) We can stop that right there. Because Angela had nothing to do with what happened to us. Cassie, it was you. I stopped loving you when you said you would marry Mason.

Cassie: I know I was wrong. I explained it to you. I can't explain it to you again.

Warren: I know that. And I understood all those explanations. I know it was Mason, it wasn't Angela. Mason manipulated you. He lied to you. He kept the truth from you. You couldn't make a rational decision, I realize that. But because I know that I just can't jumpstart the love that I felt for you.

Cassie: I get it, okay? You don't have to keep saying it. You don't have to keep drilling into my head that you don't love me. I get it.

Warren: I hate this as much as you do, Cassie. Believe me that I do. We loved each other. Every day that we were together was filled with that love and filled with that hope. But because I miss that, it doesn't mean that I can get it back again.

Cassie: You obviously miss it a whole lot. You have Angela, what do you care?

Warren: I won't lie to you. I have deep feelings for Angela. But it's nothing like what we had together. I think that kind of love happens once, maybe twice, in a lifetime. And I'm hoping that it's twice for your sake as well as mine.

Cassie: If you thought it was so precious then how could you just throw it away?

Warren: (adamant) Nothing was thrown away, Cassie. What happened just happened. Cassie, I'm not the one to say what life is about. It's not fair. Dammit, it's just not fair. But sometimes you just have to roll with the punches, and this is one of those times. You have to convince yourself that it's gonna get better.

Cassie: Maybe I'm not as strong as you are. I don't want to live in a world where there's this kind of pain.

Warren: But it's not such a bad world you've got. You have a home. You're beautiful, you're intelligent, you've got all the money you can spend. You have a mother that loves you, she hasn't slept for days worrying about you. You've got Lionel. You've got me.

Cassie: Please don't tell me that you want us to be friends. Just spare me that.

Warren: You've got to make a choice, Cassie. You either keep looking back and rolling over everyone that cares about you because things didn't turn out the way you had hoped (grabs her shoulders) or you become the Cassie that I used to know. That I used to know and love. What's it going to be?

Cassie sobs in his arms.

{next scene}

Cassie: (distraught) What's wrong with me? How come I feel so worthless inside like I don't even excist without you. 

Warren: You can't say that, Cassie. You're so beautiful and intelligent.

Cassie: I'm not, there's something wrong with me.

Warren: There's nothing wrong with you.

Cassie: Yes there is. I'm not lovable. I'm not a person that people love.

Warren: That's not true.

Cassie: Yes it is! Look at my life. You don't love me. My own mother didn't even love me enough to bring me home from the hospital.

Warren: Come here, look in this mirror. (She does with him standing behind her) See that? The woman that I see has so much to give. Tell me what you see.

Cassie: (seeing herself as a little girl) I can see my past, all my mistakes. I'm still alone and it won't ever change.

Warren: It can change. All you have to do is leave the past behind.

Warren walks over to Minx, who has returned to the room.

Minx: (to Warren) I did this to her.

Warren: (compassionate) Then help her fix it. She needs you. Go.

Warren leaves and Minx warmly embraces her daughter.

Minx: (soothing) I love you. I love you.

{next scene}

Minx and Cassie are seated in the chair with Minx holding Cassie in her arms.

Minx: (calmly) You would be completely justified in blaming me, blaming Mason Capwell and blaming life for treating you so badly. The problem is that blaming never solves anything, never fixes anything. What you have to do is let it all go, Cassie. You have to start over.

Cassie slowly disengages herself from Minx's arms and rises from the chair. She stares at the mirror and sees herself as a little girl again. She cries as Minx consoles her with an embrace.