Marry Me Marissa

Just something I dashed off quickly. I like the concept anyway.

Sam walks down the street. Someone recognizes him and they talk about his relationship with Marissa, using both of their names several times. He walks into an apartment building and knocks on a door. He speaks casually and a bit uncomfortably to Marissa. Marissa doesn’t notice it (she finds it difficult to stay on one topic for too long and doesn’t pay much attention to Sam), but Sam seems bored, anxious, and upset. In the background, a banner is unfurled from a window directly across the street. We can’t read it yet.

They walk outside, Marissa first. She looks up and sees the banner. A look of shock and joy fills her face. Sam is facing the other way to shut the door. When he turns around, Marissa is hugging him, shouting “yes,” almost in tears. He is confused, looks up, sees the banner (which the audience hasn’t seen yet) and his eyes grow wide with shock and horror. Finally, the audience sees the banner, which reads “MARRY ME MARISSA.”

Back in Marissa’s room, Sam sits quietly on a chair, dumbfounded as Marissa excitedly calls friends and family telling them Sam proposed to her.

Sam, still dumbstruck, eats alone in a diner. A friend comes up to him and greets him warmly.

RITCHE: Sam! Sam! Wow, I heard you proposed! That’s huge! Why didn’t you tell me?
SAM: Tell you?
RITCHE: Yeah! I had no idea, what’s up?
SAM: I never planned on proposing.
RITCHE: What?
SAM: The banner. You heard about the banner?
RITCHE: Yeah, you put the banner in the other window.
SAM: No I didn’t. That wasn’t my banner.
RITCHE: What?
SAM: Wasn’t my banner.
RITCHE: What are you talking about? Of course it was your banner.
SAM: (waking up for the first time) Are you not listening to me? I didn’t put the banner there, man. It wasn’t my banner! I didn’t want to propose to Marissa. If anything, I’ve had enough with her! Someone else put the banner up.
RITCHE: Who would do that?
SAM: I don’t know. I don’t know who would do that. Someone sick and someone twisted and someone who hates me.
RITCHE: Why didn’t you tell her it wasn’t your banner?
SAM: When the fuck was I supposed to tell her? When she was hanging all over me crying over me telling me how happy she was? Or maybe when she was calling her mother, yeah maybe then I should have told her.
RITCHE: Well how can you not tell her?
SAM: It never came up!
RITCHE: Never came up? What, do you think this kind of shit usually comes up? The girlfriend for how long says “is that your banner?”
SAM: Six months! Six months, what is that? We barely know each other! My parents dated for five and a half years before they got married and they still got divorced! And now you’re telling me she’s expecting a proposal at six motherfucking months?
RITCHE: Well what are you going to do?
SAM: What can I do?