Female Lead stands alone on the balcony or back porch of a house that is being used to host a high school party. A Drake song is playing in the background just faintly enough to avoid copyright. Male Lead walks up behind her. They both hold red Solo cups.
Male Lead – Hey! What are you doing out here, Female Lead? Why’d you leave the party?
Female Lead – Oh hey, Male Lead. I just came out here to clear my head.
Male Lead – Are you feeling alright?
Female Lead – Well, to be honest, Male Lead, I’m kind of anxious. It’s the kind of anxious that makes me seems vulnerable and therefore obtainable, and in this way I’m humanized to an extent that the audience forgets about my gymnast body and symmetrical face.
Male Lead – Wow. I’m currently saying just the right thing to make you realize that I have the social capital of a high school quarterback without any of the toxic masculinity or emotional unavailability of the real world parallels of said archetype.
Enter Gay Best Friend & One Black Friend, holding red Solo cups lest anyone forget it’s a goddamn party
Gay Best Friend – Hey, Female Lead, what’s up?
Female Lead – Oh hey, Gay Best Friend.
Gay Best Friend – We were looking all over for you!
Gay Best Friend looks to Male Lead
Gay Best Friend – Sorry, we should introduce ourselves. My name is “it doesn’t matter.”
One Black Friend – And I’m just black and I exist.
Male Lead – It’s so nice to meet you both! I won’t be seen on camera with either of you for the rest of the movie, but my simple recognition of you two as humans-that-are-alive will catapult me from random-hot-dude to central-love-interest.
Gay Best Friend – That’s so interesting! You will only see me in this film again when Female Lead is eating pizza in the cafeteria and while she is crying in front of her bedroom tapestry.
One Black Friend – This is my last line of the entire film.
Gay Best Friend – I’m saying something funny! I’m not quite a caricature of a gay teen, but I might as well be!
Male Lead laughs
Male Lead – I’m white and straight, but I laughed at your joke to seem accepting of historically marginalized groups, so now the audience can lust after me guilt-free.
Gay Best Friend & One Black Friend laugh and exit, still holding red Solo cups (duh)
Female Lead – OMG I love them.
Male Lead – I love them too, because doing so makes me more hot.
Female Lead – I’m going to take a step closer to you now. I’m doing this because it suggests I’m interested in you and sexually available. However, this does not in any way corrupt my image of being virginal, which I established by wearing a dumpy hoodie three scenes ago.
Male Lead – I’m going to ask if I can kiss you now, as doing so makes me seem equal parts respectably progressive and romantically old-fashioned.
Male and Female Leads’ breathing intensifies
Female Lead – I drop a pile of notebooks every time I pass you in the hallway.
Male Lead – I’m played by an actor named Chris, Zach, or Noah Centineo.
Female Lead – I have a diary that my romantic rival will use against me in the 3rd Act.
Male Lead – I drive a Jeep Wrangler.
Female Lead – My parents are either dead or divorced.
Male Lead – Same. Also one of my siblings was killed in a sailing accident.
The pair embraces
Female Lead – I think I’m falling for you, Male Lead.
Male Lead – I think everyone is, Female Lead, for literally no reason whatsoever.
They kiss
—P. Rothpletz
