(insert title here)

Cast of Characters
MILLIE, 18/female. Rarely seen at parties with her pants on.
Went from the ruler of the school to the scum of the Earth in 24
hours.
ENYA, 16/female. Typically seen with her nose in a book, when
she is seen around school at all. She’s become so proficient at
hiding from the student body that most of them hardly know she
exists.

Setting: Present day. Anytown, USA. The stairwell in the back of

the high school that nobody ever uses.

CONTENT ADVISORY:
This play contains themes/mentions of
- bullying
- teen alcohol use
- chronic illness, including mentions of hospitalization and
feeding tube use
- teen sexuality
- non-consensual sharing of intimate photos
Darkness. Pop music plays loudly, drowning out all other noise.
Something early-2000s, nostalgic but still relevant.

A sliver of fluorescent light cuts through the darkness: a door

opening. ENYA, 16/female, is barely illuminated, wearing a pair
of bulky over-the-ear headphones. She sits on the bottom step of
a stairwell, fingers flying across her phone’s keyboard. The
screen casts a glow on her face, virtually the only part of her
that is visible.
A GIRL speaks, but the music drowns out the sound.

GIRL:
Hey.

ENYA doesn’t look up.

GIRL:
Hey, hello-o?

ENYA finally looks at the GIRL, waiting for her to do something.

The GIRL motions for ENYA to remove her headphones.
With a huff, ENYA takes them off.
The music stops abruptly, as though the bubble separating ENYA
from the world has popped.

ENYA:
… Hey?

GIRL:
What are you doing here?

ENYA:
You tell me first.

GIRL:
I asked you first.

ENYA:
Eating lunch.

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 GIRL:
In the dark. Alone.

ENYA:
Maybe I’m a vampire and this is my lair.

GIRL:
That was… weird.

ENYA:
Okay, so?

GIRL:
Do you get that a lot?

(ENYA knows what the GIRL is asking. She refuses to reply.)

GIRL:
That you’re weird?

ENYA:
( … )
Yes.
( … )
What do you want?

GIRL:
I was hoping to be alone.

ENYA:
We have the same idea.
( … )
If you’ve started looking for staircases, it means all the
bathrooms are taken, right? There’s an armchair in the
nonfiction section of the library if you want to try there. Ms.
Phillips might give you a hard time, but if you help her shelve
some books, she’ll let you hang out in there whenever you want.

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 GIRL:
I need to be somewhere people won’t see me.
( … )
So. Uh. What’s up with you?

ENYA:
What do you mean?

GIRL:
There’s a perfectly good cafeteria with hot meals and real
chairs in this very building.

ENYA:
Okay.

GIRL:
So why aren’t you there?

ENYA:
You tell me first.

GIRL:
( … )
Uh… I really don’t think I can—

ENYA:
Okay.

GIRL:
What?

ENYA:
If you don’t want to talk about it, it’s cool. If it’s so weird
to tell me about it, you can go back to the cafeteria.

GIRL:
I, um…

3
 ENYA:
I’ve been spending my lunch periods in here for the past two and
a half months. Nobody has ever come in here with me. Not even a
janitor.

GIRL:
Yeah… ?

ENYA:
So why are you here?

GIRL:
(after a moment of hesitation; an obvious lie)
I’m new. I don’t know anybody.

ENYA:
(playing along)
Really? Are you already on the school Snap story? It’s wild.
This girl’s nudes got leaked. Did you see it?

(The GIRL is paralyzed with fear and shame.)

ENYA:
(a moment of honesty)
Hi, Millie.

The GIRL— MILLIE, 18/female— sinks to the ground.

ENYA turns on the lights.

MILLIE:
No, don’t look at me—

ENYA:
I know what you look like already.

MILLIE tearfully looks up.

MILLIE:
… Enya?

4
 ENYA:
Hi.

The two share a tense moment, emotions from their past flooding
back.

MILLIE:
We haven’t talked since sixth grade.

ENYA:
Yeah. I know.

MILLIE:
It sucks that we grew apart.

ENYA:
Don’t.
( … )
Don’t act like this happened naturally. We didn’t ‘grow apart’,
you made sport out of laughing at me

MILLIE:
I—

ENYA:
Do you really want to stay here? With me? Or are you just scared
to show your face ever again, so you’re hiding in a stairwell
you thought was empty?

MILLIE:
I’m not scared—

ENYA:
Good. You shouldn’t be. You’ve got nothing to hide.

ENYA contemplates what to say next. She decides.

ENYA:
Everyone in school’s already seen your tits anyway.

5
 MILLIE:
Oh, shut up.

ENYA:
Those are really cute pants, though.

MILLIE:
… Really? They’re new.

ENYA:
Yeah, really.
( … )
It’s a shame, honestly. I wish you knew how to keep ‘em on.

MILLIE buries her head in her hands.

MILLIE:
Please stop.

ENYA:
Why?

MILLIE:
I—

ENYA:
You had your mom bake cupcakes for my ninth birthday to bring to
school, knowing full well that I couldn’t eat them. You called
me ‘spaghetti nose’ when I got my first tube put in.

MILLIE:
Enya, I’m sorry—

ENYA:
You wrote ‘have fun in the hospital’ on my card in fifth grade
when I had to get my J-tube in.

A long silence. MILLIE is nearly overtaken by guilt.

6
 MILLIE:
I feel bad about it now.

ENYA:
Then stop acting like that.

MILLIE:
I did. In sixth grade.

ENYA:
It feels great, huh? When everyone sees you, looking so… so
vulnerable?

MILLIE:
Look, I know you hate me or whatever, but—

ENYA:
I don’t hate you.
( … )
I hate what you did to me. I hate what you did to everyone else
in our grade. But I don’t hate you.

MILLIE:
That’s in the past. Can we drop it? Please?

ENYA considers, then—

ENYA:
Why’d Jackson break up with you?

MILLIE:
What?

ENYA:
Why?

MILLIE:
I, I don’t know, he just… he started acting weird and I don’t
know why, and I—

7
 ENYA:
See, this is why people don’t like you! You start problems you
can’t fix. You don’t admit to the things you do wrong! Some
people actually think you have a God complex.

MILLIE:
Okay, I know I messed up with Jackson.

ENYA:
What happened?

MILLIE goes quiet. She tries to hide her guilt. It doesn’t work.

MILLIE:
I went to a party at Aubrey’s house, and I got drunk, and Daniel
was there, and he was drunk, too, and… and we…

ENYA:
Can I… ?

MILLIE:
Whatever. Yeah.

ENYA:
You have to say it. Out loud. Admit it to yourself.

MILLIE:
I already know what I did.

ENYA:
Then you can say it out loud.

MILLIE:
I… why do I have to?

ENYA:
You don’t have to.

8
 MILLIE:
Good, then I’m done. I’ll just stay here until graduation.

ENYA:
So you’re gonna hide at the bottom of an empty stairwell until
May?

MILLIE:
Probably, yeah.

ENYA:
That’s… okay, I was hoping you’d say something different there.

MILLIE:
Like what?

ENYA:
Like… ‘oh, well, it sounds so much less appealing out loud, so,
no. I’m not going to do that.’

MILLIE:
It sounds like hell, but going out there and dealing with
Jackson and hearing everyone laughing at me sounds worse.

ENYA:
The first step to fixing anything is admitting there’s something
wrong.

MILLIE:
I already did that.

ENYA:
No, you didn’t. You said there’s a problem, not what it is.

MILLIE:
But you said I don’t have to.

9
 ENYA:
You don’t, if you want to spend the rest of your senior year
hiding in a stairwell that smells like rat droppings.

MILLIE:
I don’t know. I don’t think I can.

ENYA:
Don’t think at all! Just let yourself admit what you did.

A long silence. Too long.

ENYA waits for MILLIE to speak.
MILLIE waits for ENYA to speak.
It repeats. And repeats. And repeats.
Finally, just as it seems MILLIE is gaining courage…

ENYA:
Why do you always lie?

MILLIE:
Was that supposed to be an attack or something?

ENYA:
No. I’m just asking. You’ve done this since we were younger.

MILLIE:
No, I haven’t.

ENYA:
In fifth grade, when your parents were getting a divorce, you
said it was because your dad was going to move to Los Angeles
and work on movie sets and meet the casts of every Disney show
and movie ever made.

MILLIE:
… Okay, so maybe I’ve fibbed—

ENYA:
Come on.

10
MILLIE exhales guiltily. She runs her hands through her hair.

MILLIE:
Good things don’t really happen to me.

ENYA:
What?

MILLIE:
So I make up better stories.

ENYA:
Oh.

A long pause. MILLIE looks at ENYA.

ENYA doesn’t look back.

ENYA:
I blamed everyone else when I couldn’t grow a thicker skin.

MILLIE:
… I spent all of elementary making your life a living hell.

ENYA:
I didn’t ever stand up for myself. I was a pushover.

MILLIE:
You really were.

They laugh, albeit slightly awkwardly.

The tension between them begins to fall away. Slowly, but
nonetheless.

MILLIE:
To be fair, anyone was a pushover, considering how…
(She struggles to find the words, then she mimes pushing
something away from her body.)
Hard I pushed them.

11
ENYA smiles. She is still hurt by MILLIE’s past actions towards
her, but she does not hold them against her anymore.

MILLIE:
This… my lying has ruined so much.

ENYA:
Yeah. But it doesn’t have to anymore.

MILLIE stands up and steps up onto the first stair.

MILLIE:
(in a nervous confession)
I was a shitty person. I did shitty things.
( … )
I bullied you. And lots of other people, because it made me feel
strong.
( … )
I got drunk and cheated on Jackson.
( … )
And now everyone in that cafeteria has seen my tits. So. Now I
get to deal with that.

ENYA:
( … )
It’s a start.

MILLIE gives a tight-lipped smile and sits down on the second

step from the bottom.
ENYA looks up at her.
ENYA takes a deep breath.

ENYA:
I’m done marinating in self-pity and playing the victim.

MILLIE:
Good.
( … )
Me too.

12
 ENYA smiles at MILLIE.
MILLIE looks down at the step next to herself.
She pats the empty space.
ENYA moves up to the second step and sits next to MILLIE.

MILLIE:
Sorry for being so awful to you.

ENYA:
Sorry for letting it slide for so long. And for not… doing this
sooner.

MILLIE:
Doing what, watching me have a mental breakdown in a stairwell
because everyone with Internet has seen me naked?

ENYA:
Not what I meant.
( … )
You know— at least, to me— sometimes, I think it’s better to
have fewer friends. As long as you know you can trust them.

MILLIE:
I’ll get used to it.
( … )
So, are we going to be eating lunch in a stairwell every day
till May?

ENYA:
Depends. Will you be here tomorrow?

A bell rings.
ENYA and MILLIE jump up and grab their things.

ENYA starts for the nearest door, but MILLIE begins climbing the
the stairs to the top.

ENYA:
What are you—

13
 MILLIE:
Come on! I’ve never seen the school from up here before.

ENYA agrees.
They both run up the stairs.
A heavy door audibly swings open. The sounds of a school hallway
grow louder until—

The stairwell goes dark.

The sound of the door slamming closed echoes through the
corridor.

End of Play.

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