---INTERVIEW – ZOE PARK---
[Zoe sits on the sun-bleached wooden steps of the school bleachers, her beloved ukulele resting in her lap. She isn't playing it. Her fingers trace the grain of the wood, her usual vibrant energy subdued by a pensive frown.]
ZOE: Planning a birthday is like writing a song. You want every note to be perfect, every chord to bring joy. But what happens when the person you're playing for… doesn't recognize the melody anymore?
INT. CHEVIOT HILLS HIGH CAFETERIA - DAY
Sunlight streamed through the cafeteria's tall, smudged windows, casting long, warm rectangles across the scuffed tiled floor. The air hummed with the clatter of trays and a hundred overlapping conversations. At their usual corner table, a volcano of organized chaos had erupted. Vibrant fabric swatches for tablecloths were pinned under a half-eaten carton of chocolate milk. A detailed, hand-drawn schematic of a trebuchet (labeled "Jell-O Launch Mk. II - MOSTLY SAFE") was weighted down by a plastic tray. In the center sat a perfect, miniature model of a Dance Dance Revolution machine, crafted from balsa wood and painted with astonishing detail. Zoe's glitter-covered notebook lay open, its pages a riot of color-coded lists and heart-dotted 'i's.
---
ZOE (Beaming, holding up a sketch of a pixelated cake): Okay, people! Operation: Birthday Bonanza is a go! The theme is Retro Arcade. My uncle's friend got us a real DDR machine! The cake will be an 8-bit version of Travis's face made of Rice Krispie treats and fondant!
LILA (Without looking up from her laptop, where a complex spreadsheet titled "B-Day Logistics (V.4)" is open): Calorie count is astronomical. I've allocated a budget buffer for extra insulin.
MATT (Holds up his phone to show a website): Custom kazoo. Engraved. "World's Okayest Musician." He's gonna lose his mind.
ETHAN (Stealing a fry from Matt's tray): He'll lose something. My will to live, probably.
JOEY (Sitting perfectly straight, he holds up a series of color-coded index cards): Card #1: Venue. Zoe's house. Confirmed. Noise ordinance waiver requested but not guaranteed.
(Holds up a green card) Card #2: Guest list. Forty-two confirmed. Travis's entire chem class RSVP'd 'yes' after he turned a lab experiment into a working smoke machine.
(Holds up a yellow card) Card #3: Zoe's emotional state. Currently: high excitement, low sleep. Risk of pre-party burnout is at seventy percent. Advised consumption of green tea over Red Bull.
(Zoe's smile is brilliant, fueled by pure, unadulterated joy. The door to the cafeteria swings open, and TRAVIS shuffles in. The sight of him is like a record scratch in their bubble of excitement. He isn't wearing his signature Hawaiian shirt but a faded, grey hoodie, the cuffs frayed. His shoulders are hunched, and his eyes are fixed on the floor as if navigating a minefield. He moves with a heavy lethargy that is completely alien to him. )
ZOE: Travis! Over here! You will not believe what my dad scored! A vintage Donkey Kong cabinet! It needs a new flyback transformer, but—
TRAVIS (Slumping into a chair like a sack of potatoes): Yeah. Cool.
(The festive energy at the table evaporates, replaced by a confused silence.)
MATT: You okay, man? You look like you just found out your favorite YouTube channel got demonetized.
TRAVIS: I'm fine. Just tired.
LILA (Finally looks up from her screen): Is it the calculus test? I have a summarized, color-coded study guide if you need it. It's laminated.
TRAVIS: It's not the test.
(Zoe leans in close, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.)
ZOE: Is it the party? Because if you're not feeling the arcade theme, we can pivot! We were this close to a 'Medieval Times' theme. I already have a working trebuchet design that's mostly safe! It launches Jell-O!
(For a brief, heartening second, a flicker of the old Travis appears. A small, genuine smile touches his lips.)
TRAVIS: A trebuchet? Really?
ZOE: Really!
(The smile vanishes as quickly as it came, wiped away by an invisible hand.)
TRAVIS: Arcade is fine, Zoe. It's great. Don't worry about it.
(He stands up abruptly, his chair legs screeching against the floor. He doesn't look at any of them.)
TRAVIS: Not hungry. See you guys later.
(He walks away, leaving his unopened lunch bag on the table. The group watches him go, a silent, confused cloud settling over their meticulously planned party table.)
---CUT TO INTERVIEW – MATT LEDFORD---
MATT: Travis is the human equivalent of a golden retriever. If he's sad, the whole world feels cloudy. It's, like, a law of physics.
EXT. LEDFORD DRIVEWAY - LATE AFTERNOON
The late afternoon sun cast long, distorted shadows across the neat suburban driveway. The air was still warm, filled with the scent of freshly cut grass from a nearby lawn. The group was clustered on the pavement, their bikes discarded on the perfectly manicured lawn. Zoe paced back and forth like a caged tiger, her footsteps the only sound breaking the uneasy quiet.
ZOE (Wringing the strap of her ukulele case): It's not nothing! He blew off helping me test the trebuchet. He blew it off. He said he had to 'help his dad with something.'
JOEY (Leaning against Matt's car, observing a monarch butterfly on a hydrangea bush): His energy is off. It's not just sadness. It's… shame.
ETHAN (Slouching on the curb): Shame? For what? Not knowing all the words to 'Bohemian Rhapsody'? Because we've all seen that video, and the shame is justified.
JOEY: Deeper than that.
(At that moment, Travis appeared at the end of the tree-lined street. He was walking with his head down, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his grey hoodie, kicking a lone pebble with a scuffed sneaker.)
ZOE: There he is! And he's not heading home. His house is the other way.
MATT: Stakeout!
(Matt immediately dove behind a large, manicured boxwood hedge. The others, after a shared look of uncertainty, reluctantly joined him. They crouched in the mulch (except Joey, who camouflaged behind the tree with a bundle of branches), peering through the dense, dark green leaves like a band of incredibly un-stealthy detectives.)
They watched Travis walk with a slow, aimless gait. He passed the park with its empty, swinging swings. He passed the 7-Eleven without a glance. Finally, he sat down on a sun-bleached green bus bench, slumping forward with his elbows on his knees, staring at a crack in the pavement as if it held the secrets of the universe.
MATT (Whispering): He just… sits.
ETHAN: He's brooding. It's what people do when they're too cheap for actual therapy.
(Zoe's face, visible between the leaves, was etched with a deep, aching worry. This wasn't her Travis. After twenty minutes of watching him sit perfectly still, he got up and began the slow trudge back. The group scrambled. Matt pretended to be intensely interested in a specific dandelion. Lila began frantically reorganizing the contents of her backpack. Ethan attempted to lean casually against the hedge, which immediately rustled and gave way, depositing him unceremoniously onto the lawn.)
(Travis saw it all. He stopped a few feet away, his hands still in his pockets. His eyes, usually so bright and open, were shadowed and guarded.)
TRAVIS: What are you guys doing?
MATT (Voice an octave too high): Just… hanging. You know. This… hedge. Fascinating. Weird? No, you are weird…
ZOE (Stepping out from her hiding spot, her voice soft but firm): We were concerned. You've been so down. You can talk to us, you know. Whatever it is.
TRAVIS: I said I'm fine, Zoe. It's nothing.
ZOE: It doesn't seem like nothing. You didn't even want to talk about your party. Your birthday! You love your birthday! You start planning it in June! And that's the only reason why we couldn't give you a surprise party!
TRAVIS (Snapping, his voice sharpening): Well, maybe I don't want a party this year, okay? Did you ever think of that? Maybe I don't want a big stupid thing with a DDR machine and a cake with my face on it!
(Zoe flinched as if he'd physically slapped her. The words 'big stupid thing' hung in the air between them, toxic and heavy. She'd poured her heart into every detail, and he'd just reduced it to garbage.)
MATT: Travis…
TRAVIS (His frustration boiling over): No! You don't have to fix everything, Zoe! You don't have to meddle in my business all the time! Just back off!
(The moment the words left his mouth, he regretted it. He saw the light in Zoe's eyes extinguish, replaced by pure, unadulterated hurt. Her face fell. She took a small, stumbling step backward. The anger drained from Travis instantly, replaced by a horror that was far worse.)
TRAVIS (Voice small, desperate): Zoe… I… I didn't mean that. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
(Zoe didn't yell. She didn't cry. She just looked at him, her expression unreadable, and nodded slowly.)
ZOE (Her voice a quiet whisper): Okay.
(She turned, picked up her ukulele case from where she'd dropped it, and walked away without another word, her figure getting smaller down the long, empty street. The silence she left behind was deafening. Travis looked at the others, his eyes pleading.)
TRAVIS: I didn't mean it. You know I didn't mean it, right?
MATT (His voice uncharacteristically cool): We know.
JOEY (Quietly, stating a fact): But she doesn't.
---CUT TO INTERVIEW – ETHAN PARKER---
ETHAN: It was like watching a puppy get kicked. By another, sadder puppy. The whole ecosystem of our group was thrown out of whack. And I hate whack ecosystems. They're inefficient.
INT. JOEY'S STUDIO - EVENING
The basement studio was a sanctuary of order, a stark contrast to the emotional turmoil upstairs. Canvases leaned against white walls, and the sharp, clean scent of turpentine and fresh paint hung in the air. Zoe sat on a pristine, grey rug in the center of the room, not crying, but methodically restringing her ukulele with intense focus. Her movements were precise, controlled. Buddy had laid his head in her lap, his big, brown eyes looking up at her, offering silent comfort.
ZOE (Without looking up): He told me to back off. He called my plans 'stupid.'
JOEY (Sitting cross-legged opposite her, giving her his full attention): He was lashing out. The words were aimed at you, but the emotion wasn't. It was coming from somewhere else.
ZOE (Looks up, her eyes are clear and insightful): I know. That's the weird part. I'm not even that mad. I'm just… worried. That wasn't anger, Joey. That was fear. He's scared of something.
(Joey nodded. Her emotional intelligence often surpassed everyone else's. She could hear the dissonant chord in a person's soul when others just heard noise.)
JOEY: So what's the plan?
(A determined glint replaced the last of the hurt in her eyes.)
ZOE: We find out what he's scared of.
(After a moment of silence. Joey again started in low and soft voice.)
Joey: Zoe, don't want to disturb your determination but I wanted to ask you something.
(Zoe looked at Joey because she had never heard him speak so softly)
Joey: How did you enter my room? Because I know for certain that I locked my room closed as I always do.
(At the moment, sweat can be seen forming on Zoe's forehead and without a second to waste she bolted out of the room. And few moments later, people can see a guy chasing after a terrified girl around the street of the neighborhood.)
---CUT TO INTERVIEW – Joey Dunphy---
Joey (sitting on the couch with 5 pairs of keychains with keys to his room and RV): Turns out they were hanging out all over my places, whether I was there or not. (massaging his temple) Now I know that I wasn't hallucinating, I knew my stuffs weren't moving on its own.
EXT. INDUSTRIAL AREA / TRAILER PARK - NEXT DAY
The next day after school, the group dynamic was strained and quiet. Travis had tried to apologize to Zoe again, his words a jumbled mess of regret. She had accepted it with a quiet "it's okay," but a new, careful distance remained between them. When the final bell rang, they let Travis get a head start, then followed.
He didn't take the bus. He didn't turn toward the familiar streets of their neighborhood with its manicured lawns and two-story homes. Instead, he walked with that same heavy pace toward the older part of town, where the train tracks ran like scars through the landscape. The air here smelled different—of diesel, hot asphalt, and distant, sweet decay from the train yard. Graffiti decorated the concrete sides of the railway bridge they passed under, a riot of color and cryptic tags.
LILA (Whispering as they duck behind a rusting chain-link fence): This is wrong. His residential zone is in the Brookfield quadrant. This is a 1.7-mile deviation. The demographic and property value indexes are completely different.
ETHAN: Maybe he's joining a fight club. Though his form is probably terrible. Too much flailing.
(They followed him past a closed-down auto body shop, its windows boarded up, and into a large, dusty lot tucked behind a warehouse. It wasn't a neighborhood of houses. It was a trailer park. A quiet, well-kept one, with patches of struggling grass and neat gravel pathways, but a trailer park nonetheless. The homes were modest rectangles of white and silver, with small porches and satellite dishes. And Travis was walking right into the heart of it.)
(Their collective confusion was a tangible thing. They watched, hidden behind a large, industrial dumpster that smelled of old grease, as he stopped in front of a small, white trailer. It had a little wooden porch with two steps. A faded, hand-painted "Miller's Residence" sign was propped lopsidedly next to the steps. Defiantly beautiful hanging baskets of petunias and geraniums, clearly the work of a professional, added a splash of vibrant color against the white siding.
Travis paused at the bottom of the steps, his shoulders slumping again, as if the weight of the world settled back onto him the moment he arrived here. This was his destination. This was home. He took a deep, bracing breath, preparing to put on a face before he went inside.
He never got the chance.
He turned around slowly, his eyes scanning the lot. He didn't look surprised. He looked utterly resigned. He'd known they were there all along.)
TRAVIS (Calling out, his voice flat and tired, echoing slightly in the dusty air): You can come out. I saw Matt's bright red sneakers behind the dumpster like a mile ago. You guys are the worst spies in history.
(One by one, they emerged from their terrible hiding spots—Matt from behind the foul-smelling dumpster, Lila from beside a rusting pickup truck on cinder blocks, Ethan from a cluster of overgrown, scratchy bushes, Zoe and Joey from the deep shadow of the railway bridge. They walked toward him in a silent, shame-faced procession, their shoes crunching on the gravel. Travis didn't look angry. He just looked exhausted. And profoundly sad.
He met Zoe's gaze, and in that look, the last of his defenses crumbled. The secret was out. There was no point in hiding it anymore. He gestured weakly toward the small, white trailer with its beautiful flowers.)
TRAVIS: You wanna come in?
***To Be Continued***