[open up on Jillian, two nights before graduation, shes driven up to the bridge, and shes looking down at the traffic underneath contemplating suicide, she has her pills in her hand, staring them down noticing every line in the prescription bottle, she takes a final set of them and swallows them then she slowly climbs up the rail the wind is blowing behind her shes thinking]
[voiceover]
Just do it already, your no good to anyone, your life is a dead end,…so this is how it ends, quick, I wonder if it even hurts, its not like you could have ever been something, your just a dumb slut, everyone already knows you want to do this, they don’t try to help you, what are you wasting time for, just do it already, one step and your gone, its all over, simple as that, just fade to black, take a deep breath like its your last, and jump, think of it as therapy, your doing the world a favor, no ones going to miss you, no ones going to yell at you anymore, you cant screw anything up anymore, they always said you’d be lucky to get out of life alive, maybe they were right, you can do this, it’s the bravest you’ve ever been, you were always scared of everything, love, life, happiness,all you ever wanted to do was escape, you already ruined all hope for a future why not cut your losses, you don’t have to be afraid anymore
[she begins to cry, and pulls out her phone she calls up Lillith]
Lillith: hello?
Jillian: im going to jump
Lillith: no, you cant do this don’t jump, think about it, your life is just beginning
Jillian: its already doomed, I don’t know what else to do
Lillith: it’s the pills jilli
Jillian: no its not, its me, im pathetic and worthless and I don’t want to live anymore, im sorry Ive been such a burden to everyone, I just want you all to know that im doing this to relieve the stress, im no good to anyone anyway, I never have been
Lillith: ( sobbing) that’s not true Jilli, I need you, you’re my friend I don’t know what I would do without you, where are you
Jillian: sunset bridge
Lillith: im coming, stay still don’t move just breath and think about
[cut to black for a few seconds, continuing with the voiceover]
Someone needs, me/ its just a lie she doesn’t need you your worthless its just like mother said/I don’t want to do this/ I need to do this/ it doesn’t have to end this way I could be something/all I know how to be is a failure
[the voices swirl and repeat and overlap and jillian puts her hands on her head wiping the tears from her sobbing eyes and finally in a dramatic fashion she throws her pills off the bridge and turns to get off the bridge when she loses her balance, just as Lillith arrives, she slips and grabs the rails and dangles there trying to find the will to pull herself up she gets over the rail with her head and her arms but is struggling and slippin, Lillith grabs her by the arms and pulls her up]
Lillith: don’t ever do that again, you matter jilli, you matter, we already lost Mary this year, don’t make us lose another friend, I don’t think I can take it
Jillian: its done, its done
[fade to white come back in on Gabriel in the bathroom getting ready practicing his speech]
Gabriel: and so we leave here with a million and one possibilities ahead of us, knowing that what we learned at Francis Academy will forever stay with us, we may forget how to conjugate verbs, or how to properly factor algebraic equations, but we learned so much more, we learned how to speak out, how to be human, how to treat people, to learn from the past and correct the mistakes you made, in the end the difference between the bum on the corner and the president is determination and the knowledge that its not how many times we make mistakes that defines us but what we learn from them that says who we are as people as adults and that’s what we leave here as today, we came as children we were molded and forged well but we leave here today as individuals each taking something different from the experience we leave here as mature adults better than when we came, the best of luck to everyone one of us in our future. . . . . okay that sounds good
[Andrew walks in on him]
Andrew: nice speech, Mr. Valedictorian
Gabriel: what are you doing here?
Andrew: I came to see you, tomorrow is the last day and I don’t want it to be the last time I see you, you and I both know I didn’t feel anything from Anna’s kiss, you and I both know our entire relationship was a scam, and you and I both know ill always want to be with you
Gabriel: beautiful words but its too bad they come from the mouth of such a snake?
Andrew: why so bitter
Gabriel: its sad you can be poetic like this in private but when it comes to saying what you really feel when it counts you leave me high and dry looking like an idiot, you might as well paint the Sistine chapel and show only me, that way I can look even worse when I tell everyone to look and its covered over
Andrew: you know you want me
Gabriel: yeah I want a toilet made of solid gold but its not in the cards either is it
Andrew: I can be
Gabriel: you see you say that now, but how can I know if you mean it, we’ve been at this for how long now?
Andrew: highschools over Gabriel, tomorrow none of it will matter, I can finally be who I am without judgment you and I can finally be together
Gabriel: yeah well unfortunately it matters to me, now that you don’t have to live up to peer pressure and social expectations we can be together, do you even realize how demeaning that sounds, im not a secret Andrew and you blew your chances when you treated me like one, so yeah you can come out tomorrow and be yourself and go to college and be accepted, great for you, but don’t expect a parade from me, when I begged you to be with me and you couldn’t even be honest with me
Andrew: hey I was with you remember
Gabriel: yeah in private, meanwhile your still saving face with that diluted tramp Anna playing it off like your straight as if it weren’t transparent, and you honestly thought I wasn’t going to find out, its insulting, and hurtful, and quite honestly I’m not interested, for four years I held you up on this pedestal, and now I realize after all this shit that ive been through it finally makes sense, your simply not the person I thought you were
Andrew: but I can be
Gabriel: no you cant, seasons change, styles change, hell even drug habbits change, but once a coward always a coward, people rarely change, and quite frankly you’ll never be mature enough for me, you cant even be comfortable with yourself how can you expect me to make a life and be comfortable with you
Andrew: I cant do it without you, I want to be the person you want me to be I always will want to be what you want me to be, I just need help
[he kisses Gabriel very passionately and he leaves Gabriel is left breathless and slides down against the wall and burry’s his head in his hands/ blackout/ come back in on Lillith who is at her mothers house to get her cap and gown, they get in an altercation and lilliths mother starts to beat her up, Lillith kicks her in the stomach grabs her cap and gown and runs out the door getting in her car and driving away calling the cops, the police come to apprehend her mother but by the time they get there she has skipped town]
[cut back in on lolliee as she gets home from picking up her cap and gown, she gets to the mailbox and grabs the mail inside, she walks into the house and starts opening up the letters addressed to her from the colleges that she applied to she begins to read aloud]
Lollie: dear , ms Hamilton I regret to inform you [she tosses it aside] dear miss Hamilton, we regret to inform you [tosses another aside and opens another, she does this at least five more times, as her eyes start to well up then she gets to the last letter in the stack taking a deep breath before she opens it, she unfolds it and begins to read] dear miss Hamilton, first of all we would like to thank you for your interest in our learning institution, unfortunately we regret to inform you that your request for admission has been denied, BULLSHIT!
[she gets up and throws her stack of letters at the wall throwing a tantrum then picks up her phone and calls lillith who does not answer she leaves a voice message]
Lolliee: Lillith pick up the damn phone I’m in a crisis situation here damnit [she throws the phone], I’m not gonna let this bum me out, I’m going to enjoy this graduation whether or not I have a future after according to the education system in this country [she picks up her phone piecing it back together and rapidly pressing the keys as she lifts it to her ear and starts to talk], yo, I’m looking to celebrate, what do you have that’s good, I need something that will make me forget, I want to be so damn high ill have to take a space shuttle to come down, great ill meet you tomorrow, I don’t give a damn if I’ve been in class drunk before I think I can handle a small ceremony, alright then goodbye ill see you there
[black out/ open back up on the graduation ceremony]
[before everything goes down, Lolliee meets up with someone in the parking lot who gives her moonshine which she stores in her trunk after filling up a water bottle full of it/ Lillith is paranoid and sketched out as she gets dressed with the rest of the girls and Gabriel, they all congratulate him on being the valedictorian, etc. when we slow down and zoom in, Andrew comes to visit him when he’s putting on his final vestiges]
Gabriel: hello Andrew
Andrew: you look great Gabriel, you really do
Gabriel: something tells me your not just here to congratulate me
[during this time, Jordan walks outside the door and pauses unseen to eavesdrop on the conversation]
Andrew: I swear to god ive changed I dumped anna for good, I even told my mom come on, why wont you give me a chance
Gabriel: because you wasted the many I gave you before and betrayed my trust, you lied to my face when you said you’d finally come to grips with yourself, I love you, I do, not as a lover, but as a person, almost like a protégé, I want to be friends, I really do, in time, when your mature enough, but I know I can never be with you because if it were meant to be, it would have been back when I had no doubts but you weren’t ready and I moved on, im not going to be that emotional cutter anymore, I cant enable you, I want you to be comfortable with yourself and I wish nothing but the best of you, but for us to have a future of being in each others life, you have to understand that im finished with you and the entire concept of there ever being or ever having been an “us”
Andrew: I understand, remember me, because I don’t think I can have just half of you, I cant be just friends I don’t know how
Gabriel: its funny you said that because I told you that when you had your chance, but you know that’s just shows me you don’t know what love is, because im in love now, with someone ive always been in love with, and hes not with me but I will suffer through being just friends forever if I have to, just as long as he stays around because I don’t know how I can go on without him in my life, I hope you truly find that one day, because that’s what love is
Andrew: goodbye Gabriel
Gabriel: goodbye Andrew
[they hug one last time, a long sweet embrace like that of someone giving a final embrace to a terminally ill relative and then they go their separate ways]
[black out commercial]
[the ceremony begins and the graduating class walks in]
Principle: welcome everyone to the Francis Academy class of 2011 graduation ceremony, it’s been a long journey to this point, over thirteen years of books learning making and breaking friendships, and then they arrived at Francis
[slight laugh from the crowd like that of after an indecipherable joke that’s been made by George bush during a press conference]
Principle: but seriously, the senior class will be leaving on their way and they are some of the most bright and unique and devoted young people I have ever instructed and I’m certain they will have bright futures ahead of them, now please help me welcome the valedictorian, Gabriel, would you come up here please
[Gabriel ascends the stairs and gets up to the podium to make his speech he unfolds his speech and begins to read off of it]
Gabriel: here we are, we’ve made it through the forest once more, here we are, we are young, we are strong have made it thus far, the darkness is gone, we stand beneath the stars and suddenly they’re in reach, we made it by on the skin of our teeth, the night has ended, the sun has come again, we stand here now as women and men, still the same people that we always have been, but were not the same, something’s have changed, we look to the sky and realize we have become the stars , here we are.
[applause from the crowd]
Gabriel: we are the graduating class of 2011, it seems like yesterday we were in kindergarten, still virgins still innocent, and now were adults were going away to college, were saying goodbye to our families, were deciding what we will do to support ourselves and picking out what will define us as people, we’ve lived we’ve studied we’ve made relationships, some of them that lasted some that didn’t and so we leave here with a million and one possibilities ahead of us, knowing that what we learned at Francis Academy will forever stay with us, we may forget how to conjugate verbs, or how to properly factor algebraic equations, but we learned so much more, we learned how to speak out, how to be human, how to treat people, to learn from the past and correct the mistakes you made, in the end the difference between the bum on the corner and the president is determination and the knowledge that it’s not how many times we make mistakes that defines us but what we learn from them that says who we are as people as adults and that’s what we leave here as today, we came as children we were molded and forged well but we leave here today as individuals each taking something different from the experience we leave here as mature adults better than when we came, the best of luck to everyone one of us in our future. And speaking of the future, Sorry Principle Glickman I know this wasn’t in the speech I showed to you this morning but it’s important that I say it. I have changed over these past few years but none more than I have in the past few weeks, I have grown and I truly know what love is now, and Jordan I would spend the rest of my life as just your friend if it meant I got to be in your life, I don’t know if you can ever believe me when I say I’ve moved on from Andrew but I have, all I want is you, however that may come and I don’t care if I have to go all the way to NYU to see you I will I love you, unequivocally irrevocably and with all respect and honesty I love you, I hope you love me too.
[Jordan stands up and goes up to the stage to the podium]
Jordan: Gabriel, you are crazy and irresponsible and completely the most complex and confusing person I have ever known, and I love you for it, and you don’t have to go to NYU
Gabriel: I will if you want, I don’t care as long as I’m with you,
Jordan: you don’t have to
[Jordan opens up his gown to show his UCLA shirt underneath]
Jordan: you know you can buy a shirt from any college off the internet, I was just using it to manipulate you and try to make you feel the way I felt, I came back to you after being away from you for three years, you didn’t honestly think I was just going to give up on you that easy did you
Gabriel: shut up and kiss me already!
[they lock lips as if they don’t care who’s watching mainly because they really don’t]
[Lolliee sits back and starts looking around, to notice all eyes are on Gabriel and Jordan, she takes a swig from the flask she has hidden up the sleeve of her gown]
Lolliee: hey can we get our damn diplomas already?
[everyone seems to snap out of their trance and the principle starts to take the stack of diplomas and begins to read off names they begin walking up the stairs to collect their diplomas]
Principle: Mary McCalister, is no longer with us, I’m afraid let’s take a moment of silence to honor her memory
[as everyone bows their head for a moment of silence the doors at the back of the auditorium slam open, Mary walks in dressed in her cap and gown, and walks up to the podium]
Mary: Principle Glickman I believe that Diploma is mine
Gabriel: your ALIVE!
Mary: I would like to say a few words, if that’s okay with everyone, firstly I would like to say I’m deeply sorry for everyone who grieved over me, I appreciate it a lot, but I was never dead, or at least not completely, my heart did stop, I was pronounced but when I was taken off of life support it took me out of the coma I was in, I woke up in the morgue I found a map and a labcoat and escaped in the woods it took me a while to realize what was going on or what I was doing when I finally came to my senses I realized it would be best to stay out of the way but I have some news. Other than the fact that I’m alive you need to realize that the reason why I was in such a life altering situation is simply this, I was supposed to die, I was intended to die, that was the plan, that was the operation, I knew too much, but now that I know all the pieces I can share it with you, I have found and hidden proof that will show that my ex boyfriend Adam, you guys know Adam, and his friend Kyle were involved in a drug operation, the same drug operation that is responsible for most if not all the crime in this town, an operation under the control of one miss, Abigale Folger, that’s right Lillith, your mom, I don’t know which one it was but one of them tired to kill Gabriel and I after leaving the party that night, after Adam had tried to beat me, after I had discovered that he was not only involved but that he was the delivery boy if at least two kilos of cocaine and marijuana a week.
[Adam and Kyle Get up and sneak out while Mary is making a spectacle of herself, they sneak out the back way]
Principle: officer craig please arrest Kyle Masterson, and Adam Colcheck
Lillith: where did they go?
Lolliee: [slurring] they probably snuck out to the parking lot while you guys were having storytime
Principle: everyone has been called the graduation is over
Anna: my speech
Principle: you’re the saludatorian, it doesn’t matter, you’ve already got your diploma, move on with your life and quit being such a skeez
[everyone adjourns to the parking lot and kyle and adam are arrested and taken downtown to the sheriffs office]
Lolliee: well this is great, now can we go home ive got some things to do
Principle: your all dismissed everyone go home, im sorry this turned out the way it did , but I want you all to know I believe in all of you, don’t be strangers drive safe, god bless all of you
[everyone starts to leave when Lolliee sneaks back to her trunk the camera follows her as she goes to the trunk and gets the moonshine from the space underneath her trunk floor where the spare tire is usually located, she pulls it out and starts to take a swig, she starts to guzzle it down,then she caps it puts it back in her hiding spot, she then goes to her drivers seat stumbling as she goes, she puts the key in the ignition then she grabs her stomach , she gets out of the car the bell still dinging, she hunches over as if shes going to throw up, she starts to convulse, and she breaks down into full seizures, and rolls over, Lillith, sees this and goes to her side, as she begins to convulse and choke on her own vomit]
Lillith: oh shit, HELP, SOMEBODY HELP ME< I NEED A MEDIC GODDAMN IT!
[Gabriel and Selena come to her side as Lolliee starts to grow silent]
Gabriel: check her pulse
Lillith: I don’t know how Gabriel, I never took C.P.R.
Gabriel: selena call 9-1-1
[he leans over putting his ear to her chest]
Gabriel: I cant hear her heartbeat
[he puts his ear to her mouth and slides his finger down toward her corrated artery to feel her pulse]
Gabriel: no pulse, she’s not breathing
[he begins to administer mouth to mouth, and do chest compressions, after a few cycles he stops to take a breath]
Gabriel: alright, I need to take a breath do you know what an A.E.D. is
Lillith: no what the hell is that
Gabriel: okay you need to do this while I go get that
Lillith: I don’t know how I can’t
Gabriel: chest compressions go an inch to an inch and a half deep do that thirty times then give two breaths, then thirty compressions if you get tired get selena to help you I’m going to get an A.E.D.
Lillith: what is that?
Gabriel: it’s a defibrulator, just do this, or she is going to die,
[Gabriel gets up to go get help and comes back with the A.E.D.]
Gabriel: lillith move over, I have to attach this to her, you can’t touch her or it will screw it up
[he attaches the A.E.D. to Lolliee and it shocks her, she sits up and vomits Gabriel turns her on her side, she collapses again]
Gabriel: we’re losing her, Selena wheres my paramedics
Selena: I called them they’re on their way
Gabriel: search her car, see if you can find anything that caused this
Selena: like what?
Gabriel: I don’t know drugs etc, you know how lolliee is look for gods sake
Selena: I found something
Lillith: what is it?
Selena: I don’t know, It smells like vodka, only sour, do you think it could be moonshine
Gabriel: where would she get moonshine?
Lillith: oh god Clive Donaldson, that’s her connect for liquor, he makes moonshine, he offered me some once but I refused to drink it because I don’t trust him with anything that isn’t legally manufactured
Gabriel: where the hell is that ambulance, I cant do this forever
Selena: theyre coming down the street now just keep doing what your doing
[the ambulance arrives in the parking lot and they intervene]
Paramedic: shes been poisoned, this moonshine is toxic
Gabriel: just save her
Paramedic: she’s in asystole there’s nothing we can do for her I’m sorry
Lillith: no!
[the lights dim out]
[coming back in on the parking lot the police are there]
Officer: do you know where she got the moonshine
Gabriel: no not certainly
Lillith: we think she got it from Clive Donaldson
Officer: okay kids your free to go, im sorry for your loss
Lillith: how did this shit happen, we got a friend back and lost one forever
Selena: I cant believe she’s gone,
Jillian: this is a terrible goodbye
[Jordan walks up to see everyone]
Mary: it does seem like the end
Gabriel: this isn’t the ending its just the start of a new chapter
Mary: well at least we still have each other, were definitely going to keep in touch right
Gabriel: are you kidding me, how could you not tell me you were alive,
Mary: I did remember
Jillian: Gabriel doesn’t remember that much of anything from that night, but seriously you guys whats going to happen to all of us
Gabriel: we stay together no matter what, you know, its all we have
Jordan: its all we need
[Jordan and Gabriel kiss, the lights dim and fade to black credits roll end of season 1]
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