PRICE OF ADMISSION
a one-scene play by ayden “K-WaL” kowalski
CAST LIST
JESSIE: a seventeen-year-old junior at an all-girls Catholic high school. They are nonbinary.
GABE: a male sixteen-year-old junior at an all-boys Catholic high school.
(The living room of JESSIE’s family’s house, the door into the house standing stage right. JESSIE sits in a blue denim jacket and black jeans on a faded brown leather couch which faces downstage, extending their legs onto a cheap coffee table. There are two chairs on either side of the table turned somewhat diagonally to open downstage. JESSIE stares out, absentmindedly watching a trendy Netflix show.
GABE walks onstage right, sighing deeply and audibly as he approaches the door. He enters.)
JESSIE
(nonchalantly) Hey there.
GABE
Hey.
(GABE takes off his high-school branded fleece and sets it on the back of the chair nearest to him.)
GABE
Having a good day?
(GABE takes a seat in the chair while speaking.)
JESSIE
Uneventful, but good. Waiting for something.
GABE
What’chu waiting for?
JESSIE
(leaning back into the couch, slyly and sensually) An invitation.
GABE
To… what?
JESSIE
(throwing their arms up, a bit annoyed but not seriously upset) Your Homecoming, dude.
GABE
Well, do you think, uh…
JESSIE
Yes?
GABE
I think it’d be best if we went just as friends.
JESSIE
(quickly sitting up) Wait, hold on. Are you breaking up with me?
GABE
No, not at all. I just mean… (leaning back as he searches for the right words) look, we aren’t publicly together yet, right?
JESSIE
If you consider the public to be your friends, then we’re not.
GABE
Well, I think that, since we know how’d they react to… us, we just say we’re going as friends, just… in costume, you know. Our homecoming costume.
JESSIE
So, you’re not going to tell them in October, like you told me you would?
GABE
I’m working towards it.
JESSIE
But-
GABE
(raising his hand to cut them off) Wait. You said we all have our journey when it comes to revealing ourselves, right? Well, this is my journey, and it’s going to take longer than I told you. Plus, when we set that date-
JESSIE
What, you weren’t really thinking clearly? Come on.
GABE
Jes-
JESSIE
No, I don’t want to-
GABE
Jes-
JESSIE
(shouting as they stand up) Enough! You’re kinda pissing me off. (beginning to pace as GABE stands up and paces around the chairs) Look, first of all, I’m the one that’s actually different. You just like me. That is nowhere near the same thing. You don’t have to bear the weight of all of it. Like, coming out, what I did, and you telling your friends and family you like me, who’s out, are not on the same level. Not even close, Gabe. And worse, you’re denying me. You’re shoving me off into the shadows, making me a skeleton in your closet. And if you really love me, then you wouldn’t do that to me.
GABE
(walking upstage of the chair as he responds) Well, you’re not the one who’s going to have to go and face all of the looks and the barbs to just cut us down. You’re not the one who’s going to lose friends over this.
JESSIE
(making a large, angry gesture with their arms towards GABE) Who is going to stop being your friend because we’re dating?
GABE
A lot of people might!
JESSIE
(walking closer to GABE now) That’s not enough of a reason to justify what you’re asking me to do. Which is to make myself invisible again because people don’t want to have to deal with me because I’m not cis-het. I’ve done that enough times in my life. I won’t do it again. Plus, you want to be with me, don’t you?
GABE
Yes, I do. You’re… I mean…
JESSIE
You’ve never felt for anyone else the way you feel for me. I know, you tell me all the time. Like you’re ashamed of it.
GABE
I really don’t think you understand-
JESSIE
I do understand, more than you ever could, because I’m actually the one that people hate and want to erase. Not you, okay?
GABE
For all your talk of “emotional support”, you’re quick to dismiss my feelings.
JESSIE
(in an exasperated, mocking voice as they lean about to exaggerate the performance) Oh, no. A bunch of assholes I’m too scared to stop hanging out with are going to call me gay or laugh about me in the lunchroom because I’m dating a nonbinary person. Meanwhile people like me get sent to fucking camps to hammer us into their shape, or are told on the news that we’re social accidents, warts on civilization whose experience is weightless. People like me are killed for our truth, Gabriel. And you’re asking me to start lying again because you don’t like what some jackass schoolboys will say about you? Man up.
GABE
Well, where would be a safe place to go at my school?
JESSIE
Maybe there isn’t one. Maybe my friends who actually would accept you would have to be enough. It’s not always easy for me to be at a Catholic school. You want me, you get all of me.
GABE
Maybe that’s not worth blowing up the rest of my life.
JESSIE
You’re here for two more years, and you have a foot out of the door in-
(GABE grabs his fleece off the chair and walks to the door as he puts it on.)
JESSIE
-Where are you going?
GABE
Foot out of the door.
JESSIE
That doesn’t really make sense.
(GABE opens the door.)
GABE
No. I love you, but I can’t let you decide who I can hang out with.
JESSIE
That’s not what I said! What I meant was-
GABE
You don’t mean to, but that’s what you’re doing. And I can’t let everything I’ve been building since I was ten explode because you can’t wait. I’m sorry.
JESSIE
(their voice now small, with masked fragility) I’m sorry for wasting my time on someone who can’t love me fully. Because if you did, you wouldn’t leave me over something like this.
GABE
I do love you, Jessie. And I also love my friends. The game of change is patient.
(JESSIE silently and sadly moves, almost as if they’re unconsciously wandering, towards GABE as he speaks.)
GABE
And I know you’re tired from the campaign of your life. But I don’t think it’s fair for one love to wipe away the rest of my relationships. And that’s why I think our journeys just diverge here. I love you, but I can’t love only you.
(GABE leaves. Jessie sits for a few moments, then begins to cry.)
CURTAIN