I went to a girls' school, and it was awful. The combination of

Host: The gymnasium was abandoned long ago — the paint on the walls cracked, the bleachers covered in dust, and the faint scent of old sweat still clinging to the air like a forgotten echo. A single window was cracked open, and the wind carried the sound of distant sirens — sharp, fading, indifferent. The moonlight poured through, silver and merciless, illuminating the faint marks of teenage wars once fought on this very floor.

Jack leaned against a rusted locker, his grey eyes hard and distant. Jeeny sat cross-legged on the bleachers, her fingers tracing the initials carved into the wood — ghosts of girls who once believed the world revolved around hallway cruelty.

Jeeny: “Nadine Velazquez said once — ‘I went to a girls' school, and it was awful. The combination of my teenage anger and their jealousy meant I was always getting into fights. There was a lot of pulling of hair and scratching of faces and rolling around on the floor.’”

Jack: (snorts) “Sounds like life — just without uniforms.”

Host: His voice echoed through the empty gym, bouncing off the chipped walls like a laugh that never quite made it home.

Jeeny: “You say that like it’s funny. But it’s not, Jack. It’s pain pretending to be entertainment. Every fight like that — it’s just a scream no one listened to.”

Jack: “It’s survival. You’ve got a bunch of kids stuffed into a building full of hormones and insecurity — what do you expect? Peace treaties?”

Jeeny: “I expect humanity. Even among children.”

Host: The moonlight caught the dust in the air, turning it into floating silver sparks — like the remnants of old rage, suspended but not forgotten.

Jack: “You think teenage girls are cruel because they want to be? They’re cruel because they’re told they’re not enough — too pretty, too plain, too loud, too quiet. You put a wild animal in a cage and feed it mirrors — it’s gonna claw something.”

Jeeny: “Then who built the cage?”

Jack: “Everyone. Parents. Schools. Society. The whole system that teaches kids to compete before it teaches them to breathe.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe Nadine wasn’t angry at the girls. Maybe she was angry at being measured.”

Host: A cold draft swept through, rattling the window. The sound was sharp, almost like laughter — the cruel kind that fills school hallways at lunchtime.

Jeeny: “I went to a school like that too, you know. Every day was a performance. The perfect smile, the perfect skirt length, the perfect silence. God forbid you stand out — or worse, speak out.”

Jack: “And you?”

Jeeny: “I failed the performance. I didn’t know how to hide my feelings. So they turned on me — the way wolves turn on the wounded.”

Host: Her voice trembled, but only for a heartbeat. Then it steadied, like someone who’s rehearsed forgiveness for too long.

Jack: “You fought back?”

Jeeny: (smiles faintly) “No. I tried to understand them. And that hurt even more.”

Jack: “That’s your problem. You think you can love people out of their cruelty.”

Jeeny: “And you think cruelty’s inevitable.”

Host: The silence thickened between them. The moonlight fell over Jeeny’s face, soft and sad, while Jack’s remained in shadow.

Jack: “It is inevitable, Jeeny. Cruelty’s just fear wearing someone else’s face. The world runs on it — competition, jealousy, dominance. You think kids grow out of it? They just learn to call it professionalism.”

Jeeny: “You sound like you’re defending it.”

Jack: “No. I’m explaining it. There’s a difference.”

Jeeny: “Sometimes explaining something is just another way to excuse it.”

Host: The wind hissed through the crack in the window. Somewhere, a loose basketball rolled across the floor, slow and hollow. The sound echoed like an old memory limping back to life.

Jack: “You ever notice how violence becomes a language when no one’s listening?”

Jeeny: “That’s exactly what it is — a language of the unheard.”

Jack: “And teenage anger — that’s just the alphabet.”

Jeeny: “Then the question is — why does it take bruises for people to pay attention?”

Host: She stood, her silhouette cutting across the moonlight, her shadow long and trembling against the wall of forgotten trophies.

Jeeny: “I read once that the average teenage girl loses her self-esteem by age thirteen. Thirteen, Jack. You don’t have to hit a child to break her. Sometimes you just have to ignore her.”

Jack: “And you think a better school fixes that?”

Jeeny: “No. A better society does.”

Jack: “That’s a fantasy.”

Jeeny: “No, it’s a choice.”

Host: Her eyes blazed for a moment — fierce, unyielding. The air between them seemed to crackle with tension, like static waiting for lightning.

Jack: “Choice? You think a thirteen-year-old drowning in hormones and insecurity gets to choose how she reacts?”

Jeeny: “No. But we — the adults — choose what we teach her to value. We hand her the mirror and tell her what matters. We built that war in her head, Jack. She just grew up on its battlefield.”

Host: Jack’s jaw tightened. He turned his gaze to the peeling paint, his reflection warped and faint on the dull metal of a locker.

Jack: “You talk like the world can be rewired. But people need enemies, Jeeny. Without them, they don’t know who they are.”

Jeeny: “Then we’re raising ghosts, not humans.”

Host: Her words lingered — soft, final, echoing like the end of a sermon no one stayed to hear.

Jack: “You know… I remember a boy in my school. He used to pick fights just to feel noticed. We all laughed when he got suspended. Found out years later he was getting beaten at home. That’s what I mean — violence doesn’t start in the hallway. It starts at the dinner table.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Anger is just pain that doesn’t know its name yet.”

Jack: “And jealousy?”

Jeeny: “Fear. Of not being enough.”

Host: The gym grew still again. The moonlight had shifted — softer now, warmer. It fell on the old floorboards, catching the faint scars of long-faded brawls.

Jack: “So what are we supposed to do? Hug every bully? Love every wound?”

Jeeny: “No. But stop teaching children that victory means being feared. Start teaching them that strength doesn’t mean silence.”

Jack: (after a pause) “You really think that would stop the scratching and the hair-pulling?”

Jeeny: “No. But maybe it would make the next generation less hungry for dominance.”

Host: She smiled — small, tired, hopeful. The kind of smile that hurts because it refuses to die.

Jack: “You know… maybe Velazquez’s fights weren’t just teenage rage. Maybe they were rehearsals for survival.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But survival shouldn’t need rehearsals.”

Host: The moon climbed higher, the dust dancing like spirits released. Jeeny’s eyes softened as she looked out the cracked window, where the city glimmered faintly beyond the fields — a reminder that the wars of youth never really leave us, they just change their weapons.

Jeeny: “You ever think about it, Jack? Every adult walking around — we’re all just children trying not to get picked on anymore.”

Jack: (smiles faintly) “Yeah. Only now we wear suits instead of bruises.”

Host: The wind settled. The moonlight widened, washing the room in silver forgiveness. Jack pushed himself off the locker, and together they walked toward the exit, their footsteps echoing softly against the wooden floor — two grown survivors leaving behind the ghost of a war they never wanted to fight.

At the doorway, Jeeny turned once more, looking back into the empty gym.

Jeeny: “Maybe one day, they’ll build schools where kids learn how to feel before they learn how to win.”

Jack: “And maybe one day, they’ll stop mistaking scars for stories.”

Host: The camera would linger there — the light, the dust, the faint hum of forgotten laughter — and fade slowly into darkness, leaving behind the quiet truth that every fight, at its core, is just a plea to be understood.

End.