Crush 2022

Paige Evans is a Miller High School student who loves art and dreams of a summer program at CalArts. She wrestles with the prompt describing her happiest moment, and her thoughts keep circling back to her unrequited, long-time crush on popular student Gabby Campos Isabella Ferreira. A shadow looms over the school as an anonymous artist known as KingPun vandalizes with pun-based graffiti, casting suspicion on Paige because of her deep love for art. To avoid suspension, she reluctantly agrees to join the track team, even though athletics aren’t her natural forte.

Paige finds herself placed in the 4x100 relay alongside Gabby and Gabby’s sister AJ Auli’i Cravalho, who is tasked with training her. The team becomes Paige’s new frame for proving herself and clarifying where she stands, both artistically and personally. As Paige navigates the expectations of her peers and the administration, she attends a house party she believes KingPun might be at and enlists AJ to help with her investigation, hoping to uncover the vandal’s identity without derailing her CalArts dream.

During a school stakeout, Paige and Gabby share an tense, awkward kiss, Paige’s first, which adds a layer of complexity to the crush she’s been nursing in silence. A friend, Dillon [Tyler Alvarez], weighs in, suggesting the kiss might reflect a change in Paige’s feelings, and the moment nudges her toward a new closeness with AJ as they spend more time together. The plot intensifies at a team meet and a party where teammates play seven minutes in heaven; Paige and AJ end up paired, sharing a kiss that AJ believes to be their first. Later, Paige encounters Gabby in a hotel hallway, where Gabby tries to kiss her again, only for Paige to gently rebuff.

At the track meet, Miller High earns a second-place finish in the relay, a victory that becomes a quiet turning point for Paige. Afterward, Gabby apologizes to Paige, and in the process inadvertently reveals to AJ that the two had kissed previously. AJ’s heartbreak surfaces as she reveals she was the mastermind behind KingPun all along. In a bid to shield AJ, Paige contemplates confessing to being KingPun herself, but discovers that AJ has already confessed and faced suspension. With Gabby’s supportive presence, Paige crafts a public apology at a school assembly, staging a mural that chronicles the moments the two shared and presenting it as her CalArts prompt.

The moment of reconciliation arrives as the assembly unfolds; the mural becomes a visible testament to their evolving relationship, and Paige’s submission to CalArts gains depth from the art and memories they’ve created together. AJ’s suspension is reversed, and the two girls share another kiss, signaling a new balance between their friendship, love, and ambition—demonstrating that art, honesty, and courage can harmonize even in the face of confusion and consequence.