Chapter One

She trudged up the pathway to her house, her bag slipping from her shoulder at an awkward angle but she did nothing to fix it. It had been a long day at school; her work tablet had run out of battery halfway through the day and she had to resort to using a pen and paper like a caveman. Perhaps she should have reconsidered downloading all those apps last night, but they were important. Everyone had a Virtual Tablet Pet app and she didn't want to be the loser without one. Plus her Virtual Pet penguin would have died if she did not feed it this morning.

She took her keycard out of her bag and slipped it through the scanner. "Welcome home Sugar," the robotic pre-recorded voice sounded. Luckily her moms had chosen to install a female voice in the house, and not a creepy man's voice; imagine being welcomed home by an invisible man calling her Sugar. She shuddered at the thought.

Upon entering her house, she nudged the wall with her heel, flicking the switch at the back of shoe. Her shoe laces untied themselves and she kicked them off haphazardly. She dumped her bag with her shoes and headed straight for the kitchen, hoping to find a snack. Instead she found her mami at the kitchen sink, chopping up what looked like carrots. "Oh, hey honey, you're back already? How was school?" Santana asked without looking up.

"Nothing special. Do we have anything to eat?" Sugar replied with half her body in the refrigerator. No-fat-non-dairy-yogurt; no thanks. Sugarless-decaffeinated-Cola. Puh-lease. Hydroponic-organic-celery sticks; you have got to be kidding me. Why was it that even though their fridge was always stocked, there was nothing interesting to eat? All the other kids at school always seemed to have a stock of junk food at home, but no, she was stuck with the healthy-conscious moms. As if she needed any other reason to stick out.

"Can you hold up until dinner Sugar? Mom will be home soon,"

Sugar begrudgingly closed the refrigerator door. Ok, perhaps she slammed it out of frustration, but if her mami noticed, she didn't show it.

"Also, I've spent all day cleaning the house, so it'd be nice if you could line your shoes up with everyone else's and take your bag upstairs. You know Aunt Abby and Uncle Wesley are coming over tomorrow with your cousins. It'd be nice if we could at least show them that we live in a decent living space," Santana continued without looking up from her carrots.

Right. She had forgotten that her cousins were coming over from Ohio to stay for the weekend. Aunt Abby was her mom's younger sister and she had two cousins; Dylan, who was seven and his brother Tyler, who was five. They were nice kids, but keeping young boys entertained will never be an easy task. Sugar tried to forget the last time they were over; it took her a day and a half to wash off the red stains on her favorite shirt, after they decided that she'd be a better canvas for their finger painting. She got along well enough with her cousins, but they weren't close. Unfortunately, or perhaps luckily, for her, they lived in Ohio, while she lived in Los Angeles, so she didn't see them often. Christmases and the odd weekend were enough cousin-bonding time for her. Usually she just sat them down and made them watch some of her old kid's movies; Toy Story 9 was one of their favorites. She'd never admit to anyone that she enjoyed re watching those movies as well; 16 year olds don't watch cartoons let alone enjoy them.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll do it later," Sugar replied halfheartedly. She headed towards the stairs but paused on the bottom step. If she was going to ask her mami, she had to do it now; her mami seemed to be in a good mood.

"Hey Mami," Sugar started. She bit her lip, a nervous habit she had picked up from her mom. She had an inkling of what her mami's answer would be, but there was no hurt in trying, right? "Can I go to a party tonight? Everyone is going to be there," she added as if that was reason enough for her to attend.

"Not this time honey. We have to wake up early tomorrow to pick up your cousins. Sorry Sugar," Santana apologized, though Sugar didn't think it sounded very genuine.

"Aww, come on Mami! Felix said he'd take me. Just this one time, por favor? I promise not to ask for anything ever again," Sugar begged.

Santana looked up from her carrots and turned to her daughter. "Felix? Are you still seeing that guy? You know I really don't like him. He reminds me of someone I went to high school with, and he was a total jerk. Couldn't you reconsider your choice in boys?"

Sugar was starting to get frustrated. Her mami was always controlling every aspect of her life. This was not the first time that Santana had brought up her relationship with Felix "What? Mami, you have no say in who I choose to date. Plus I'm not even dating Felix. He's just a friend. What do you know about men anyway? You married a woman," Sugar spat.

Santana froze. Her daughter had never complained about having two moms. Sure, at five years old, her daughter had asked her why all the other kids had a mommy and a daddy, and why she has two mommies instead, but after Brittany explained how it didn't matter what made up a family, as long as everyone loved each other, Sugar was more interested in her ice cream they had gotten after school. Marriage equality wasn't anything new. It was legalized in all fifty states by the end of 2019 and Brittany and Santana had gotten married a year later; 18 years ago. Back then she was still receiving frowns when people saw her out in public, holding Brittany's hand, but that had decreased as the years went by. She knew that not everyone would approve; it was an unfortunate truth, but it still hurt to know that the younger generation was inheriting the ignorance of others. Surely her own daughter wasn't one of them. Surely.

"Excuse me? I'm not liking that tone young lady. You go to your room and think about what you just said," Santana said as calmly as she could.

"You think you can control everything about me, but you can't. I'm my own person. You had everything growing up. Abuelo and Abuela gave you everything. They let you go to New York by yourself and even paid for it. My own mami won't even let me go to a freaking party. You know that if I don't go to this, I'm going to be the biggest freak at school. Bigger than I already am. I get crap from kids because my mami plays a lesbian lawyer on a stupid TV show. Do you know how embarrassing that is for me? Do you ever think about how I feel? God, you're so selfish!" She started to stomp up the stairs, but stopped and shouted, "Not Asperger's!" across her shoulder before slamming the door to her bedroom, leaving Santana stunned and her carrots unfinished.

The truth was, Sugar was never resentful that she had two moms. She loved them to death and wouldn't change anything for the world. Sure she had received some comments at school from some idiots, but she was fiercely protective of her mothers and usually just gave them a verbal smackdown; attacking the size of their brains, or lack of, usually did the trick. Sugar flopped onto her bed, burrowing her head into her pillow. She knew she had crossed the line, but she wasn't going to admit that to her mami. She knew that she was never going to be allowed to the party now. After a few minutes of convincing herself that she did nothing wrong, she got up from her bed and looked at her desk ready to vent her frustrations to her friends online. Dammit, she thought, my bag is still downstairs with my tablet. She fished out her phone from her pocket and called the one person she knew would understand. Her phone screen lit up and a hologram of a familiar face popped up. Unfortunately it wasn't the familiar face she was looking for.

"Hi there Sugar-Spice-and-Everything-Nice! What can I do you for?" the hologram said.

"Oh, hey Aunt Mercedes. I was wondering if Ava was around?"

"She's still at school at the moment. Something about basketball tryouts. I swear that girl tries to fit too much into her life. Is it urgent?"

Sugar's shoulders slumped. "No, no. I just wanted to talk to her. It wasn't anything too important."

"What's wrong Sugar? You don't look too happy. Boy problems? Come talk to Aunt Mercedes. I can be just as helpful as Ava you know. Us old folk are actually quite wise, you kids just don't want to listen," Mercedes said, "What's up Sugar?"

"Well, it's Mami. She won't let me go to a party tonight, and then she started getting all controlling and she's being a real bitch," Sugar blurted.

"Your Mami is a bit of a bitch. That will never change. Why didn't she let you go to the party?"

"Because she's a bitch..."

"Sugar..." Mercedes warned with a slight chuckle.

"Ok, ok. Well, our cousins are coming over, and we have to go pick them up from the airport tomorrow. I can't wait until Motta Industries release their Transporter 1.0. Then we wouldn't have to worry about picking people up from the airport."

"It sounds like your mami has a legit reason for you to not go to the party. You're only a junior Sugar, there will be heaps of other parties you can go to. Both your moms used to go to parties all the time. I'm sure this is just a one-off thing."

"Yeah, about that...I don't think Mami will let me out of the house ever again," Sugar said quietly, afraid that if she said it any louder, it might actually come true.

"What did you do Sugar?" Mercedes raised her right eyebrow, questioning the teenager, afraid of what she was about to hear.

"I may or may not have shouted back at her...maybe something about her ruining my life..." Sugar thought back to what she had said, embarrassed that her tongue worked faster than her brain in the most crucial of moments.

"What did you say exactly Sugar?" Mercedes asked with a hint of worry in her voice.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and Sugar jumped in surprise. "Shit, I think Mami's at my door. Talk to you later Aunt Mercedes," Sugar spoke quickly in a hushed voice and hung up the phone, a stern 'language' coming from Mercedes' end, before another voice was heard through the door.

"Honey, can I talk to you?" The owner of the voice was not the person Sugar had initially thought.

"What do you want Mom?" Sugar said with a hint of frustration in her voice. Brittany opened the door slightly, and peeked in. Once she saw her daughter sitting on her bed, she opened the door wider and stepped in, careful to close the door quietly behind her.

"Honey, I came home to find dinner not ready and your mami upset. What's happened?" Brittany asked softly.

"Why do you automatically assume it was me, Mom? Why don't you ask her yourself," Sugar narrowed her eyes and burrowed her head back into the pillow, hoping that her mom would take the hint and leave.

"Look, I wasn't blaming anyone. I just wanted to know what's got your mami all upset. I've heard her side of the story. Now it's your turn to tell me yours," Brittany stepped closer to the bed and reached out to stroke her daughter's hair.

"Eww, Mom, you smell like cat piss. Couldn't you have had a shower before coming to my room?"

"Cat piss? It's my new perfume. You don't like it?" Brittany deadpanned. Sugar rolled her eyes; she could never understand her Mom's humor But her mom really did smell. Working as a vet also meant having the unfortunate task of cleaning up the messes that the animals left. "Mom tells me you wanted to go to the party with Felix," Brittany changed the subject.

"Well, that was the plan, until Mami ruined it,"

"Look, I know we don't get any say in who you hang out with, but Felix? Surely there are nicer kids. What about Henry? You guys used to hang out all the time. What happened to him? I haven't seen him around in a while."

Sugar looked up and threw her mom a disgusted look. "Eww, Henry? Really Mom? That kid's so fat, he broke his tablet with just a tap of his elephant fingers,"

Brittany narrowed her eyes. "That's not nice Sugar," she berated. She's Santana's daughter alright, Brittany couldn't help but think

"Sorry. Asperger's," Sugar replied, but not sincerely.

"Why do all you kids say that now? You know how offensive it is, it's bullying. How do you think someone who has Asperger's feels when people say stuff like that? Do you know what people used to say back when I was in high school?" Brittany started.

"Look, I really don't care about your high school days Mom. Can you just leave me alone?" Sugar interrupted. She buried her head deeper into her pillow, blocking out anything her mom had to say to her.

"Ok Sugar, we'll talk later when you check your attitude problem. You're still not going to the party tonight, and I expect to see you on your best behavior tomorrow when we pick up your Aunt Abby," She knew she wasn't going to get any results when her daughter was in one of her moods. Teenagers, Brittany thought to herself as she left the room.

Once she heard the door close behind her, Sugar knew what she had to do. Of course she still had to go to the party. Her parents didn't need to know. She'd just sneak out. People did it all the time. She'd come back home while her parents were still asleep, and be ready for the trip to the airport tomorrow. She didn't need to stay long at the party. Just long enough for people to know that she had turned up and know that she was cool, just like them.

She stuffed a few pillows under the blankets on her bed as a makeshift dummy. So perhaps it didn't really look like her, but that's what people did in the movies and close enough anyway. Her moms weren't about to come visit her room any time soon; she had made it clear that she didn't want to talk to both of them and they were smart enough not to try to. She quickly changed and grabbed her handbag off her dresser where she packed her wallet and phone. She checked her watch. 6:30. Perfect, just enough time to stop over and grab some dinner with Felix before heading off to the party. She snuck down the stairs, careful not to make any noise to alert her parents of her doings. Downstairs seemed clear. Her moms were probably taking their showers; they usually did at around this time. She headed towards the garage in tip toe, quickly grabbing her shoes along the way.

Once she had reached the garage, she let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. She walked over to the garage computer, and swiped her keycard. She waited for the Automatic Revolving Car Rack 3000 to spin, which would reveal her car, but instead Sugar was presented with an ancient off-white pick-up truck. That's not my baby, Sugar thought, what's wrong with the ARCR? Sugar swiped her card again, but nothing happened. "Damn machine!" Sugar swore, punching the machine with her hand in frustration. Sugar checked her watch, and noticed that she was running late, so she gave up and jumped into her mom's old car after grabbing the keys out of the computer system. "You'll have to do for tonight," Sugar whispered. She looked at the dashboard and scrunched her brow in confusion. She had never driven her mom's old car before. She practiced driving in her mami's current car; her mami had insisted that she practiced in a 'car with a safety rating higher than negative ten'. They barely used this hunk of junk, but her mom had said something about this being her first car and she only kept it because she had wanted to make a time machine out of it, or something. Sugar knew her mom enjoyed experimenting with machines; her mom used to fix motorcycles as a part time job during college, but she wasn't sure if her mum was being serious about the time machine part. Looking at the dashboard, with its numerous dials and buttons, Sugar didn't know what to think.

She inserted the key into the ignition and revved the truck. The lights on the dashboard all lit up, illuminating car's interior. What do I do now? Sugar thought to herself. She threw her handbag into the passenger's seat and heard a faint click. Sugar looked around to find the source of the noise, but decided it must have just been something from inside her bag. She looked back at the dashboard and found a button labeled 'Start'. "Here goes nothing," Sugar pressed the button cautiously, and then the car started to shudder. It collapsed around her and Sugar was suddenly pulled into what seemed like nothingness but felt like being squished through a dark rubber tube. Then everything stopped.