Oh man, oh man... I can't believe we're almost at 40 chapters. It feels surreal. I feel like I should be allowed to have gotten this far. Thank you, all of you, for your continued support and readership. I've really enjoyed this story and, somehow, we're just getting started. I believe I've mentioned before that the plan is to go a little past 50 chapters and then do a one-year time skip. I think that the future is BEYOND bright for this story. Just... Maybe not for the Tomagos, in the next few chapters... :)


Luca had a complicated relationship with school. He hated missing a day but it was never for the classes, he loved the people he saw as his friends, a list that was almost always expanding and rarely ever had any reason to shrink. But on the last day of the school year, he was near his breaking point. Finals had wiped him out and a thousand different worries played in his head. So the last thing the depleted king needed was to be pushed past the breaking point.

Charlotte clearly didn't get the memo. Luca was cleaning out his locker when she snaked up to him. He hadn't noticed the note that had fallen or the girl who had picked it up.

"I knew it." She held up the paper, scowling.

"Hey, Charlotte, what's up? What's wrong?" He didn't know what she was holding.

"I should've known that the whole not dating until high school was a pathetic lie. If you didn't want to date me you should've just said so. I see how you look at him."

Luca felt punched in the gut, "I should've been more honest with you, but I don't know what you're talking about. Who am I looking at?"

"Nova! I know you're obsessed with him, I have his love letter right here-" She held up the paper again, one of the notes from Valentine's day.

Now Luca was the one scowling. It had been a very long and very difficult school year and all of his frustrations had bubbled up to this point, "Nova uses they/them pronouns."

"It doesn't matter! You lied to me!"

"And you're disrespecting my friend, which is not okay. I'd rethink your next statement because I'm not going to listen to someone who doesn't even know how to use pronouns correctly."

Charlotte scowled, "I don't care about pronouns, that's not the point! You didn't even have the decency to tell me that you liked someone else. I thought you were a better person than that, Luca."

"I thought you were a better person too," Luca spat, "I guess we were both wrong. It would've never worked between us, Charlotte. Don't wait for me in high school."

"Don't worry, I won't." She crumpled Nova's note and dropped it on the ground. Luca scrambled to pick it up, feeling terrible, not for standing up for Nova but for insulting Charlotte in the process. He sank onto the floor, hugging himself and the note, and suddenly the king of middle school was just another kid having a break down during finals week.

"Are you hurt?" Reese asked, crouching next to Luca.

"No…" Luca sniffled.

"Then woman up."

"I messed up," Luca mumbled.

"So?"

"So the real me came out. I'm a terrible person. I lashed out at Charlotte because she said some rude stuff about Nova and now she's gonna hate me."

"Well, if it makes you feel better, it's really easy to be mean to Charlotte. She's kind of shady. At the basketball retreat, Sara made her cry."

"Oh no, do you think I made Charlotte cry?"

"That's not what I meant," Reese sighed, "I'm just saying, she's an agitator. Whether or not she deserves the vitriol she receives, she does make it easy to snap. You can and should apologize but right now you just need to get up and head home with Scout and me. Dad's gonna pick us up in a minute. We can listen to the High School Musical 2 soundtrack in the car if you want to."

"Even Fabulous?"

"Especially Fabulous. But we're not skipping Work This Out."

"Why would we skip Work This Out?"

Reese stood and offered Luca her hand, which Luca took, feeling a little better.

"Scout's already outside, I said I'd track you down. Come on, dude. Summer break is going to be different. It's going to be better."

"You really think so?"

"Yeah! Of course. We'll have all summer to hang out with our friends, and Baby Elliott is going to be born."

"Maison," Luca piped up.

"We'll see."

Wasabi was waiting in the pick-up lane, Scout already in the front seat briefing Wasabi on when he would need to be back at the school for his Eighth Grade Graduation this evening. Scout seemed excited for the first time in a while as he talked, and Wasabi gladly fed his enthusiasm. Scout was part of the family now and tonight was all about him.

When Scout finished talking, Wasabi glanced back at the twins, smiling at both of them, "You did it! I'm proud of all of you. We're going to the Lucky Cat to celebrate."

"Yeah!" Luca was already feeling a bit better.

"Can we listen to the High School Musical 2 Soundtrack?" Reese asked, keeping true to her word.

"Yeah, of course we can. Scout, are you okay with that?"

"Why not? It's probably the least depressing musical you guys have made me watch."

Luca still felt a little bad about what had happened with Charlotte, and he was still worried about Scout's little rooftop adventure, though GoGo had kindly told him not to try to fix everyone's problems and let his friends come to him in their own time. Luca figured he could try talking to his mom later about everything that was going on, she might have a little bit of advice about his girl problems. She probably understood girls, and she definitely understood standing up for yourself and your friends.

They stopped by the cafe, getting one snack each for the road and one to have after dinner tonight, with muffins for the morning. This summer was going to be amazing, their family was growing and thriving and there was hope on the horizon. Despite the rocky end to the semester, they had a lot to look forward to. Scout's graduation, Luca and Khary's play, and the arrival of Baby Elliott were going to make this summer great.

There was just the thing, about Charlotte and Nova, and Luca's head was stuffed full of concerns even after he'd had his pastry and his High School Musical 2 Karaoke.

"Mom!" Luca called when they walked in, "Can I talk to you?" GoGo rose from her seat on the couch, having just begun to relax at the end of her own semester.

"Let's go sit in the nursery" She did not want to have another conversation on the roof. She dropped into the rocking chair, feeling drained at 7 months. Luca sat in front of her on a footstool. The nursery looked great at this point, they'd just finished doing all the painting and decorating. Zayne, Scout, and Luca had worked together to make a pretty mountainscape mural in purples, pinks, and blues.

"You okay, Luca?"

"No," Luca admitted, "I got in an argument with someone today."

"What was it about?" Luca didn't argue with many people other than Reese, so GoGo was a little surprised.

"Well this girl, Charlotte, asked me out last week. And I should've just said I wasn't interested but I wasn't sure and I just felt really weird so I told her what dad told me to say, that I'm not allowed to date until high school. But then today she accused me of liking my friend Nova and said I should've been honest about it but she misgendered them so I got really mad and we fought about all of it and now I feel really bad because I didn't want to be mean and usually I don't get worked up about mistakes like that…"

"Maybe you do like Nova," GoGo suggested quietly, "People get defensive and angry when the people they care about get mistreated."

"Yeah but... I should've been nicer to Charlotte. I'm a monster."

"You're not a monster, you're a person who made a mistake. It's behind you now. You can apologize and move on. Everyone messes up Luca, it's not the end of the world."

"What about Nova?" Luca asked suddenly.

"What about them?"

"What if I do really like them?"

"That's for you to figure out, kiddo. Like your dad said, you can't date until high school. You've got to decide if they're worth waiting for."

"They are," Luca said without thinking, "I mean. If I like them, that is."

"I know it's hard to figure all this stuff out," GoGo said sympathetically.

Luca sighed and nodded.

"But I'm proud of you. Your dad is too. You're growing up to be an incredible young man and I can't wait to see what you do next." Luca stood and wrapped his arms around her.

"Thanks, mom. I love you."

"I love you too. I always will."


Okay! Real Quick! Let's talk about Transphobia! Doing something transphobic (like misgendering someone) doesn't make you a transphobe, it makes you something who did something transphobic. I don't wanna write transphobes so Charlotte is just someone who did something transphobic. Before I started to come to terms with my place in the LGBT community I had edits of this very story where I wouldn't even admit that Nova was nonbinary, even though I always knew that that was true. I don't know, I guess I was ashamed to write anything that my conservative mom wouldn't approve of?

But then I realized I was nonbinary. And I've told some people my name and my pronouns and sometimes they slip up. I don't think any of them have done it on purpose and Charlotte, in this story, is also not doing it on purpose. Maybe... Maybe Charlotte is coming to terms with something too.

That being said if you mess up and misgender or deadname your trans friends (or your trans enemies or any other trans people in your life) it is your job to apologize and do better. There's no excuse, every trans person deserves the respect of being addressed correctly, even trans people who you don't like.