Casey had known his parents wouldn't show up. It was his eighth-grade graduation ceremony, and he was the only kid in the middle school's stuffy gymnasium without a doting family to call his own. At least it hadn't been a surprise, he thought. Someone tapped him on the shoulder.

"Hey, Case," the shoulder-tapper was Casey's best friend Will Tucker, the star of the school's soccer team, and the only transgender person Casey knew. " Another no-show?'

"Yeah, they got called into the lab. Again."

"Again?" Will sighed. Will knew about Casey's family situation, after all, he'd been Casey's girlfriend until a few months ago when he'd realized that being a girl wasn't who he was. It hadn't ended badly though, Casey had accepted that that was who Will was and he couldn't change that. " You could come over and hang out with my family. I mean not hang out it's more like um-". Casey cut him off.

"It's okay, I think I'll just go and catch a bus home." and with that, he left Will standing by the gym's makeshift stage.