Sorry this is late but I rewrote the chapter because idk the original just didn't stay true to the characters in a way I thought fit. their personalities were a bit off i think is the best way to explain. the chapters do end similarly though. 

this is unedited which is on brand at this point. also BICS and CALP are literally something I am going over in one of my classes now and BICS basically is social language while CALP is academic. 

anyways bring out the tissues, i can't believe this is the last chapter. this book started in 2018. 

- 

The next day when I walked into school I immediately tracked down Blythe, telling her it was an emergency before dragging her away from the person she was talking to. I explained the events of the day before and with each new additional fact she started to melt more and more, looking about ready to explode with excitement. 

"Girl," she shouted, eyes wide, "I can't believe you didn't tell me this until now!" 

"It just happened yesterday," I responded, rolling my eyes. 

"And you should have told me last night," she responded. "I can't believe it's official." She fake fanned herself, and I immediately scoffed. 

"Nothing's official. We didn't say anything that would make it official. I don't know. I don't even know if I want anything official," I told her, frowning. I looked around at everyone in the hallway, hoping they weren't listening in. Certain people who would have never given me the time of day only a year before would now wave whenever they passed by me. The sudden popularity was a bit hard to get used to after joining Team Valiant. I knew being friends with Blythe meant people knew who I was, and especially after I became friends with Eamon they started to talk even more about me. 

Still, becoming a part of Team Valiant meant more than just people from school knowing who I am, but suddenly even people I had never met before who passed me on the streets whenever I'd go out, especially at my parents' restaurant, knew who I was without my introducing myself. Team Valiant was an extremely big deal. 

"You liar," she argued. "Of course you want it to be official! I mean, well, you do, right?" 

I shrugged. "I know it's been a few months but it just all still feels so soon. We've only been friends for less than a year." 

She sighed. "Well, Arrowe and I haven't even known about each other for less than a year. Look at us." She blushed slightly at her own words, but a smile stayed planted on her face. 

"How was your little date last night?" I questioned, deciding to change the subject. I lightly nudged her side as I added, "Are you official, yet?" 

"As official as we can be," she responded, and then sighed. "I don't know. His parents like me as a person but I can tell they're not happy about the fact we could be a thing. Everyone knows we're not going to be on each other's matchmaking papers." We both started walking in the direction of her locker. "I started to do the process so I can get my papers, though. I'm curious what the matchmakers think, even if I know he won't be on their minds." 

"I haven't even thought about getting mine," I responded, my nose scrunched up at even the thought. "It actually sounds like the last thing I want to do when I do think about it." 

She nudged my shoulder. "Scared Eamon won't be on there?" she joked. 

I opened my mouth to respond when the man himself walked up from behind me and questioned, "Be on what?" 

I let out a tiny squeak and jumped before turning and glaring at him. "Don't sneak up on me like that!" I yelped while my two friends started to laugh. Ever since they started to get along, I felt even more ganged up upon. "And nothing," I added on, answering his question while they still laughed. 

"Well," he put an arm around my shoulder, "we need to talk about what time I'm picking you up?" 

"What are you talking about?" I questioned. "Oh, the movie?" 

"Actually," he interjected, "I think we both forgot about our original plans yesterday and it stuck until this morning. My dad finished the mural and your parents are going to present it today, and everyone on team V is gonna get a table and look all fancy and stuff."

"Oh yeah," I responded. "I completely forgot about it."

"What would you do without me and my photographic memory?" he asked sarcastically, laughing. 

"She'd be a lot more lost that's for sure," Blythe replied, grinning in my direction. I narrowed my eyes at her, she was not being subtle at all. 

Eamon looked between the two of us in confusion. "Alright, I feel like I'm missing something here." 

I kept my eyes on Blythe, daring her to say something stupid like, "Yeah, you're missing the love of your life." I wouldn't put it past her, she had said some similar things before. I generally thought they were funny, and Eamon usually took the jokes in stride as well, but after our moment I didn't want to risk her making things awkward. Especially considering he and I had not talked about it yet. I wasn't sure if we ever were going to at this point. It seemed with every step we took, we immediately took two steps back in fear. 

When she caught my speechless message I turned back to Eamon and replied, "Honestly, you're really missing nothing. Want to head to class?" 

He narrowed his eyes but let me take his hand and drag him in the direction of our sessions which were close to each other. When we were away from Blythe he questioned, "Okay, she's not here, what's wrong?" 

I shook my head. "Absolutely nothing is wrong," I said, my words completely truthful. There was nothing wrong. Deciding to change the subject I told him, "Anyways, about picking me up. I can just go to your house when everyone else is planning to." 

He shook his head. "No, I'm picking you up. I'm being a gentleman, let me. About an hour after school sound alright?" 

"I have homework, Eamon. You know, some people actually do theirs," I replied, rolling my eyes. "Hour and a half, I'll need the hour for homework and half hour to get ready. I need to look nice." 

"You look nice no matter what," he interjected. "But, alas, I will give you the time you need. Maybe after we're done at the restaurant your parents will let you come by my place and actually watch the movie like we planned. Maybe we can make it harder and not put subtitles so you have to actually pay attention and think about it. See if that helps." 

"It is a weekend, and it's for the team. They probably will allow it." I didn't add on the fact that my parents were convinced we were dating and my mom was hoping that the closer to Eamon I got, the closer I got to Leulla where I could voice some of her opinions on how talentless are treated. It was something I realized after a few months when she stopped voicing her distaste of their family. I'm sure she was laying it on thick to Eamon's dad as well whenever he would stop by while working on the mural. Thinking of the mural, I questioned, "So, have you seen the mural?"

"No, but my dad's excited about it. The whole idea was that it would be like some freeze frame of a moment in the restaurant where patrons are sitting and having fun. Your parents asked for him to have the people seated be some of the people who come to the restaurant."

"Yeah, it's why it's such a big deal," I interrupted. "They've been teasing it so that a bunch of people are coming to eat there tonight just to see if they made it. I know for a fact I'm going to be on it because the only patrons my parents said had to be on there was us. The rest was up to your dad." 

Eamon nodded. "I imagine he probably drew us. We're his favorites to draw." He grinned cheekily, and before I could respond the warning bell rang out. "Well, that's a sign to go to class. See you at lunch?" 

"Of course," I told him. "You'll probably get there first so save me a seat." 

"What else would I do?" He smiled and then realized we were in front of his session, so he waved before walking through the door. I smiled to myself as I moved further down the hallway to my own. 

Eventually the school day ended, although pretty uneventful. At lunch I was the last to arrive so conversation was already flowing, and then during study hall I had to try not to laugh as Eamon kept transmitting random jokes into my mind. Blythe kept giving knowing looks as she sat beside me, but I just ignored her. 

When I got home I immediately dug into my homework so I would have the weekend free to most likely spend confused as I tried to converse with Eamon's cousins and their friends. His aunt was extremely kind, though, and I looked forward to seeing her again. 

After my homework was complete, I started to move around my bathroom as fast as I could whilst putting myself together. Luckily, I was saved from freaking out over an outfit as Team Valiant was going to arrive in our similar getup. The rest of the girls and I had planned out our outfits to look completely identical, and even went shopping together to find anything a person might be missing--that person, if I'm being honest, was mostly me. 

I thought for a moment about possibly straightening my curls, but then decided against it. I tried to tell myself it wasn't because Eamon told me once that he loved my hair in curls, but if I was being honest that was a huge influence. That, and the time constraint. Eamon arrived on time, and I greeted him as quickly as I could since my parents weren't home to do so. 

He looked at me and smile, "You looks beautiful, Poppy." I smiled back at him, acknowledging the nickname. He went back and forth between Poppy and my actual name, and I never understood the circumstances which influenced the switch. 

"You look good, too, Foster," I responded, teasingly using his last name. He once told me his father had mostly called his mother that, and I picked it up afterwards as joke at first but then it just became second nature to respond whenever he used my own nickname. 

"Before we go, can we talk?" He looked nervous, which only made me nervous. "I just don't want to continue going on with my day acting normal when I have so many thoughts." 

"Okay," I responded, crossing my arms against my chest. "What do you want to talk about?" 

"Yesterday," he explained, "when we were dancing. I told you how I feel. Like, that I could never be this close with anyone else. You said you didn't want to. I know what I was trying to tell you. I just don't know. Do you feel that too? Is that what you meant too?" 

My face was probably in flames as I looked down at the ground to avoid his gaze. "Well, yeah. I guess." 

"Guess?" I expected a smirk or something, but when I glanced up he looked a lot more nervous compared to his normal self-assured self. It reminded me of when he was about to announce our team to the entire school and then confided in me. He asked me to tell him everything would be okay and I told him the only people who could possibly believe in him more than me were his parents. 

I shook my head and sighed, looking up to meet his eyes. "Eamon, you're one of the closest people in my life. Honestly, I confide in you more than anyone, even Blythe. I also couldn't be closer to anyone else. But even if I could, I wouldn't want to. I love being close to you." 

He nodded before saying, "You know when that slow dance came on? That wasn't an accident. I put it in there because I was hoping you'd dance with me. Even if we're both terrible at it." 

I laughed and took a step forward, grabbing his hand. Neither of us said anything, we simply stood there holding hands, soaking in the moment. "You're my best friend," I told him. "I don't want you to think this is me friend-zoning you or something dumb like that. But, I just need you to know that you are. And no matter what you always will be. Whatever this is that we're talking about, I don't want it to change that." 

He hummed in agreement. "I hope it wouldn't," he said and then took my other hand to hold as well as he made sure we were facing each other. "So you're not friend-zoning me?" 

The smirk I had been missing appeared back on his face, and I couldn't help but laugh. "No, of course not. You're not friend-zoning me, though, right?" 

He shook his head and mocked me as he replied, "No, of course not." We both laughed and then after realizing we were almost going to be late, we made the trip to his house where a few members of Team Valiant were already waiting. 

"Just waiting on Juno and Atlas, boss," Marcel said when he noticed us looking around. "Seems the couples are slowing everyone down." 

My face heated up as I realized Eamon and I were still holding hands, and neither of us made a move to correct him. Instead Eamon laughed and replied, "Well, you guys were early, they're not late." 

"In a few minutes they will be," Ashla interjected. "I'm excited. This is our first huge public outing as a squad." 

"Team," Marcel replied. "Stop calling us a squad." 

"I don't know," Briar cut in, "I love Ashla's idea of renaming us Odd Squad." 

"It's a human children's show!" he immediately argued, rolling his eyes. "I refuse to think about it further. In fact, I now ban the mention of it at least in front of me. It just reminds me how not-seriously everyone around me takes this position." 

"You literally spent an entire two days telling us all the different cuss words you learned after going into an Australian bar," I reminded him, rolling my eyes. "I specifically remember you trying to find as many creative ways to say the one that started with c." 

"I'm pretty sure they call them pubs, not bars," he replied, ignoring everything else I said. "And I think it was funny."

"Until you got us all lunch detention when the linguistic teacher overheard you and knew exactly what you were saying," I added on, although I was laughing as I remembered the moment. The next day had been a fun bonding experience. 

"Mate, if you can't handle it, toodooloo kangaroo." 

"Australians don't actually say that," I responded, and then thought about it. "Well, do they?" 

Marcel shrugged. "I don't know, I've only actually been to Australia a few times. I'm still working on my English, but I've almost got the conversational English down. I don't even want to think about possibly learning academic English." He groaned. "CALP is going to ruin me." 

"I can't even handle BICS, don't get me started," I cringed at the thought. We all stood around and let the conversation continue to flow as we waited a few more minutes for Juno and Atlas to arrive, which they did. 

"Sorry we're late," Atlas apologized. "Lost track of time." 

"Well, now that we're all here we should be able to go. This is just going to be a nice relaxing evening, we're simply getting dinner. But, maybe try and sit next to someone who can work on their languages with you. That means that since you two are mostly focusing on English," he pointed to me and Marcel, "you should sit together. I'll sit on the other side of Nova and then Ashla, you can sit next to me on my other side since I can work with you on your Hindi. Juno can sit between Briar and Atlas since she can work on both Spanish and Swahili." 

I inwardly groaned at the fact I would be expected to sit and converse with Marcel for the majority of the night, speaking in English too. I still sucked it up though and Eamon, still holding my hand, tugged me in the direction of the leapmaster so we could go to the restaurant. 

My parents greeted us all with high energy, but I could tell the stress they were under. It was their busiest night thus far, so busy they had to introduce reservations. "We made sure that your friends would be sitting at a table not too far off," my mother mentioned to me. She pointed at a table where I noticed that Blythe, Lyra, Arrowe, and Genesis were seated. "Maybe wait until after the food to get up and move around. The mural is going to be unveiled in about ten minutes, so you guys came at a great time." 

She then led us to a table only a few steps away from everyone else, although in a corner, and Eamon pulled out a seat for me before taking his own. My mother noticed and looked at me with knowing eyes. I blushed slightly and looked the other way. We had all but declared feelings for each other. I imagine us "not friend-zoning each other" meant that we were together. With that thought I shimmied my chair a bit closer to his, and he put an arm around my shoulder without a second thought--although he had turned to face Ashla and speak to her in Hindi. 

"I imagine everyone is going to get their normal drink orders?" My mom questioned, her voice commanding the attention of everyone at the table who had got slightly off-tracked when they sat down. 

"Yeah, I'll take my usual Mrs. M," Marcel responded from beside me. Everyone echoed choruses of agreement and she smiled. I was thankful that the team treated her with enough respect to not ignore her, there were endless stories of my mom working and having tables practically ignore her existence--usually nobles who felt above it all. 

"Well, I'll be back with it all." She gave one last look to me, her eyes shifting to Eamon's arm around my shoulder, before turning and walking off towards the kitchen. When my mom was out of sight I realized she had walked off in the direction of where my friends were sat, so I accidentally locked eyes with Blythe--who was grinning ear to ear when she noticed mine and Eamon's position. 

We communicated silently, widening our eyes to make points only the two of us could understand. Finally she nodded and turned to say something to Arrowe, only to get distracted by his reply and not turn back to face me. I chuckled and turned to Marcel. "I'm getting better at understanding English, but I'm really bad at speaking it," I told him, switching to the foreign language for our practice. 

"Me too," he agreed, making sure to speak in English as well. "Remembering the way certain words are pronounced is the hardest part." 

"The grammar is the worst part," I stated. "They say there are rules and then find a hundred ways to break them. Do not get me started on they're, their, and there." 

"Yes!" he agreed with excitement. "What reason would they have to make it so three different words are pronounced the same way?" 

"I'm sure some old guy decided it," Eamon interjected into the conversation. I rolled my eyes at his response, and he smiled before turning back to Ashla and continuing to talk. Eventually my mom returned with all our drinks and took our orders, although she told us due to the mural reveal the food was on a bit of a back log and would take a bit longer than usual. 

Everyone was kind as they explained they didn't mind, and I noticed the relief on her face. I imagined there were people who hadn't been so nice when being told that news. I don't know why she was worried about us, though, obviously with my being her daughter she should expect us to understand better than others. "I'm surprised your mom didn't have you working tonight," Eamon told me, smiling as I jumped slightly in surprise. He took my head and held it in his own, although using both our hands to rest his chin on. 

I rolled my eyes at the position but made no move to take away my hand. "She would rather I spend time with the team. Besides, she got other friends' children to volunteer. A lot of people wanted their teenagers to get some experience in at least something. She trained them up this past week everyday after school. My mom said a few of them seemed really interested in the work and would like to possibly come back after they graduate." 

"I'm sure she appreciates that," he replied as there was a whistle sounding from the direction of the mural, and we turned our seats so that we could face it. Our seats were still pushed closer together and I took the opportunity to rest my head on his shoulder, not that it'd be the first time we sat that way. There was a quick explanation of what was going on from my mom, as if most people weren't already aware and only there to see the mural. It took up the length of one of the walls and when the sheet covering it was taken away, I was taken aback by the amount of detail put in. 

I noticed everyone start to gossip, some people pointing out themselves to each other. There were a few disappointed mumbles from those who were not included, but I was confused as I tried to find myself. "I'm not with my parents," I said as I noticed Keefe had painted my parents talking to Arrowe's parents--who had become regular customers--next to a door. There were scattered tables that resembled what the restaurant actually looked like and I was surprised by how much it looked like a large photograph and not so much a painting. 

"I'm not with mine either," he said. "They're on the left, but it's just my parents and Ivan and Celeste. Leulla's at the table where he drew all the councillors." 

I noticed what he was talking about, but my eyes got distracted as they fell on a drawing of me. I pointed in the direction as I informed him, "Look, he didn't paint us with our parents because he painted us together." 

Our table was in the middle of the painting but a bit further back so I would have to go up close to see the real details. Still, there was no mistaking my large mass of red curls. Keefe had it so Eamon and I were facing away from the point of view, sitting at a table with the rest of our teammates. Something I did notice, though, was he had it so my head was resting on Eamon's shoulders. Much like how we were sitting in that moment. In all honesty, he had probably gone to the restaurant one day and drew that exact scene, because I'm sure Eamon and I had sat in the exact position before. 

"I'm a bit sad you can't see our faces," Eamon informed me. "But it's nice that he included our entire team. He didn't draw Ivan's or Leulla's." 

"Well, they don't come here as often as we do," I told him, laughing. I noticed his parents making their way towards us. They were stopped a few times from people telling him their opinions, and I overheard one man thank him for "making him look so good."

Eventually they did make it to our table, though. "What do you think?" Eamon's dad asked, patting Eamon on the shoulder as he asked. 

"It's really good dad," Eamon said. 

"I came in a few days and tried to make sure to put faces I saw here the most. I noticed the two of you sit like that one day and couldn't resist," Keefe said, smirking. "You two seem to prove that it was a good move," he added on, acknowledging we sat in the same position only a few moments earlier when the mural was revealed. 

"Oh, let them be, stop teasing them," Sophie cut in before he could say more. She gave us a little wink, though, before they took their seats at a table near ours. 

"Do you think people are going to tease us for the rest of our lives?" I asked Eamon, face red. 

He shrugged. "Well, I think at least I will tease you for the rest of your life." 

I laughed at his words. "I'll tease you back."

"Of course," he replied. "I wouldn't have it any other way." 

-

guys. that was it. that was the last chapter. now we just have an epilogue and i'll probs write a few bonus scenes. but y'all. wow. 

i'd like to thank the academy for all they- lmao jk. I want to thank YOU GUYS for spending these last two years fawning over these characters just as much as I have. And even newer people who haven't been there for the entire journey, maybe you're reading this way in the future when the book is long done, I appreciate you just as much and hope you've enjoyed the time you've spent reading about Nova. 

I've become so emotionally attached to her I have been putting off writing this chapter because I don't want it to end. But that's so dramatic because I literally still have an epilogue and bonus chapters to do. 

Anyways I hope I've done this ending justice, I spent an hour today talking with my bestie/roomie about how much I was worried and didn't want to disappoint y'all. 

i love love love love love you guys so much and idk maybe comment some theories for epilogue. i have a feeling you do not know what is going to happen in it :)