Celeste's Relationships
lore about celeste's relationships with their parents, stepdad, partner, daughter, and best friends
word count: 1,503
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Scott & Melody Lu (Parents) & David Bellafonte (Stepdad)
Up until middle school, Celeste had a pretty normal childhood. Both of their parents worked, but nothing crazy. They would take turns picking them up from school and daycare and all three of them would hang out on the weekends. When Celeste is in sixth grade though, Melody is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Melody goes through treatments for about two years before she passes away when Celeste is in eighth grade. In response to her mom's death, Celeste starts to act out a lot more. They engage in riskier behaviors (i.e., vaping, drinking, etc.) and they end up getting kicked out of their school at the end of ninth grade for fighting (they did not start the fight, but with their track record, the administrators didn't really believe them). Since it was so close to the end of the year they let Celeste finish the year, but they weren't allowed to return the next year.
So after that is when Scott and Celeste move to Cedar Cove. Scott gets a job offer (promotion) there and thinks that getting away might be good for Celeste. And it is! Having a fresh start really helps Celeste start to find themself again, especially engaging with their music more. Some of their risky behaviors still linger though, but are a little less prominent. They still vape, but try to do it less, they only drink at parties, etc. However, they also get a boyfriend their sophomore year (Aiden, discussed below) which brings a new risky behavior: sex. Which does lead to them getting pregnant their junior year of high school.
Scott is the first person that Celeste tells about their pregnancy. It's a very emotional moment (obviously) and Scott is nothing but supportive. I mean, he's not thrilled that his sixteen year old child is pregnant, but he just wants to help them as much as possible. So, he takes Celeste to the doctor because they want to go to the doctor before telling Aiden just in case the at-home test was wrong. They don't want to freak him out over nothing, you know? Even though they were. quite sure they were pregnant. And they were. They went to the doctor and found out they were sixteen weeks pregnant, so a bit too late for an abortion. They eventually decide to keep the baby (as opposed to adoption) and, again, Scott does everything he can to help. Celeste, Aiden, and the baby (Cadence) all live with Scott and Scott loooooooves to babysit lol. Whenever he notices Celeste and/or Aiden seem particularly stressed out, he tells them to pick a night that week for the two of them to go out while Scott watches Cadence. He will not take no for an answer.
About a year after moving to Cedar Cove, Scott starts dating again. He starts dating David, who he met through his bowling league. He doesn't really want to tell Celeste right away and wants to wait until/if it gets more serious. He was actually going to tell them the night they told him they're pregnant, but well. that took priority. So Scott told Celeste about David a few weeks later. Before Cadence is born, Scott, Celeste, Aiden, and David all move in together. David makes more money than Scott, plus just with two incomes instead of one, they can afford a bigger place. And even before Scott and David get married, David is more than willing to help out Celeste, Aiden, and Cadence financially.
Scott and David get engaged about six months after Cadence is born and get married about six months after that. It's a small, simple ceremony so planning is a bit easier. Celeste is Scott's best person at the wedding :)
Aiden Zhou (Partner)
Aiden and Celeste meet on Celeste's first day at Berry High. They officially start dating at the end of the winter quarter that year. I haven't decided many specifics of their relationship timeline in the OG trilogy since I'm still doing that playthrough, so I might update this in the future.
Aiden's parents uhh never really liked Celeste. For one, they have a habit of misgendering Celeste. Not out of malice, they just don't really try that hard to get it right? Celeste presents very femininely and they just kind of equate that to them being a woman. They also don't love that their son is queer. So that is a part of it as well. And they think that Celeste is a bad influence on Aiden, which is actually kind of true.
Aiden absolutely freaks out when Celeste tells him they're pregnant. He freaks out even more when they tell him that they're too far along to get an abortion. Aiden knows his parents are going to be livid and is terrified of telling them. But it needs to be done, so Aiden, Celeste, and Scott all go to tell Aiden's parents and he was right they are in fact livid. To the point where they actually kick him out. So Aiden lives with Celeste and Scott after that.
Since Celeste is a year younger than Aiden, he graduates that year and Cadence is born that summer. Since Celeste still has a year left of high school, Aiden is primarily a stay-at-home dad for that first year, but he also does freelance music lessons. Honestly, I haven't decided if/when Aiden would go back to school himself. He definitely enjoys being a stay-at-home dad, but I don't know if he would do that for, like, ever? I also haven't really decided what exactly Celeste does after graduation. At the very least, they take a gap year or two.
Since they already have a kid together, they get married very young - when they're 19 and 20 respectively. And since I'm still working out their timeline, I'm not sure when exactly this happens, but they do end up having more kids in the future. But not for a while. I also haven't decided exactly how many, but it's around 2 or 3.
Cadence Lu (Daughter)
Celeste and Cadence have a pretty strained relationship, at least when Cadence is young. Celeste loves their daughter, but really struggles with being a teen parent, especially in the beginning. They especially struggle with balancing parenthood and school. But as they get older and more mature, they get better at parenting and feel more comfortable with it and their relationship with Cadence improves.
Since Cadence is really little when all of this is happening, she isn't really aware of any of it. She knows that she spends more time with her dad, but that makes sense because he's a stay at home dad, and that her dad is more affectionate, but she doesn't really think anything of it at the time. Cadence didn't realize her parents were teen parents until she was in middle school. They weren't necessarily keeping it a secret, but they also didn't really want to talk about it, so eventually Cadence did the math and figured it out. At first she tries not to think about it too much. But as she gets older and thinks about it more she kind of realizes "ooohhhh that's why my parent uuhhhh wasn't too fond of me when i was a small child". But she knows her parents did they best they could in that situation. Even if she thinks they are crazy for keeping her. She still loves them.
Emma Hawkins & Maria Flores (Best Friends)
Emma and Maria are Celeste's best friends. They all met on Celeste's first day at Berry High. Emma and Celeste hit it off right away and become best friends very quickly. It takes a little longer with Maria because Celeste can just be a lot sometimes and Maria couldn't always handle that. But once they found out they were pregnant, Celeste calmed down quite a bit just because they were going through a lot. When Celeste told them they were pregnant, Emma really didn't know how to react. For a while afterwards she kind of avoided Celeste a bit. Not because she was judging or didn't want to be around them, but Emma just didn't know what to do. After a couple weeks, Celeste confronted Emma about it and Emma explained how she was feeling and they talked it out and everything :) After that, Emma was much better at being around Celeste and also making sure Celeste was still included in things :) Maria was very shocked when Celeste told them they were pregnant. But, unlike Emma, Maria knew exactly what to do. She was very supportive the whole time and repeatedly checked in with Celeste to make sure school was okay and is everything accessible for you is there anything that i, the class president, need to do to make this a better experience for you. It was a little bit much at times, but it always made Celeste feel really cared for and loved.