EVERYONE SLEPT IN the next day. The banks were closed for Bastille Day, so Eva was home from work. So was Dad, and we all went out to lunch. While we waited for our food, Eva asked Camille, “Are you going to the Eiffel Tower for the fireworks?”’

Camille cast a glance at Dane. “Yes. We’re meeting my friends there.”

Dad’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Eva gave him a patient smile. “William, I told you, it’s perfectly safe. Camille and her friends have gone for the last two years.”

Apparently this had already been a topic of conversation. One I didn’t know anything about, but Eric didn’t look surprised.

Eva saw my confusion, then said, “There is a big celebration at the Eiffel Tower and the Champ de Mars. There is a huge crowd, but many young people go.”

My father frowned. “After Sophie got lost last week, I think she should stay home.”

“I wasn’t lost,” I countered. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go with Camille, but I wanted to make sure the option was open. “I just chose not to come home. Besides, I have a cell phone now. You can call me if you have a sudden panic attack that I might be dead.”

“Sophie!”

“William,” Eva said in a soft voice, “police and security are everywhere. It’s only a few blocks away. They will be perfectly safe.”

“Come on, Dad,” Eric said. “Let us go.”

He thought about it for a moment, and then nodded his head, a reluctant look in his eyes. “All right, but there will be rules.”

“Yeah,” Eric said. “Of course.”

My phone vibrated, and I dug it out of my pocket, surprised to see I had an email.

Eric shot me a scowl. He wasn’t happy that Mathieu wanted me to keep practicing at his apartment and was pushing me to ask Eva for another option. “It’s a trick, Sophie.” No amount of persuading had made him change his mind.

When I opened the message, I almost gasped.

“Sophie,” Dad admonished. “No phones at the table.”

“It’s an email, Dad. And it’s important. It’s about my audition.”

“What audition?”

With all the Mathieu drama, I hadn’t told him. Part of my hesitation was my fear over his reaction. What if he didn’t want me to live in Paris? I wasn’t sure I could handle another rejection from him. But I needed his permission. Now was the time to tell him. “I’ve been invited to audition for the lycée program at Mathieu’s mother’s conservatoire.”

“You what?”

Eva broke into a huge smile and clasped her hands together. “That’s wonderful news, Sophie! Félicitations!”

“How is that wonderful news, Maman?” Camille asked, her eyes wide.

“Sophie can live with us and go to school here.”

Dad looked like he’d swallowed a bug.

“Are you going to audition?” Eva asked.

“I think so, but I need to start preparing soon.” I kept my attention focused on Dad. His reaction wasn’t what I’d hoped for. “It’s an invitation to audition, nothing more. It’s highly competitive, so the likelihood of me being accepted is very small.”

The slim chances of my acceptance didn’t dampen Eva’s excitement, but Dad picked at his food the rest of the meal. At least he stopped hounding us about going to the Champ de Mars for the Bastille Day celebration. But my heart ached at his implied rejection.

I practiced on the keyboard when we got back to the apartment. I caught Dad watching me from the living room doorway, but neither of us said anything. I didn’t want to think about his reaction to the audition—or rather his lack of a reaction. Part of the reason I wanted to audition was so we could repair our relationship, but he seemed panicked by the idea of me staying.

Still, while both Dad and Eric had put a damper on the idea, I wasn’t ready to write it off yet. Maybe I would just audition and let the school decide. In the end, all this drama was probably for nothing. But I needed to tell Mom, and an email wasn’t going to cut it. I grabbed my laptop and went into the bathroom and sat on the floor, locking the door behind me so I could have some privacy for our video call.

I was halfway surprised when she answered since she was on her beach trip with her boyfriend.

“Sophie? Is everything okay?” I could see the ocean behind her. She looked worried.

“Everything’s fine. In fact, I got some wonderful news.” At least I hoped she saw it that way. “I’m sorry to call you on your trip, but it’s kind of important.”

She gave me a warm smile. “I can’t wait to hear.”

I took a breath. “The guy I told you about—Mathieu—his mother is an instructor at the Conservatoire de Seine.”

“Really? Have you asked her about the school?”

I was glad she remembered it was one of my dream schools, even if I’d never really given it serious consideration. “She heard me play yesterday and was impressed.”

“Of course she was.” Pride filled her words. “You’ve worked so hard this past year and it shows.”

I swallowed, scared to tell her the rest, but forged on anyway. “In fact, she’s in charge of a program for high school students and she invited me to audition.”

She was silent for several seconds. “What did you tell her?”

“I told her I would think about it.”

“What do you want to do, Sophie?” Her voice sounded tiny—thousands of miles away.

I needed to be honest. “I’d like to do it.”

She was silent again.

“But the competition is stiff. I doubt I have a shot at getting in. I’d like to at least try and say I did.”

She still didn’t say anything, and guilt pricked my chest, making me uncomfortable. Mom may have forced Dad’s hand on leaving, but it was his decision to block me out of his life. Mom had stepped in the best she could. She had already admitted she was struggling with me leaving in two years. I couldn’t do this to her now.

“On second thought,” I said, forcing my voice to remain even, “I think I’ll just skip it. It will be a ton of work. I should just enjoy my time in Paris.”

“No,” she said quietly. “You should audition.”

My breath caught. “Mom, no. I can wait until—”

“No.” Her tone was firmer and she had a determined look in her eyes. “You need to do this. You have to do this.” She broke out into a huge smile. “Sophie! You were invited to audition for Conservatoire de Seine! This is huge!”

Relief washed through me when I heard her pride and excitement. “I might not get in, Mom.”

“You’ll get in.”

“But if I do . . . I’ll have to leave you.” My voice broke, and I swiped at a tear at the corner of my eye.

She sucked in her bottom lip, then smiled. “Unlike your father, I know how to use a phone. And email. And video-chats.” She could have sounded bitter, but she sounded encouraging. “And I can get on a plane. I’m sure you’ll have concerts. I’ll want to hear you play.”

“I don’t know what to say.” My throat burned and it hurt to push out the words.

“Say you’ll audition and give it your all.”

“Thank you, Mom.”

“I love you, Sophie. I’ll never stand in the way of your dream.” I suddenly wondered if there was more to my mother pushing my father toward France last summer.

Next I called Miss Lori and told her about the invitation to audition. She nearly broke my eardrum with her squeals of excitement.

“Sophie, you must audition!”

“I’d like to, Miss Lori, but I don’t even know what to play.”

We went over my existing repertoire, and the news was better than I’d thought. She thought my Mozart Sonata K.332 would work for the sonata, and for the etude she suggested I try Chopin Etude Op. 25 No. 2.

“You’ll have to work at it, Sophie. I mean push hard.”

“I know.” But I still worried there wouldn’t be enough time.

“Why don’t we schedule a time for you to video-chat me tomorrow, and I’ll listen to your Rachmaninoff piece? With the time difference, why don’t we try eight a.m. for me, two p.m. for you.”

“Thank you, Miss Lori.” That was later than I usually stayed at Mathieu’s, but if I couldn’t stay, I could always play on the electronic keyboard.

I hung up, realizing my next concern was finding sheet music. But I explained my dilemma to Eva, and she helped me look up the address for a music store in the Latin Quarter.

It was soon time to go to the Bastille Day celebration. Eric, Dane, Camille, and I left around five thirty with a blanket and a bag of food Eva had packed.

As we approached the Champs de Mars, I was shocked to see the huge crowd gathered on the lawn, listening to a band play on a temporary stage.

Dane stopped in his tracks. “I know you said the crowd would be huge, but this is insane.”

“This is nothing,” Camille said. “Besides, Marine and a group are already here.”

Would Mathieu be there? My pulse picked up at the thought. His mother said they had plans, but did that mean he wouldn’t be with his friends tonight?

Camille expertly wove her way through the bodies littered across the giant lawn. There were thousands of people on the grass, but she somehow knew exactly where to go. Military men with huge guns walked back and forth on the periphery, making me nervous as they watched for signs of trouble in the crowd. The police I usually saw in the city didn’t carry weapons like that.

We were about halfway across the lawn when Camille began to wave to a group about thirty feet away.

I scanned the crowd and found Thomas waving at me. As we got closer, I could see that Marine, Julien, and Sarah were with him, along with about ten other people I didn’t recognize. None of them were Mathieu. I was equally relieved and disappointed.

I needed to get over Mathieu Rousseau.

Thomas was sitting on the grass. He patted a space next to him, and I climbed around several people until I reached him and plopped down.

The new teens must have heard about the Americans, because they openly stared at us for a few seconds. To my surprise, Camille introduced us before proceeding to ignore me as usual.

I’d honestly expected to be bored, but once Thomas started talking to me, some of Camille’s other friends began to talk to me too. Soon I started to have fun. Despite myself, though, I missed Mathieu and wondered what he was doing with his family. And I just couldn’t shake the heaviness in my heart. I told myself it would take time. Part of me believed it.

The sun began to go down just before ten o’clock, and someone pulled out several bottles of wine and began to pass them around.

I started to panic. I’d had sips of my parents’ drinks before, but I typically avoided parties that served alcohol. I cast a glance toward my brother, not surprised to see him take a swig from one of the bottles.

Thomas must have seen the look on my face, because he leaned in toward my ear. “You won’t get in trouble for drinking.”

The bottle was passed to him and he took a drink, then handed it to me. I took a little sip, trying not to grimace at the taste, and passed it to the girl next to me. They continued passing the bottle around, and when it came to me again I handed it to the next person without taking a drink.

A girl asked Thomas a question in French and he answered in English. “Mathieu is with his family.” He shot a glance to me, and for a second I wondered if he’d figured out there had been something between the two of us. But then he turned back to the girl. “English, please. Sophie’s French is improving, but she still doesn’t understand everything.”

His friends grudgingly listened. “I’m surprised he’s coming around at all after what happened with Camille and Hugo,” one of the girls said.

“You’re his best friend, Thomas,” one of the guys said. “What did happen?”

Thomas didn’t answer, and someone handed him the bottle. He took a longer drink than before and shook his head. “He won’t tell me details, but I know he found them . . . together.”

I tried not to gasp in surprise. Camille had cheated on him? So how was it that she had something on him?

One of the guys leaned back on his hands. “I heard he’s been hanging out with you guys since school let out. Are they back together?”

Thomas looked over his shoulder to see if she was listening. When he saw she was deep in conversation with Marine and Dane, he lowered his voice. “Non. We could tell he didn’t want to be with us, but he came anyway. It was like she made him come.”

His secret. She had been using it to order him around.

What a witch.

She’d probably kept him around in the hopes he would take her back. It explained why he wasn’t around anymore now that she was hooking up with Dane.

A loud noise burst over our heads. Reminded of the men walking around with machine guns, I ducked, then cringed with embarrassment when I realized there were fireworks overhead. But thankfully no one noticed. Their attention was fixed on the show lighting up the sky.

My head whirled with the information I’d just heard. Why hadn’t Mathieu told me Camille had cheated?

Thomas wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me closer, grinning like a fool. “Tell me, Sophie Brooks, does your boyfriend back home take you to see fireworks?”

No more lies. No more secrets. I was sick of them. “I don’t have a boyfriend back home.”

His eyes widened in surprise. “You broke up?” he shouted over the booms of the fireworks.

I shook my head. “No. I never had one.”

I expected him to be angry with me, which I totally deserved, so I wasn’t prepared when he pulled me against him and kissed me. I tasted the wine on his lips and his tongue as he tried to deepen the kiss. For a couple of seconds I was too shocked to react. Then he lifted his face and smiled.

Oh no. What had I done?

He slipped his arm to my lower back, and while I wanted to shove his arm off me, I was still sorting out everything in my head. I only knew two things for sure. One, I was in shock, and two, I was slightly disappointed I didn’t feel anything with him. It would have made things so much easier.

My mother once told me the heart wants what the heart wants, and it was just my luck my heart wanted someone I couldn’t have: Mathieu Rousseau.