Walking onto the stage felt surreal. My hands were shaking holding my sheet music, and I had no idea how I would ever calm my nerves long enough to get through my piece. It was close to six minutes long, taken from Mozart’s requiem. I was sure the judges had heard it a thousand times, but it was my best, and I was determined to show them my best.

“Step to the center,” a voice said from the darkness. I moved over, shielding my eyes from the spotlight that held me in its embrace, to peek out at the men and women who would ultimately decide my fate. They held so much power, and yet the lights were blinding me from knowing where they sat. They were the gods of the music world. I couldn’t see them, but I knew they were there.

“Name, please,” the music god said.

“Kristen Forte,” I said, feeling like Christine speaking to the Phantom of the Opera for the first time.

“What will you be playing for us today, Kristen?”

“Mozart’s requiem.” Silence. Yup, they had heard it a jillion times, and now I was just going to be a jillion and one.

“Instrumental only.” It was a confirmation, not a question, and so I nodded.

“Very well, Kristen, you have the floor.”

I walked over to the piano, hearing how my heels sounded as they clicked off the wood. I was wearing red sparkly pumps today. My “Dorothy” shoes as David used to call them. He’d make me click them for him all the time. Wearing them today for some reason made me feel like he was with me, or at least out there somewhere in the darkness with the other music gods, but the difference was, David would be rooting for me.

I sat on the bench, briefly wondering how many great asses have been perched in this very spot. Placing my music down, I took a breath. My hands hovered above the ivory for a moment, and then as if they had a mind of their own, my fingers began to dance. Music poured out of me. I felt one with the piano, and I doubt I even breathed air. I just inhaled every note existing solely off the music, for in that moment, that was all I needed.

I swayed to the darkness of the piece, lost to the madness of Mozart, the very music he wrote with his dying hands. It was a piece I oddly connected with. Perhaps it was because I was so in control of everything, and this was Mozart clawing at what little control remained of his life as the fever took him, and he withered away.

I played on, and my fingers began to ache from the intricacy of the music, but I was more than halfway through and determined to finish. And then— I heard it. It was faint, but I heard it. I had pressed the wrong key, my mistake echoing throughout the auditorium. I was always taught, as I teach my own students, if you make a mistake, keep playing. Most of the time your audience wouldn’t even pick up on it. But, in that split second, I made a decision, one I could never take back. I did not continue to play requiem; instead, I started playing something completely different, my fingers taking on a life of their own. And that’s the precise moment when everything fell to shit.

Who knew why it happened. All I knew is that it happened. I lost complete control over all my faculties. I no longer was just playing the piano. No, I was playing and singing. Singing a song I hadn’t even prepared for. Singing for no other reason other than it calmed me and felt natural in the most unnatural way possible. I was supposed to play a classical, so why had I switched to a contemporary piece and started belting out lyrics like I was the goddam Piano Man? I finished the song and listened to the silence that followed.

It was tangible.

I got up and walked back to the center of the stage, my heels shaking against the wooden floor with every step. The lights were blinding, and I shielded my eyes while I waited to hear their verdict. But all I heard was, “Thank you, Kristen.” And I knew it was officially over.

I didn’t walk out with grace. Nope, I ran. Fleeing the stage to only further embarrass myself. What had I done? I had totally ruined any chance I had of making my dreams come true. I acted out of desperation, and it wasn’t pretty. When I entered the main hallway, Brit was sitting on the stairs, playing with her phone.

“Let’s go,” I snapped and instantly regretted speaking that way to her. She hadn’t done anything wrong. If anything, she had been my personal cheerleader. “I’m sorry.”

She looked up at me, and her face dropped. She could see I was upset. She didn’t ask how it went. She didn’t say how I’d get them next time, because we both knew there wouldn’t be a next time. So, she just gave me what I needed. Brit stood and hugged me, holding me longer than I expected her to, but I needed her to.

“Come on. I made reservations some place special. We’re going to celebrate.”

“Celebrate? Brit, I completely bombed my audition. I think I need to dig a hole in the sand and bury my head in it.”

“We’re celebrating your bravery. You went after your dreams. Not many people have the balls to do that. Today, you were an inspiration.” She took my hand. “Come on, time to celebrate you.”

Only Brit would take me to a whimsical tea house. We were sitting on the second floor of Alice’s Tea Cup, looking out the window, taking in the city. The city of both our dreams. Brit belonged here. She was an artist and seemed to bloom in the New York air, unlike me— I had withered under the pressure.

  We sat at an old sewing table that tipped slightly back and forth, making it really feel like something out of Wonderland. Brit poured me a cup of tea from the fancy kettle then filled her own cup. She raised her cup and stuck out her pinky like a proper lady. A proper lady with purple hair. “To you. A woman of talent, beauty, and class.”

“You forgot my shoes.” I wiggled my ruby red pumps underneath the table. The shoes I had worn for good luck. Guess I had put too much faith in those heels.

“And owner of a fierce foot wardrobe,” Brit added.

I checked my phone again. There were several texts from the sorority girls, and surprisingly, one from Harry wishing me luck, but none from David. Not wanting to obsess over his call, I broke apart a piece of the cranberry scone and popped it into my mouth.

“Wow! This is so yum! How did you find this place?”

“Erik took me here last year. Remember when we spent New Year’s Eve together? The two of us came here first.” She took another drink from her cup and smiled. “He knows I have a soft spot for the Mad Hatter.”

I looked around. It was ninety-nine percent women in here. Or at least the female gender in general. There were little girls wearing fairy wings sipping tea with their mothers, and older women who worked around here, dressed to the nines and looking freaking fabulous while having a finger sandwich on their lunch break, and then there were the Bristen’s of the world. Bristen was what David and Erik started referring to the two of us as. We interpreted it as best friends. And that’s what this place was filled with--Bristen’s. It was the place to go to celebrate your success, or pour out your soul, or just catch up with that person who means so much to you.

“I can’t really imagine Erik here, no offense.”

Brit took a sip of tea and shook her head. “None taken. In fact, when I told him I had made reservations for us today, he said, ‘Good that’s a Bristen place.’”

I smiled.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“The audition?” I sipped some tea, which oddly, had a strange calming effect. “I don’t know what else there is to say. I went in to play Mozart. I started to play Mozart, and the next thing I know, I’m singing Adele.”

Brit offered a sympathetic smile. “When we were young?”

I sighed. “When we were young.”

“We all do odd things under pressure. Besides, I’m sure you rocked that song. I wouldn’t stress it. For all you know, you got it.”

“That’s hysterical. I went from this powerful concerto to this much simpler piano piece. What the hell was I thinking?”

“The melody might have been simpler, but the vocals for that are not easy. I can’t even touch the range that Adele has.”

“Even if I sang it better than Adele, which I didn’t, they were there to critique my piano skills. I royally fucked up.”

“Kris, you don’t know that! How about this, if you did get it, you have to bring me back here for lunch so I can say I told you so.”

“You’re going to have to find another reason to come here, because that won’t be it. Ugh, I’m such an idiot.” I rubbed my temples willing my embarrassment to leave me.

  “You’re not an idiot. You took a risk. That’s more than most people can say.” Brit took another sip and smacked her lips. “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Why didn’t you audition for vocals in the first place? I mean, if you study piano at Juilliard, sounds to me that you’ll be in the orchestra pit when you really want to be on the stage.” She sounded like David.

“Is it bad that I want both?” I sighed, admitting for the first time how badly I did want a crack at the stage. “My parents pushed the piano audition. They see I’m able to tutor the kids now, and they say I can always teach music. I guess they don’t want me to be some singer in a sleazy bar because my dreams fell to shit.”

“You do know I spend my evenings singing in a coffee shop, right?”

I laughed and raised my tea cup. “To dreams that fell to shit.”

Brit tilted her head and raised a brow. “To dreams that still may come true.”

I smiled and glanced down at my phone. David still hadn’t checked in. He knew how important today was for me. My audition was hours ago, and by now it was nighttime in London. Was he asleep? Did he forget? For some reason, the thought of him actually forgetting was more upsetting than my brain short-circuiting at the piano.

“He’ll call, don’t worry,” Brit said with conviction. No sooner had she said the words than my phone buzzed with an incoming text, and my heart leapt.

It wasn’t David. It was Harry.

Hey! Hope your audition went great! I bet you killed it!

“Well? Was it Mr. Archer?” Brit asked in a mock British accent meant to make fun of Garret.

“Yeah. It was Mr. Archer.” I didn’t lie. I simply didn’t specify which Archer it was. I shoved my phone in my purse, trying to forget about the man across the sea who held my heart and just tried to enjoy my city time with my Little Sister before we had to catch the train back to Pennsylvania.

In the middle of the night, my phone buzzed, waking me up. I stretched over and squinted at the luminescent screen.

I was in the studio all day. No bloody reception. How was the audition?

I looked at the time. It was after three in the morning. So it was about eight a.m. in London. I was confused. So he was in the studio all day yesterday, but why didn’t he text me when he got in? Or was he just getting in? Or did he forget, and he was just starting his day?

I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t even know if I wanted to respond.

So, I didn’t. I rolled over and went back to sleep.