La: Boum

The silence that followed was a living thing. Finally, her father said, “We’ll drive you. We’ll pick you up at midnight. No later.”

“You’re going, right?” asked Clara, her best friend since the sandbox, already scanning her own invitation for dress-code clues.

“My parents let me,” she said, then winced. Stupid. He doesn’t care about your parents. La Boum

Sophie almost hugged him. Instead, she nodded, trying to look bored, and ran to her room to call Clara. The night of La Boum , the world felt different. The streetlights seemed softer. The air smelled of autumn leaves and possibility. Sophie wore a red dress—the one her grandmother had sent from Lyon, saying, “For when you feel brave.” Clara had done her eyeliner in two perfect wings.

At some point, Clara caught her eye from across the room and gave her a huge, knowing thumbs-up. The silence that followed was a living thing

“You came,” he said. His voice was lower than she remembered. He was holding a bottle of grenadine.

Her father glanced in the rearview mirror, and for a second, she thought she saw him smile too—as if he remembered, once, being fifteen, standing in a room full of noise and light, holding on to a moment before it slipped away. No later

Adrien’s house was a two-story with a creaky gate and a living room emptied of furniture. Someone had pushed the sofa against the wall and hung a disco ball from a ceiling hook that was probably meant for a plant. The music was already loud—a French pop song she didn’t recognize, then something by Depeche Mode, then a slowed-down Cure track that made everyone sway.