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  Praise for

  MAYBE IN PARIS

  “Set against the magic and possibility of Paris, Christiansen’s emotional debut not only reminds us of the challenges that come with loving someone as they are, but also, the incomparable beauty.”

  —Ashley Herring Blake, author of How to Make a Wish

  “A touching, relevant story about siblings, autism, and unconditional love. Beautifully written, compelling, and honest.”

  —Marci Lyn Curtis, author of The One Thing

  “Readers will swoon over the delicious descriptions of Paris … but will ultimately find that Keira’s emotional journey covers even more ground than her physical one, in a story that focuses on a complex, yet tender, sibling relationship.”

  —Jen Malone, author of Wanderlost

  “Maybe in Paris captures all the excitement of youthful obsession—with a city or a boy—while offering a touching depiction of the bonds we too often take for granted. Few books about teen sibling relationships capture their ups and painful downs so frankly.”

  —Margot Harrison, author of The Killer in Me

  “Heartbreaking but hopeful, Maybe in Paris is a wonderful debut with a beautiful setting, complicated, yet realistic sibling relationship, and a dash of romance.”

  —Chantele Sedgwick, author of Love, Lucas and Switching Gears

  “Good YA depends on great voice, and Rebecca Christiansen brings it to bear. She announces herself as a voice to be reckoned with in the very first pages of Maybe in Paris and doesn’t relent. A welcome debut sure to launch a million fans.”

  —Tom Leveen, author of Shackled and Random

  Copyright © 2017 by Rebecca Christiansen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

  Sky Pony Press books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected].

  Sky Pony® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  Visit our website at www.skyponypress.com.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover design by Sammy Yuen

  Interior design by Joshua Barnaby

  Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-0880-8

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-0882-2

  Printed in the United States of America

  To my brother, Scott, and my sister, Grace.

  You guys are the reason Keira and Levi’s relationship

  is so full of both frustration and love.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Footsteps thunder through my house in the early morning. My eyes snap open, weighted with eye shadow still caked on from prom.

  “Levi!” my stepdad, Josh, shouts. “Oh God, Levi, oh God, no …”

  He runs past my room and stumbles down the basement stairs, shouting my brother’s name over and over and over.

  Somehow, I already know what’s happened.

  Levi. Little brother. Dead.

  Josh screams up the stairs for my mom. “Amanda! Amanda, call 911!”

  I’m stiller than a statue. Somewhere in the house, Mom sobs.

  Levi, the little brother I made snap yesterday. Whose sour mood ruined my prom photo shoot. Whose scraggly neck beard and 350-pound frame made Jacques St-Pierre, my date, snigger. Levi, the blemish. Oh God.

  I fling off my blankets and tiptoe to my door.

  “It’s my son,” Mom cries in the kitchen. “There was a note outside our bedroom door, and—and my husband is with him now …”

  Mom’s footsteps hurry down the basement stairs to Levi’s bedroom. I strain my ears.

  “Y-yes, yes, he’s breathing…. I—I don’t know, there was a note outside our bedroom door, there was a note …”

  A note.

  I stay just inside my bedroom door. Frozen. The quiet suburban cul-de-sac outside my window gradually fills with sirens. Flashing lights steep my room in red and blue. Strange voices invade my house. Paramedics maneuver equipment down the basement stairs, knocking against the walls. And still I stand here, too terrified to move.

  One siren fades, bleeding into the early morning. Is that Levi, being taken away? I want to peek out my window, but my body won’t let me. I contemplate hiding in my closet, burying my face in the yellow silk of my Marie Antoinette–inspired prom dress. Prom was a mess—I can’t stop picturing Jacques’s sheepish smirk and Selena’s grin when I stumbled across them in the girls’ bathroom, her lipstick all over his face—but compared to now, to this, it was a dream.

  I could be losing my brother right now.

  Oh, God.

  The house is silent. The sun somehow rose.

  I grab my robe, sneak down the hall—don’t look downstairs—and into the big, open kitchen-slash-living room. It’s full of morning light. Everything is normal. Except the silence.

  Josh sits at the computer desk in the living room. His and Mom’s computers face opposite directions, so they can stare lovingly into each other’s eyes while their elf avatars battle orcs on Stones of Zendar, the online role-playing game where they met six years ago. Mom’s embroidered portrait of their avatars, holding hands, presides on the wall above their computers.

  Josh’s face looks gray and drawn in the monitor light, and much older than his thirty-two years.

  “Josh?” I whisper. “Is Levi okay?”

  He looks up at me from the Stones of Zendar log-in page, which he’s been staring at this whole time.

  “You heard what happened?”

  I heard enough. I nod. My body shakes, like it’s containing a potential scream. I pray to God Josh doesn’t tell me any specifics. If I hear about wounds, notes, or stomachs being pumped, my scream will break loose.

  “Levi’s in the hospital,” Josh says, barely keeping control of his voice. “Your mom is with him. He’s very, very sick, okay?”

  “Okay,” I whisper.

  “We just need to wait.” Josh lets out a shaky breath and returns to the log-in screen. He covers his face with his hands. I sit down on the couch and watch my sweaty fingers shake. I turn on the TV and put on this Louis XVI documentary I DVRed, but even at full blast, the jaunty harpsichord music doesn’t drown out the sobs Josh tries and fails to smother.

  CHAPTER TWO

  When I was getting ready for prom, the world still seemed bright, shiny, and full of possibilities. I was riding a new wave of the thrill I had gotten back in October when I’d first asked Jacques St-Pierre, devilishly handsome French exchange student, to be my prom date. Miraculously, as the year went on, Jacques hadn’t broken it off and asked someone else instead. It had seemed like a dream all year, but it was really happening.

  Maybe, I thought, if I could finally capture his heart tonight, I could tag along with him back to France. Over the past year, I’d saved up six thousand dollars from my cashiering job at Safeway, and I was determined to go with or without him—but “with” was preferable. “With” meant a free place to stay in France, at the very least. “With” meant a decent start to my plan for life post-high school and pre-college—my hopefully long career as a nomad in Europe, a professional wanderer. If Jacques joined m
e for that … yeah, that’d just be amazing.

  It took three hours of makeup, hair styling, and dress fastening, but a French queen was finally staring me back in the mirror. I hadn’t gone full Marie Antoinette. It was senior prom, not a historical reenactment. I would have preferred that, though; I could’ve gone for a sky-high powdered wig instead of my plain brown ringlets, which were the same as always, only all crunchy from hair spray.

  Once I was ready, there was nothing to do but wait for Jacques to pick me up in the limo we were sharing with his friends. I sat on my bed and imagined the reaction that would blossom on his face when he saw how perfect I looked. The door would open, his eyes would fall on me, and his jaw would hit the floor. It would be like every other chick flick after the heroine gets a makeover and the hero sees how beautiful she truly is. As Marie Antoinette, the girl synonymous with his hometown—Versailles, France—I would be irresistible to him. He would look at me and feel like he was home. His eyes would never slide past me again.

  “Keira!” my stepdad, Josh, had shouted up the stairs. “I think Jacques is here!”

  A shock jolted up my spine and I jumped off my bed. I carefully stepped through my room, my skirt bumping and jostling every piece of furniture. I had to reach down and press the hoop in to fit through the doorway. I felt a twinge of impatience and annoyance, but I wore it like a badge of honor. This was the true Marie Antoinette experience.

  I was at the top of the stairs when Josh opened the front door to reveal Jacques in his couture tux. He looked up in time to see me and my sumptuous skirt float down the stairs like a silken dream. I literally could not have planned the moment any better.

  His eyes popped open; the color drained from his face.

  “Bon soir, Jacques,” I said in the best accent I could muster. “Tu aimes ma robe?” You like my dress?

  His mouth opened, but he didn’t answer. His sculpted eyebrows were raised to the max. After another second of failing to speak, a laugh escaped. He tried to stifle it but it squeaked out.

  “Oh, shit,” he said.

  It wasn’t “oh, shit” in a “you look amazing” kind of way. It was the kind of “oh, shit” you say when you drop a glass and it shatters. The kind of “oh, shit” that means “I screwed up.” The kind that means “what have I gotten myself into?” Just remembering it, even two whole months later, mortification forms a pit in my stomach.

  Josh noticed everything: Jacques’s laugh, my frozen face. He jumped in to toss me a life preserver, but I was beyond saving.

  “Well, hey there, Jacques! Don’t you look dapper! Um, would you like a drink before you guys head off?”

  “Eh …” Jacques said. He was trying to stop laughing, but he was failing. “Eh, no thank you. Um … mon Dieu …”

  My God.

  His eyes were fixed on my dress. My dress, which before had felt like perfection, like a dream come to life, felt like exactly what it was: too much. A cake I was popping out of like a cheap stripper. A try-hard effort to impress. Embarrassment incarnate.

  “Aren’t you a pair!” Mom’s voice said from somewhere behind me. “Why don’t you step inside, Jacques? I just want to take a few quick pictures.”

  “Uh, my friends, they are waiting,” Jacques said, pointing to the limo parked on the street. The limo full of popular kids, the lion’s den I dreaded stepping into.

  “We’ll be quick,” Mom said, waving him inside. “Why don’t you guys stand in front of the fireplace, there? Oh, should we put on the corsage and boutonnière first?”

  Josh brandished the plastic case containing Jacques’s boutonnière. I had spent an hour picking it out at the florist’s the day before.

  An hour that I realized was completely wasted when I saw Jacques hold up empty hands.

  “I do not have a corsage,” he said. “Sorry.”

  He wasn’t sorry. He was still trying to suppress laughter. At least our red faces matched.

  “They must not have that tradition in France,” Josh said, a little too loud. “That’s okay! Um, I’m sure we could make up a quick corsage for Keira from the garden.”

  You know a prom night is broken beyond repair when the savior of the night is your stepdad, not your date.

  “Forget it,” I blurted out. “Let’s just take some pictures and get out of here.”

  Mom and Josh looked at each other. As Josh dragged the chairs away from the fireplace and Mom adjusted the camera, they chattered pointlessly, trying to ease the mood. I was grateful, but I wanted to just get the hell out. At least at prom, I could pretend all this had never happened. Here, I was trapped in this nightmare.

  “Okay, get in there, lovebirds,” she said. I winced. “Smile!”

  I grinned, but the second the flash went off, I dropped the act. I was so done. I couldn’t tell Jacques to get out and not go to prom—I had to save face in front of the assholes in the limousine—but I couldn’t play along with the whole farce. He was laughing at me. The fragile wall of denial I’d built was crumbling. He had always been laughing at me, and I’d always known it, and facing that fact felt like swinging a hammer at my heart.

  “What’s the matter, Keira?” Mom asked.

  “Let’s just go,” I said.

  I headed for the door, but a few sudden sounds split the air. Thumpthumpthump creeeeak. My brother had stomped up the basement stairs and opened the door. I turned my head and saw him peek out, then emerge from the dark basement into the hall.

  Levi looked huge—my brain bucked, not computing what it saw. It wasn’t like I hadn’t physically seen him in a long time; we lived in the same house, worked around each other in the kitchen all the time. His hulking form lurching down the hall, though, made me wonder when the hell he had grown up.

  He dragged his enormous feet down the hallway, duck-footed toes scraping the carpet. He wore shorts that exposed his impossibly furry calves. Scraggly hair grew along his jawline and down his neck. His shoulders curled inward when he peered into the living room and saw Jacques.

  Fuck, I thought. I didn’t want Jacques to see him. My ghostly, basement-dwelling brother was yet another thing Jacques would find hilarious.

  “Oh, hi, Levi!” Mom said.

  Levi grunted and headed for the kitchen, shuffling as quickly as he could.

  “Hey, Levi, I have an idea,” Mom said. “Why don’t we take a quick picture of you and Keira on her special day, since I have the camera out?”

  Jacques turned to face the wall, his shoulders shaking. I clenched my fist.

  I didn’t know who I wanted to punch more: Jacques, who was an asshole, or Mom, who had latched onto this terrible idea. She was dragging Levi out of the kitchen by his arm. He was so hunched that if I didn’t already know he was six-foot-three, I would think he was tiny.

  “I don’t have any pictures of the two of you together,” she was saying.

  “I don’t want to,” Levi grumbled.

  “Amanda, don’t force him,” Josh said.

  “It’ll be quick.” She steered Levi over to where I was standing. “Just stand next to your sister.”

  She pushed Levi in close—as close as my three-foot-radius skirt would allow. It bumped up against Levi’s leg and he recoiled.

  “Get in close, you two,” Mom directed, raising the camera.

  Levi hovered just out of range of my skirt, too far away for the picture. “I don’t want your dress to touch me.”

  I waved Levi over impatiently. He shook his head. I took a step closer to him. My skirt brushed his legs again, and he staggered backward like it electrocuted him.

  “Stop fucking touching me!” He brushed furiously at his legs, as if my skirt had left some powdery residue. “If you make it touch me again, I’ll fucking burn it.”

  I snapped. “It’s silk. How can you hate silk?”

  “It’s itchy.” He was scratching his calves like I’d touched him with stinging nettle instead of silk ruffles.

  “It’s silk, it’s not itchy.”

 
“I’ll fucking burn it.”

  “Levi!” Mom gasped.

  I became acutely aware of everything going on in the room at that moment. Mom had her camera raised, even as she gaped at Levi. Levi was glaring at the floor. Josh was standing awkwardly to the side, hands stretched out like he was getting ready to break up this cage match.

  And Jacques was still over by the fireplace. He was pinching the bridge of his nose, like he was just trying to hold it together. Like it was all so fucking hilarious.

  “Suck it up for two seconds, Levi, then I can get out of here,” I snapped. I stepped resolutely closer to him and plastered on the biggest, fakest smile I could muster. In the picture, it would look like nothing was wrong. If we all succeeded in blocking this night from our memories, Future Us would look at this photo of Levi and I and think, “Aww, what a happy moment.”

  Unfortunately, Levi had other plans.

  He roared, “Get off me!”

  His arms thrust outward in a last, desperate attempt to get me away from him. His huge hands collided with my shoulder. Unsteady on my high heels, I toppled over.

  My dress cushioned most of my fall—except for my head, which smacked the stone ledge of the fireplace.

  Pain exploded outward from the impact. The edges of my vision went black, manic exploding stars filled the in-between, but I managed to hold on to consciousness.

  “Oh my God, Keira.” Josh pushed a chair over, making his way toward me. “Are you okay? Keira, talk to me.”

  I managed to slur out that I was okay. Mom was screaming at Levi.

  “What was that?! Why would you do that, Levi? Come back here! You think you can just walk away after that? Come back here and apologize to your sister!”

  Levi had disappeared back downstairs. Jacques? He just stood there, dumbfounded, the remains of a smirk still on his face.

  I don’t know why I insisted on getting up, shaking it off, and going to prom. I had every excuse to stay home: an aching head, the stars that still lingered in my vision, vague nausea. But no, I picked myself up, grabbed Jacques, and went out to the limo. I endured the chattering of the two other couples in there with us—Selena Henderson and Mark Wasserman, and Callie White and Justin Landau—while biting my lip and trying not to cry. I toughed it out through the mortification of my eighteenth-century monstrosity standing out from everyone else’s sleek, sexy sheath dresses. The chaperones and moms were the only ones who complimented it; everyone else just raised an eyebrow.