This time around, even though Elise was over ten minutes early, Jen was already there.

The place she had invited her to looked like a regular apartment complex from the outside, but Jen had explained that it was actually used by artists and musicians to be able to create in peace. Their drummer—Felix, Elise remembered his name was—had found it through his connections, and the band had a small space reserved for them in the basement on Tuesday and Saturday evenings.

The door was unlocked when Elise stepped inside, the way description Jen had given her easy to follow. Descending down the run-down staircase into the basement, Elise walked past a row of heavy doors with their yellow paint peeling off them in places. From some came the sound of muffled music, but most were quiet at the moment.

Spotting the door whose number Jen had given her—number 021, like their age, she had said, easy to remember—Elise tentatively turned the doorknob and found it unlocked again. From the inside came a single voice: Jen's voice, singing along to another canned version of a song Elise recognized.

"Tired of being what you want me to be
Feeling so faithless, lost under the surface…"

Slowly, careful not to disturb her, Elise slipped in through the door. Jen hadn't noticed her at all. She kept singing into an old microphone wrapped up in silver tape, her voice reverberating off the concrete walls, too loud and too furious for the cramped room with the single dusty window.

"Don't know what you're expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes…"

Hovering in the doorframe, Elise held her breath. Once again Jen was pouring her all into the song, but this time something felt strange. It made sense that her tone would match the mood of the song; Numb by Linkin Park was a dark, angry number filled with frustration and despair, and yet it seemed to Elise that she was getting much too into it. It wasn't the mood of the original that Jen was trying to match; this despair felt like entirely her own, her voice trembling as she sang, always on the verge of breaking to pieces.

"Can't you see that you're smothering me
Holding too tightly, afraid to lose control?
'Cause everything that you thought I would be
Has fallen apart right in front of you…"

Jen's hands dug into the microphone, her eyes tightly closed, her hair falling into her face every time she bent forward, pouring her heart and soul into every note and every lyric. It was beautiful, beautiful in the way all of Jen's singing was—and yet Elise didn't feel like she was watching a concert. She felt like she was watching the artistically rendered version of an emotional breakdown, and she had no idea if she should stay or leave.

Finally the song ended, and Jen stood with her eyes closed for a few more moments, catching her breath. Then finally she looked up, and Elise instantly felt like a creep who'd been caught spying.

"Whoa! Where did you come from?" Jen spluttered, instantly bouncing back to her usual self, though to Elise it seemed like her eyes looked wetter than usual. She blinked it away. "Wait, how long have you been here?"

"For pretty much the whole song, actually," Elise admitted sheepishly. "You were getting so into it, I didn't wanna disturb you."

"Really? Wow, I didn't know I had an audience." Jen cracked a grin, and the last of the shadows disappeared from her face. "If I'd known, I would've put on a performance!"

Elise laughed awkwardly and looked away. Someone braver, or nosier, might have brought up the obvious now: that it didn't look like Jen had been singing only for fun, more like someone trying to vent, and performing for an audience must have been the last thing on her mind. Someone particularly brave might even have asked if she was doing okay. Elise wasn't brave when it came to such things. She held the belief that if someone wanted to talk to her about a difficult topic, they'd come to her themselves, and pressing the matter would only make them uncomfortable.

"So when are the others arriving?" she asked instead, steering away from the potentially sensitive subject.

Jen checked the time on her phone, apparently forgetting she was wearing a watch. "Felix and Shine should show up any moment now," she answered. "And Zahir…will probably be a bit late. As always."

Elise snorted. "Can't you check the time on your watch?"

"Nope," said Jen. "I forgot to wind it up, so it stopped working like a week ago."

"…Then why are you still wearing it, exactly?"

Jen flashed her wrist, showing off the watch, a clunky gold-colored thing that looked twice as wide as her arm, with huge numbers on the clock face. "Fashion," she said. "It's part of my outfit. Duh!"

"You're unbelievable!" Elise said, cracking up. Personally, she hated wearing watches. They all felt much too restrictive on her wrist, they were a pain to put on, and in her opinion there were much easier ways to check the time. The last time she had worn one had been in first grade.

Pacing around the room, Elise eyed the drum set that stood under the window. It was, she recognized, the same one the band used during their gigs: the only good piece of equipment in this place so far, or so it looked to her untrained eye. It was newer than the microphone, less battered, downright shiny compared to the run-down rest of the room. Elise wondered if the other instruments looked like that too, up close.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door opening, and she froze like she'd been caught doing something illegal.

"Oh hey, you're here early," said a male voice—Elise turned around and recognized the lanky guy in glasses from the other day. "Don't tell me you're getting used to—" He trailed off as his eyes landed on Elise. "Who's that?"

Elise swallowed hard. Had Jen not warned the others she was bringing someone new?

"I'm…" she began, then trailed off. "I, uhm—"

"I'm gonna explain that when everyone's here," Jen took over for her. "I'm not explaining the whole thing three times!"

"Ah, she's being mysterious again," the guy remarked, looking quite unsurprised as he turned to Elise with an apologetic grin. "So how used are you to her antics already?"

Elise cracked a grin, relieved not to be treated as an unwelcome guest for now. "I'm getting there," she joked. "She's already been late to a meeting with me because she forgot it was Tuesday, and she's dragged me to places without explaining. How much more do I have waiting for me?"

The guy laughed, and Elise took a proper look at him for the first time. She knew she had seen him on stage with Jen, but couldn't remember what instrument he played. He was taller than average, though he he seemed more long than big; his skin was lighter than Jen's but not as pale as Elise's, his curly brown hair kept in a short, practical cut. His hazel eyes sat behind black-framed glasses, comically accentuated by his thick, exceptionally dark eyebrows.

"You've barely scratched the surface," he joked back. "That's only the tip of the iceberg. Ask me again when you've known this girl for eighteen years."

"Hey!" Jen butted in, just as the door opened and another figure came in. Elise recognized him too: the tallest of the band, an athletic-looking young Southeast Asian man with short dark hair and golden-brown skin, either the bassist or the guitarist, she couldn't tell the two apart. He greeted his bandmates with high fives, then almost did the same to Elise before recognizing she wasn't actually part of the band.

"Hang on," he said, pointing. "Who's that?"

Jen elbowed him in the ribcage. "Don't you know it's rude to point at people?"

"Don't you know it's rude to respond to a question with a counter-question?" the guy shot back without malice. "There's a person here that's not part of the band. So I wanna know what this person's doing here."

"I'm telling you when Zahir gets here," Jen replied.

"Seriously? That could be tomorrow!"

"He hasn't posted anything in the group chat yet," the first guy remarked, checking his phone. "Maybe he won't be that late today. Or," he added with a smirk, "he's so late he's too embarrassed to tell us about it."

Jen reached up to smack him upside the head.

Sitting down in the corner, Elise looked down, feeling strangely left out again. These three were so clearly close, familiar with each other's quirks and oddities in a way she couldn't possibly hope to imitate. Aside from Jen, she didn't even know their names.

"You know what, I'm calling him," the tallest one said, pulling out his own phone. "If he's late, at least let us know how long Jen has to make us suffer."

Holding it to his ear, he waited, then shouted unceremoniously into the speaker, "Ay, Z! How late are you gonna be?"

Elise couldn't catch the response, but he burst out laughing. "Seriously? Dude, get your ass over here, Jen's acting mysterious and she's not telling us what's up till you get here!"

"Where is he?" Jen mouthed.

"Forgot his guitar and had to go back home," he mouthed back. "What? Nope, no hints," he said into the phone, smirking. "Nothing weird, you think I'd hide it from you if there was?"

The person on the other end of the line said something, and he laughed again in response. "Run faster than the bus? Bro, record that or it didn't happen! No, I'm—I'm not telling you to do that, dude, if you make us wait any longer I'm making you pay for my drinks all month! …Yeah, do that. Okay. See you later!"

He hung up. "And now," he said, turning to Elise, "we wait for his face when he sees you in here."

"Right," Elise said, unsure how she felt about the whole situation. "So…you guys don't mind me visiting?" Or…whatever it is I'm doing here, she added in her head.

"Well," the guy in glasses remarked, "normally we'd be embarrassed by a hot girl joining our practice, but—" He didn't get any further before Jen smacked him again.

"Just ignore Felix," she said. "He thinks he's funny."

"I am funny," Felix replied, cackling and rubbing his head where Jen had hit him. "Why are you only ever hitting me, anyway?"

"'Cause you're a dumbass," Jen answered without missing a beat. "Ellie, this is Felix, our drummer. This is Shine, our bassist," she added, pointing to the tallest. "We're still waiting for Zahir, our guitarist."

Elise nodded, memorizing the names. "Is he late a lot?"

"Always," said Felix.

"And apologizes a ton when he shows up," Shine added. "But he always has an excuse."

Footsteps echoed through the corridor outside, and seconds later the door flew open with a bang. "I'm so sorry!" said a voice, and they all spun around to face the new arrivant.

"That was fast," Jen remarked without batting an eye.

Elise eyed the figure in the doorframe. It was a young man, or maybe a boy, it was hard to tell from his build and face; his clothes were drenched in sweat, an instrument case strapped to his back, and he was propping himself up on his knees, heavily gasping for breath.

"Sorry," he spluttered out, lifting his head and brushing his dark brown hair out of his face, his light brown skin flushed, dark brown eyes looking up at the rest of the band, apologetic and pleading. "I left the house on time, but I had to go back for my guitar…what's going on?"

Before the others could answer, his eyes fell on Elise.

He stared.

Elise could practically hear the gears starting to turn inside his brain.

"Shine!" he burst out, turning to the bassist with an accusatory glare. "You said there were no hints!"

Shine laughed so hard he had to prop himself up against the wall. "And you still believe the shit I tell you?"

"Why shouldn't I? I trust you, you know!"

"Yeah, 'cause you're a nerd who falls for anything!"

Zahir pouted in his direction, then his curiosity won over his annoyance with his bandmate, and he turned to Jen. "You wanted to tell us when I'm here," he said. "What's going on?"

"Right!" With a grin that was somewhere between devious and triumphant, Jen stepped up to Elise's side, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close to her side.

"Guys, this is Elise," she said. "I want her to join our band."