Jen showed up at the next band practice—the last one before the festival—acting almost like nothing had happened.

Watching her closely, Elise tried to determine if she was faking her mood, but couldn't find any signs that she was. Jen was back to her usual energy; if anything she seemed more determined than ever, to the point where her enthusiasm felt just a little over the top. Not in a fake way. More like she was overly invested now, caring much more about the results of this gig than she rationally should.

Then again, this was Jen. Maybe caring too much about these things was just part of her personality.

Her enthusiasm wasn't the useful kind, though. She was back to perfectionist dictator mode, constantly pausing mid-song to correct someone's performance, her stress levels rising with every mistake. But Elise couldn't even be mad at her this time. Not when the person she was the strictest with was herself.

Elise didn't miss it, the way Jen flinched every time she messed up the lyrics or forgot them, the way she gritted her teeth or bit her lips, the stab of pain that shot through her eyes at every little mistake. She didn't miss the way Jen clenched her fists, sloppily painted nails visibly digging into her palms until her knuckles were white against the light brown of her skin.

"Don't beat yourself up too much," Elise offered when Jen forgot the lyrics again and looked ready to scream in frustration. "You know what they say: it's bad luck if everything goes right at the dress rehearsal."

Jen didn't respond. Elise's heart sank as she resisted the urge to mutter something passive-aggressive about shutting up now. Now was not the time to bring up her insecurities; Jen was already dealing with enough at the moment, though Elise still couldn't understand where her stress levels came from.

Biting her tongue, she carried on. Slowly, slowly, they dragged their way through song after song, the whole set, polishing the performance and choreography. Jen was never satisfied. The parts that had been set in stone already she suddenly wasn't happy with anymore, insisting on reworking them the session before the performance. Elise's irritation grew. Felix and Shine were both becoming increasingly grim. Zahir looked ready to drop his guitar and quit on the spot.

"Okay, break time," she decided when everyone, including Jen, seemed close to a complete explosion. "The stress level's too high in here, we can't keep going like this."

Jen spun around, ready to lash out. Then she looked at the others. Looked down along herself, as if paying attention to her own body now for the first time.

"Okay," she muttered. "Sorry."

Kicking her foot hard against the floor, she dropped her mic with the barest amount of care, snatching her water bottle and draining half of it in one go before splashing several handfuls in her face. Then she closed her eyes and sighed. The strained, stressed-out look didn't leave her features.

Inching close to her side, Elise shot her a questioning glance. "Everything okay?" she asked in an undertone.

Jen gave a start, her eyes widening like those of a deer in the headlights. Then she forcibly put on a smile. "Sure," she said. "Don't worry!"

She hadn't even questioned why Elise had asked. She knew exactly what Elise was talking about, but she still refused to tell her what was wrong.

She doesn't trust me enough.

The realization stung more than anything Jen could have told her. She couldn't stand seeing a friend not doing well. She wanted to help, but how could she possibly help if she didn't even know what exactly was wrong?

Apparently her thoughts must have shown on her face, because Jen reached over to mess up her hair.

"It's really fine, don't worry," she said with a small grin. "It's just nerves and stuff." Her smile widened, and this time there was actually some semblance of happiness in it. "I just really, really wanna knock them out at that festival, you know?"

Elise still wasn't satisfied, but she sighed and smiled back.

"And we will," she promised. "So don't pressure yourself."

~ ~ ~

So she had said, but entering the venue as part of the band was a whole different thing entirely.

Elise had been on stage before, of course. She had done drama on and off in middle and high school, and she was used to the whole fuss around it; but what she wasn't used to was playing with a band and singing solo parts. It didn't help that the Friday & Tuesday was larger than most venues the band had played at, not to mention more crowded.

They were, for better or worse, playing very early on. Most of their audience seemed to consist of bands who would play after them—their rivals, Jen had joked while walking in. Elise wasn't sure how to feel about that. She and Jen were almost the only girls in the place; nearly every other band consisted solely of young men.

"What a boys' club," Elise muttered to Jen. "Where are all the women? All I see is dudes!"

"We're dudes too though," Felix remarked from behind her.

"Yeah, but we're not an all-guy band. We're almost equally balanced," Elise replied. "Not counting us, I can see, like…one, two, three girls in here? Total!" She sighed. "That's depressing."

Some of the young men turned as they caught sight of Jen and Elise, giving them appraising glances. Elise could physically feel them underestimating them based on their height and looks. She bit back a smirk. Oh, they were in for a surprise later.

The sound check went well. At least, not counting the adrenaline that was seriously starting to kick into Elise's body and brain. It was still at a tolerable level for now. She knew the songs, the choreography. She could do this.

Then they had to wait backstage for their turn. Well, it wasn't a proper backstage area; just a row of benches beside the stage, half hidden in the shadows. From the darkness, Elise watched as more and more people came in. Some of them looked vaguely familiar: Jen's friends and acquaintances that she must have invited for their debut as Voice in the Crowd.

Time crawled by. Her heart rate was rising.

Elise forced herself to keep her breaths steady. Butterflies were racing through her stomach and chest, and they weren't the pleasant kind. Her mouth was dry, her stomach starting to hurt. It was getting hard to swallow.

It wasn't even that she was afraid of anything in particular. It was simply adrenaline, too much of it, pulsing through her veins to send her past a healthy tension and straight into fight-or-flight mode. She squeezed her hands. Her thoughts were all over the place, swirling round and round and round in her head.

She should definitely bring her water bottle on the stage, she thought. Her stress levels should go back to normal once she was out there, but her dry mouth would be a problem. And she was not sending herself straight into an on-stage panic attack because she couldn't swallow.

Beside her, Jen couldn't sit still. She kept bouncing and bouncing and bouncing her leg, something Elise never registered under normal circumstances, but right now it was driving her mad. She bit back any comments about it, but that only served to bring her closer to a complete nervous breakdown.

And then, at long last and yet too soon, it was time.

Elise was hyperaware of her own breathing as she followed Jen onto the stage, her hands cold and clammy, her stomach in knots. The spotlight was blindingly bright in her eyes and uncomfortably warm. She was sweating even though she was only wearing a loose T-shirt and jeans.

Absolute silence.

Jen picked up the mic.

"Okay, everybody!" she shouted so loudly it hurt in Elise's ears. "Friday & Tuesday, what's up tonight?"

Cheers from the band's regulars, a scattered few shy claps from the rest of the audience. "We're Voice in the Crowd!" Jen went on in the same tone. "And we're not here to talk, so we're gonna show who we are with our music! Ladies and gentlemen…Welcome! To! My! World!"

The instrumental began. Elise's senses snapped to full attention. Some of the panic left her system. The time for waiting and freaking out was over. The time to perform was here.

"My voice is loud," Jen began to sing, "but people still don't listen…I am proud, people say I got no reason—"

"I can't be who you want me to be," Elise took over, just as planned. "Can't fit into the boxes you cut out for me—I can't show you what you want to see…"

"I'm dancing out of line," they sang in unison, "past the no-entry sign…"

The pre-chorus set in, then the chorus. Elise and Jen performed exactly as planned. Elise couldn't see what people in the crowd were doing, but right now she was glad about that. She simply focused on everything they had rehearsed: the melody, the words, the cues, the way she moved around on the stage and keeping it in harmony with Jen. She wasn't shaking anymore. She was singing, and that was all she needed to do.

Welcome To My World ended, and the cheers were louder than before.

"Thank you!" Elise shouted into the mic, a little breathless but grinning from ear to ear. "Thank you so much! To be honest, you guys are the first audience we've ever performed our own songs for. And we wouldn't have it any other way!"

More cheers. The band went on into Crack!, then Ground Breaker. Most of the time Jen talked to the crowd in between songs, masking the way Elise caught her breath; but every so often Elise would speak up, saying a sentence or two about the meaning of the lyrics.

With every song, more and more people pushed themselves off the sidelines and started cheering when it was over. Some even tried to sing along, disrupting Elise's concentration but making her chest flush warm with joy all the same.

Then Overthinker happened, and the crowd was calmer again. Which was all according to plan. Because now it was time to unleash their closer, their final impression, their ultimate secret weapon.

"Okay!" Elise said into the microphone, her heart pounding against her ribcage in equal parts anxiety and anticipation. "We have time for exactly one more song, and this one's for all the singles! Who in the crowd here is single?"

Scattered cheers. Elise pretended not to hear the hoots among them.

"Good!" said Elise. "And who in this crowd here is happy with that?"

Fewer cheers than last time. She bit back a grin. As expected.

"Come on, just a few? We can do better than that!" she said. "Being single is awesome, and it's time for us to embrace that! Guys, gals and non-binary pals, let us present to you…"

And Jen completed the sentence for her.

"21 and Single!"

The guys started playing. Elise could recite the interplay of Shine's bass and Zahir's guitar by heart, could pinpoint the exact moment Felix' drums would join in. And then she and Jen, in perfect choreography, started to sing.

"You ask me every time that we meet
'When are you gonna date
'Cause you're missing something great' but
You ain't good at changing my mind
Yeah, you don't even know
What your stories always show
No, he doesn't do the dishes
And he's making you feel dumb
And you ask him for permission
Before you go out for fun
He don't care about your interests
He is always telling lies
And last week he made you cry
'Cause you didn't text goodnight

What do you see in him 'cause

I ain't got no boyfriend, I am living drama-free
Can't nobody tell me what I'm doing 'cept for me
Just 'cause I'm alone doesn't mean I wanna mingle
Welcome to my life
21 and single"

Scattered cheers from the crowd at the first chorus. At the second chorus, people were trying to sing along—especially the women in the audience, Elise noted with amusement. But the moment the audience truly joined in was after the third chorus, in the final strip:

"Welcome to my life, 22 and single
Welcome to my life, 23 and single
Welcome to my life, 24 and single…"

People caught on quickly and started counting along. Elise and Jen alternated between singing themselves and holding their microphones up to let the crowd sing, all the way to twenty-nine, when they stopped counting and Elise yelled into the microphone,

"Why the hell is everybody getting married?"

Laughter from the crowd, mingling with cheers. "Voice in the Crowd, everybody!" Jen shouted. "Thank you so much! Keep an eye on us—we will be back, suckers!"

Exchanging fist bumps and high fives with the guys, they gathered on the stage and bowed. Then the lights went out, they stepped off the stage and Elise and Jen promptly jumped into each other's arms.

"We did it!" Jen squealed over and over, crushing the wind out of Elise's ribcage. "We did it, Ellie!"

"Yeah," Elise gasped out, still catching her breath. "We really did!"

Proud and content, they made their way into one of the corners and collapsed on the nearest bench they could find, soon joined by the others. Then they waited.

"I wonder if there'll be any record label guys coming up to us," Jen mused, clearly excited for the idea—no, not excited; desperate. "We did great, right? They should!"

And yet they didn't.

Time passed, then more time. The next band played up on the stage, and then the next. They were all, as far as Elise could tell, good. Not as stellar performers as Jen, and their melodies weren't as catchy; but they were very good all the same.

So good that, at length, one of them was approached by a man who could only belong to a record label.

At Elise's side, Jen froze. Her eyes were wide, unblinking. She looked like someone who had seen their crush of several years flirt with someone they had just met.

"Please talk to us too," she muttered. "Please talk to us too. Come on. We're still here, look at us!"

But for the whole festival no one tried to come up to them.

"Maybe we should ask the organizers," Jen said with desperate, thinning hope, turning to Felix. "Maybe somebody asked about us or something?"

Felix looked doubtful, but he nodded and got up. A few minutes later he returned with an apologetic shrug.

"Sorry," he said. "No one's interested."

Jen's face fell.

"Whatever," she muttered, jumping to her feet. "Of course they're not! I'm an idiot!"

Zahir frowned at her in confusion. "Jen?"

"Whatever!" she burst out, her voice breaking. "It's not like I care about this stupid show anyway!"

With that she spun on her heel and stormed out through the door.