"Alright," Elise muttered, bending over Jen's shoulder to eye her old laptop. "Disclaimer, I'm not an expert either, but I'll see what I can do."

They were gathered in Jen's room in the apartment she shared with three other people, Jen sitting cross-legged in her desk chair, Elise standing behind her. The room was barely big enough to fit all the necessary furniture; between the desk, the bed and the small drawer Jen used for a closet there was hardly any room to move around.

Most of the place was almost eerily clean—certainly cleaner than her own room, Elise thought with embarrassment. Jen had explained to her that she couldn't focus when it was messy, so she had turned into a bit of a neat freak after moving out. The only exception from the almost geometric neatness of the room was the desk; it was stacked with letters and papers, the mail covering every inch that wasn't occupied by the laptop.

It had been Elise's idea to help her with job applications. Which was not to say she had a whole lot of experience with them; what she did have experience with, however, was overthinking everything to make sure she left a good impression on people. Besides, working together should ensure that Jen wouldn't procrastinate on the task or straight-up forget to do it.

Giving up the seat in the desk chair, Jen motioned for Elise to sit down, only to hover behind her and peer intently over her shoulder. Elise made a face. "Could you back up a little?" she asked. "I don't work well when I'm being watched."

"Okay, okay." Sitting down on the floor, Jen grinned up at her with glinting eyes. "I just wanted to see how bad you think my stuff sucks. I'm too dumb for job applications."

Elise shot her a sharp glance. "What did we say about self-deprecating comments?"

Jen sighed. "Not to make them," she answered, grinning lopsidedly as she rolled her eyes. "But I'm not self-deprecating, I'm just stating the facts!"

"A person who knows how to play a zillion instruments and hear every mistake from the band while singing doesn't sound dumb to me," Elise answered, turning back to the laptop. "Who ever gave you that idea, anyway?"

Jen didn't answer, her smile faltering. Elise didn't pry. It was probably still too early into their friendship to talk about the really personal things. Especially with how afraid Jen still seemed of being judged.

Pursing her lips, Elise looked over Jen's résumé. The beginning sounded normal enough: born slightly out of town, a good elementary and middle school, and—

Elise did a double take. "Your birthday's next week?"

Startled, Jen looked up. "Is it?" she replied. "What day is it again?"

"The fourteenth." Elise tapped the date display on the screen. "It's just four more days and you never bothered to tell me?"

"I have no concept of time," Jen replied, laughing. "I forget it's my birthday on my birthday, remember?"

Elise snorted. "Well, good to know I found out in time," she said. "I'd hate to miss it!"

Wiggling where she sat, Jen rocked from side to side for a moment, then asked, "When's yours?"

"Still some time away," Elise answered. "February."

"I'm definitely gonna forget that. Tell me when it comes up," Jen declared, momentarily sitting still. "You're twenty-one, right?"

Elise nodded. "Same as you."

"And Felix," Jen mused. "His birthday's in October. So you're younger than Felix but older than Zahir."

Younger than her who had freshly turned twenty-one? "Wait," Elise said, baffled, "how old is Zahir?"

"He turned twenty in March," Jen answered. "And Shine's the oldest, he's twenty-three."

"So you're the second-oldest," Elise concluded, the corners of her mouth twitching with amusement. "Even though you're the shortest—"

"Don't get so smug about it! You're not that tall either!"

"Still taller than you."

"Pretty big words from a baby." Standing up, Jen glowered down at Elise, even as she had to stifle her laughter. "I'm almost a year older, show me some respect!"

"Whatever you say, Grandma."

"Shut up!"

They both burst into laughter. Jen threw a playful punch at Elise's arm that transformed into a pat halfway through, her warm hand brushing down the fabric of Elise's button shirt. Elise grinned up at her. "Sorry, sorry," she said, still laughing. "It was basically an invitation to roast you."

"Naughty!" Jen waggled a scandalizing finger at her, but the effect was weakened by the spark in her eyes, a bright, vivid flash of mischief and life. "Who'd have guessed the sweet Ellie could be mean to little old ladies?"

"Shut up," Elise replied, half-heartedly swatting at her. Jen caught her hand, and for a moment they pushed against each other like a bizarre table-less version of arm wrestling. Elise's hands were larger and wider, but Jen's long, narrow hand held a surprising grip strength. Her fingers dug into Elise's palm almost as hard as the ring she wore on her middle finger.

She had a beautiful smile, Elise suddenly caught herself thinking. Not that she hadn't noticed before, of course; Jen's smile was huge, taking up what felt like a third of her narrow face, her contagious grin still underlined by sparkling brown eyes. It made her look a bit like an emoji, she thought. Was there an emoji with wide-open eyes and a grin? She couldn't remember, but she thought that if there was, it would look just like Jen.

"Okay, enough goofing around," she said as she pulled away, her words a reminder to herself as much as they were one to Jen. "I came here to get stuff done, not to get distracted with you."

That last bit came out weird, she thought, but maybe it was just her, so she didn't bother correcting it. Jen glanced back at the laptop screen, sobering up. "Right," she muttered, sitting back down, rubbing the tattoos on both her arms, her dark eyes resting on the floorboards. "Back to adulting. Sorry."

"No worries, I started it," Elise answered, already focusing back on the document in front of her. There was quite a lot to think about, especially in the part covering the years since high school. Jen had never gone to college; instead she had worked countless jobs, sometimes several at a time, never keeping them longer than a few months. What employer wouldn't at least question this? Was there any way to make this look good?

"We should probably make a bigger deal out of your strengths," Elise mused. "What else are you good at, aside from music?"

Jen took a deep breath and blew it back out with a huff, still scratching her arms and wiggling her legs as she thought. "Talking a lot," she said at length. "And cooking."

Elise perked up. "You can cook?"

"Yeah." Jen frowned up at her. "Who can't?"

"Uh, me? Unless you're counting pasta and stuff, I mean." Elise tilted her head from side to side, feeling a little stupid. "My mom keeps trying to teach me, but it's hard for me to learn from her. She's not very patient with me, you know?"

Something lit up behind Jen's eyes. "Yeah…I get you," she said. "'If you'd started on this earlier, you wouldn't be making these mistakes now'…right?"

Elise blinked. Jen had struck the mark head-on, and she wasn't sure how to feel about that. Frustrated as she often was with her mother, in front of other people's criticisms she always found herself defending her anyway.

"I…yeah," she admitted. "How did you…?"

Jen's expression darkened again, and now it was her turn to look caught. A strange emotion stirred in Elise's chest. She understood, but she didn't fully understand. Had Jen had the same experiences? She never talked about her family. The few times it had come up, she had quickly glossed over the topic and moved on.

"Okay, so we can make something out of your cooking skills," Elise muttered, returning back to work. "Your social skills too. Seriously though," she added, "is it just me, or have you had really bad luck with jobs so far?"

On the floor, Jen tensed and shrugged. "I told you I can't keep a job," she said with a resigned little smile. "Sometimes I just got laid off and stuff. Sometimes I screwed up and got fired. It happens."

"I mean, we can spin it and say you have experience at a lot of companies and in a lot of fields," Elise replied. "You're adaptable…stuff like that."

Jen looked up.

"How," she said, "did you get something positive out of this?"

Elise cracked a smile. "Practice, I guess," she said. "I'm not sure if it's going to fool any employers, but, you know."

Lifting her head, Jen flashed her a heartfelt smile. Elise smiled back, relaxing. This job was slowly becoming just as much about building Jen's confidence as it was about her getting a paycheck again. And at least at that part, it seemed, she was succeeding a little.

Armed with new information, Elise sat down to search for any and all job offers that might be suited for Jen. Beside her, still sitting on the floor, Jen was doing the same on her phone. For a while they sat in companionable silence. There were plenty of jobs for Jen's skill set, but most of them had absurd requirements she didn't meet.

"This is ridiculous," Elise muttered, biting back her frustration. "They're barely offering a living wage, why are they the ones making demands?"

Jen rolled her eyes. "Don't ask me!"

"You know, ideally, it'd be nice if you could work with music somehow," Elise mused, staring back at the screen. "Maybe teach an instrument or something. But you've probably looked for that, huh?"

"Yeah," Jen answered. "Absolutely nothing out there."

They kept searching. After a while Jen began to hum: a melody Elise recognized, even if it took her a moment to put a name and lyrics on it.

"And I don't wanna go to work no more," Elise sang along under her breath. "But you can't dream if you're broke…"

Their eyes met. They both snickered.

"The 4AM got it right," Elise said. "People who write those 'screw money, follow your dreams' songs have obviously never been broke."

Scrolling further down, she was just about ready to give up when Jen let out a delighted yelp.

"Look!" she exclaimed, holding out her phone in Elise's face. "What do you think?"

The offer was from a restaurant again, a small family business. Whoever had written the ad was obviously a foreigner—it was dotted with small errors, but it was clear that they were searching for someone to help out with the kitchen and customers alike. Someone adaptable. And preferably good at cooking.

"Nice!" Elise exclaimed. "Let's try it!"

Neither of them had any idea how to write a cover letter.

But Elise supposed they could figure something out.