JELLIE: A Band Story

01. Introduction

Elise Jamieson was not a musician.

Elise Jamieson was a lot of things. She was a girl, for a start; technically at an age where she should already be called a woman, but she wasn't sure the word fit her just yet. She was a college student, an artist and a writer; a bookworm, fangirl and shipper; she was twenty-one years old and good with languages and too small for her age, though she insisted she was simply born in a country full of giants, and in other places her height would be perfectly average. But a musician she had never been, and she wasn't planning to become one. Music, it seemed, had never quite been up her alley.

Which was not to say music had ever been far from her alley. It had always been waiting just right around the corner, and all she needed to follow it was a little push in the right direction.

The train was mostly empty when she headed downtown. Elise only had afternoon classes that day, and the trains into the city were rarely crowded at this time of the day; morning traffic was long gone, and the onslaught of people returning home wasn't due for another hour or two. The only people near her on the train had been another college-aged girl and an older man with a bicycle.

Her heels clacked dully over the station floor as she made her way out, the sound muffled by the earplugs she was wearing, playing the same song she always listened to on this part of the trip. Elise mouthed along the words as she went. Her coat was slung idly over her arm, bunched up in a way that didn't suit the well-made piece of clothing. It was only the beginning of March, but the air was already surprisingly warm.

All in all, it was business as usual.

Stepping out of the station, Elise strode out into the sunlight, running to still catch the traffic light before it turned red. The song was still playing, her feet hitting the ground in perfect sync with the rhythm.

Until something carried to her ears past the familiar melody, and she paused.

Years of commuting into the city had taught Elise to ignore most unfamiliar noises. But there was one thing she could never walk past, and that thing was music.

Pausing the song on her phone, Elise unplugged one earbud, then the other. Her eyes scanned the street for the source of the sound: past the tourists and the businesspeople and the college students with their coffee-to-go cups, around the corner and into the pedestrian zone beyond.

It took her a moment to spot the singer. She had expected a whole group, but all she could find was one person: a single girl, standing atop one of the benches, singing along to an instrumental on a cheap sound box she had connected to her phone.

"...Just to figure out that no one would call..."

Elise stepped closer. She knew this song, she realized: knew the melody, knew the lyrics, knew the original artist. How many times had she listened to it herself, mouthing along to the fanmade lyric video until she could recite it in her sleep?

"I think I've got a lot of friends but I don't hear from them," the girl continued to sing, her voice carrying over the sound box despite not having a microphone. "What's another night all alone?"

"When you're spending every day on your own," Elise sang along under her breath. "And here it goes..."

People pushed past her, muttering curses under their breaths. Elise moved out of the way, closer to the girl, her eyes still glued to the singer. She had to be about Elise's age, her shoulder-length hair dyed the brightest shade of pink love or money could buy, her black leather jacket and jeans covered in studs and hot pink patches, her ears adorned with a dozen black piercings. She wasn't simply singing; she was performing with her whole body, getting into the song with every inch of her being. Her entire form was a flash of color and life among the empty faces and dull color palettes of the passers-by, like a neon-colored graffiti in the middle of a concrete wall.