JELLIE: A Band Story

04. Ground Breaker

She wasn't in the wrong place, was she?

It had been ten minutes since Elise had arrived at the coffee shop across from the station, and a solid nine since Jen had been supposed to meet her. Problem was, Jen wasn't there, and Elise was slowly beginning to have second thoughts.

Okay, that was a lie. Her second thoughts had started the minute after the scheduled meetup time had passed, and by now she was at about twenty-seventh thoughts and counting. Was she in the right place? Had she remembered the time right? Sure, she had double-checked and triple-checked and then quadruple-checked too for good measure; but what if she had misremembered each time? Or maybe there was another Starbucks across from the station that she simply didn't know about. Was it even the right day? They had agreed to meet on Tuesday—it was Tuesday, right?

Except, she rationalized, if Jen was waiting for her somewhere else, she'd definitely have tried to text or call by now. Which meant that either she was leagues too early, or else Jen was running late.

But in that case, wouldn't she have informed Elise too by now? That was what people generally did when they were running late...unless their phone somehow failed them, or something had happened.

Was Jen okay? Was something wrong?

Elise took that train of thoughts and yanked it back before it could go any further off the rails. Enough was enough, she decided. She was not getting into a full-on freak-out when the matter could be solved by a simple text and call.

I'm at Starbucks, she typed into her phone. I can't find you, where are you?

The message was sent and delivered. There was a long, awkward pause.

Then it was marked as read, and Elise relaxed ever so slightly. The typing bubble popped up under Jen's name.

WAIT HOLYSHIT I COMPLETLEY FORGOT, her message read. IM SO SORRY AAAA

Before Elise could type up a response, a second message from Jen popped up. BE THERE IN 10

Sure thing, Elise wrote back, equal parts baffled and relieved. It happens to the best of us, don't worry about it!

Using the time to buy herself a cup of green tea and one of her beloved triple-chocolate cupcakes, Elise sat down at one of the tables and scrolled through her phone. Every minute or two her eyes flitted to the door, hoping to catch the familiar shock of pink hair between all the dull shades of brown, blond and gray. Each time she was a little disappointed not to find her there, even though the ten minutes were far from over. Why was she so impatient, anyway? Under normal circumstances she had much less of a problem with waiting.

Maybe, she mused, she was afraid of being ditched. Or maybe she was simply very eager to see Jen—she already didn't have the chance as often as she'd like, so when she did see her she wanted to spend as much time with her as humanly possible.

The minutes crawled by. And sure enough, precisely ten minutes after sending the text, Jen came barging into the coffee shop with her backpack half open and her hair a mess.

"I'm so sorry," she spluttered out as she collapsed into the chair across from Elise. "I totally forgot it was Tuesday, for some reason I thought it was Monday!"

Elise snorted. "How did you even manage that?"

"I don't know! I forget everything." Jen flung up her hands in a frustrated gesture. "Chores, song lyrics, friends' birthdays, my own birthday..."

Elise blinked in disbelief. "You forget your own birthday?"

"Yeah! It's like, I know when it's coming up," Jen explained. "You know? I look at the calendar and I'm like, oh, my birthday's next week. But on the actual day I totally forget about it till people start wishing me happy birthday."