I remember my niece stumbling down the stairs of the stage of where her class had just performed. She looked different than she did just a moment ago, when she stood atop the stage with the rest of her classmates. A bunch of skittish rabbits is what they looked like, as if they were afraid to hear their own voices, with their eyes casted down, as they sang a song about someone with a twinkle in their eye and a friendly smile. She waved as she ran towards my family and I, her jacket in one hand and her Christmas tree headband wedged between the fingers of her other. She was wearing her new reindeer stockings, paired with some shirt that had a silly, childish Christmas saying.

She latched onto my eldest sister Amanda, wrapping her arms around her, like a leech, trying to suck the attention and praise out of its targeted victim. She asked us how she did, and Amanda, with equal enthusiasm claimed it was the best thing she'd ever seen. She lit up at the praise, like the LED lights on her Christmas tree headband. I'd wondered if we had seen the same show, both surrounded by parents, in some piteous sense of pride and awe, watching a herd of ten years olds just barely mumbling puerile Christmas songs through the recording screens of their phone. My other sister Crystal, and her mother, agreed with her, as well as my mother. I didn't say anything, not as if she had asked me, so I just followed everyone back to the car, and watched as she hung off Amanda's arm.

She finally asked me in the car. She looked up at me, flicking the bells on her Christmas tree head band with her fingers, and asked me about what I thought on her class' performance. At first, I thought about handing her my tube of lip balm instead of giving her a response. Her lips were severely cracking, and she always had a nasty habit of licking them. Or maybe tease her, asking her if she did her hair that morning, since she had recently insisted on doing it herself. Unfortunately, the ponytail on her head was desperately trying to hang on, it's will giving out, just barely holding up, Then, before I could respond, as she stared at me in anticipation, I thought about what I had told her just hours ago, in the same car, in the same exact seats:

Every time the car hit a bump, my temple collided with side of the car, but I insisted on laying my head down against it, even if the inside of my brain felt like it was rattling. She was talking about her trip to her father's, but no one was listening, since my mother and my sisters were having their own talk, not that she noticed. Her father had asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, and when he told her a fairy wasn't an option, she had opted to either a singer or a DJ.

"That's so stupid." I had said, wheezing out a little huff. She looked up at me, eyebrows pinched.

Then she asked me why.

"Because," I started, "It's unrealistic and unreliable. A lot of people who pursue in singing don't make it. You don't know the outcome, and the risk of failure is huge. I only assume it's even worse for a DJ. It's not a guaranteed stable job. It's pointless"

She stared at me, face scrunched up, like the face she made whenever I tricked her into eating something sour. She tried to tell to me that she thought that being a DJ would be fun, and she liked singing, and that should be all that mattered.

I laughed, then turned my head back towards the window, and continued to stare at the gray sky.

But I didn't feel like laughing then, staring at her shirt, with the words: LET ME TAKE AN #ELFIE. Not as I remembered sitting in that concert, staring bored, blankly at the singing children. Hearing Amanda confirm she still hadn't found a new job yet, even though it's been over a year. Listening to Crystal complain about her own job, how she had been purposely coming in late the past few days so she didn't have to be there as long, then leaving early. Ignoring my mother, who had her head ducked down, holding an already scratched scratch ticket with a penny pinched between her gaunt fingers, and brushing the remnants of debris from the ticket off her lap, along with her disappointment.

I just stared at the stupid shirt, finally looked up at her, and smiled. "It was pretty good, Solana." I told her, taking the Christmas tree headband into my own hands, then securing it onto her head. "Do you like singing? You should sing more. It could be a career."

She smiled.