Here's To Hoping (One Direction)

4.) Second Chances

Chapter Four: Second Chances

We arrive exactly 30 minutes before this whole thing starts, so we walk towards the radio station’s setup where they were giving the passes away. Only a few other girls and one guy are here. They look anxious as well. Standing behind the counter is a woman with bleached blonde hair who couldn’t have been over five years my senior and a man who was probably about the same.

“Why, hello there! You two must be here for the back stage passes! Are you excited? I know I am and I’m not even the one winning them! I really love One Direction. I think they’re just amay-zayn!” The woman behind the table laughs.

Okay, this broad is way too happy. I look at Jessica. Clearly she’s getting the same vibe I am. She’s nuts, Jessica mouths at me. I simply nod my head and turn back to Mrs. Overly Excited.

“Um…yes. We’re here for the passes. Can you tell us what exactly it is that we have to do to win?” I ask with a smile. My mom always taught me to be nice to the crazies; you never know what they might do.

“Why yes! It’s very simple- all you have to do is get one of these tickets. As you can see, there’s two of each one so you’ll just rip them apart and put one in the bowl and keep the other. In thirty minutes we’re going to go onstage and pull out a ticket. If it’s your ticket number we read off, then you win!” She says with a huge grin as she opens a Red Bull.

I’m starting to think her eccentric personality is fueled by caffeine instead of insanity. At least I hope so anyway. Once again I look at Jess and she shrugs her shoulders and says, “Sounds good to me.”

“Brilliant! Here are your tickets then!” The woman hands us tickets and we rip off the other halves of them and put it in the bowl. With a final smile to the strange radio host, we go get drinks to begin our wait.

“Well she was a bit weird don’t you think, Skank?” Jessica says to me after she takes a sip of her diet Coke.

“You mean the radio host? Yeah, I’d say so. I think she was just a bit…over excited.” I say, trying to be nice.

“Yeah, whatever. I just wish this thing would hurry up. I’m dying to know if we won or not.” Jessica says anxiously.

I begin to look around the room. I notice there’s a small stage at the very back and a large dance floor in front of it. Tables litter the outskirts of the floor and there looks to be a game room upstairs. It’s actually a nice little club.

Jess and I are still standing at the bar when I notice how quickly the room starts to fill up. There has to be at least 100 people here now. My stomach starts feeling nauseous from nerves. I take a quick look at my ticket. It reads 120280. Committing the number to memory, I ask Jessica what hers is.

“130600,” She reads out. She takes her phone out and checks the time. “It should start any moment now. It’s 7 o’clock on the dot.”

As soon as she finishes her sentence, there’s a loud bang and then feedback from a microphone. We share a glance and head to the stage area. The woman from before is standing on stage but the man is nowhere in sight. He doesn’t seem too social, I think to myself.

“All right guys, how about we get this show on the road?” The woman says, “As you all know, I’m Sammy from 104.9 Hitz. My partner Jace has gone off to get the bowl with the other tickets so as soon as he gets back, we’ll start! But in the meantime, I have a surprise for you. All of you are obviously aware that you are here for back stage passes. Well, there’s one thing we neglected to mention to you while on the radio. Not only will the winner receive two backstage passes, but he or she will also go back to the hotel with the boys to party it up after the show!”

With this tidbit of information, the crowd goes nuts. But can you really blame us? This is the chance of a lifetime right here and two of us will actually receive it. Jessica turns to me and we both start screaming along with the crowd. Normally, we pride ourselves on not acting like pubescent teenage girls with a major obsession, but tonight we can’t help it. The stakes have gotten way higher and we want to win.

A few moments later Jace walks onto the stage with the bowl in hand. Everything suddenly goes dead silent and it’s kind of eerie. He looks nervous but I would be too, if I was him. He is holding the future of at least 150 hormonal girls.

“Okay, guys! Are you ready for this?” Sammy says, “Come here, Jace. Bring me those tickets.” Sammy looks out at all of us with a huge smile on her face. She’s starting to grow on me a little bit. She’s like a puppy almost.

When Jace reaches her, she dives her hand into the bowl and mixes up the contents. Jess grabs my hand and squeezes. I squeeze back and glance at her, but her eyes are glued to the tickets. I also turn my attention back to Sam, Jace, and those stupid tickets. After all these weeks of trying to get these passes, this is our last chance of achieving our dream. It’s finally come down to these last few seconds.

When I’m almost one hundred percent sure that I’m about to puke up my lunch because of anxiety, Sam finally withdraws her hand. “Okay, kiddos. This is it. The chance you have all been waiting for.”

Jess and I start squeezing each other’s hand so tight that I’m sure blood circulation is getting cut off somewhere. With my free hand I cross my fingers. Please let this be it, I pray in my mind.

“The lucky ticket number is 1…3...0,” I look at Jess. Her number is 130600. “6...4...0!” Sam finishes. I let go of Jessica’s hand. We didn’t win.

“Well kids, who is the lucky winner?” Sam, Jace, and the rest of us look around to see who the winner is. “Anyone..?”

Sam looks around once more before giving up. “Well I guess our winner isn’t here. You know what that means. Redraw!”

“We’ve got this,” Jess says. I could almost burst with happiness. This is it. Our second chance. The crowd behind us starts murmuring. Apparently they have the same mindset as me.

“Hey, Jace. How about you draw the next ticket?” Sammy looks towards Jace with a smile, which he returns nervously. He must be new or something. He looks out at the crowd of girls and few guys. I notice his black hair is spiked and he has a tattoo on his collarbone that’s barely visible from his black V-neck.

“Sure, Sam.” He looks doubtful, but continues on. He shoves his hands in the bowl and grabs out another ticket. “Well it looks like it says 1…2...0...2...8...0.”

My stomach drops. There’s no way that’s what he said. I must have heard him wrong. That was my number. Jessica screams immediately, so I assume that I, indeed, heard him correctly. I shove my arm in the air with my ticket in hand.

“That’s me!” I yell,” That’s my ticket number!”

Sam and Jace look down at me and smile. Jessica is still a mess beside me, but instead of screaming she’s settled for this half whimper/squeal thing. The crowd starts murmuring again, but this time with anger and disappointment instead of happiness. But I couldn’t care less. Nothing else mattered at that moment, other than the fact that finally, my dream was coming true; my best friend and I were getting to meet One Direction at last.

Jess was right after all. We did win. At that moment I vowed to myself to never doubt her again.