Tomlinson was the best thing to happen to me (Watty's '13)

We get to know each other

The four teenagers finally wake up. Zayn takes one glance at me from his bunk, nods hello. I nod back, in fact, I have no idea what to do. "Let's play a game," Niall stated once everyone was in a seat except Zayn. I have no idea where he is.

"Guys, where's Zayn?"

"There's a reason why his name's a typo of vain," Liam chuckles.

"Yeah, well, he is vain."

"Hold on, how do you spell his name?"

"Z-A-I-N but he like, changed it for originality purposes to Z-A-Y-N," Louis explained.

"Zayn… Zayn… Zayn… I've got a name for him."

"And you haven't come up with one for me," Lou complained.

"I'm already calling you 啊哥, lah." The other boys looked at each other confused. "I call him big brother," I explain. They all 'ah'ed in understanding. "Because, if you haven't realised already, he treats me better than the whole of my family put together." Zayn chose this precise moment to arrive.

"You said something?"

"Yes, I call him big brother in Cantonese."

"FOREIGN LANGUAGE BUDDY!" Zayn hollered in what I thought was a weird mix of somewhat foreign and made up accent. I shut my eyes in thought, head down.

"You sound like… someone… off television… … Dynamo? Bradford? I don't know, I'm sorry if I'm wrong."

"Yes, I'm from the same city as Dynamo. How did you guess?"

"I don't know," I say.

"Seriously, Annabelle. Where are you from?"

"Doncaster," I say as normally as possible. "My family travels a lot and I pick up accents. That one was an Irish accent I picked up on a farm."

"Let's hear an Australian accent if you're that good," Liam challenged.

"G'day mate, my kids ride wombats and kangaroos to school. And eat emu eggs for breakfast." It's a difficult accent, I try to shorten everything and stop my words from turning into a question sound typical of English accents. "If you want," I switch to my usual accent, "I can do a Japanese accent, Cantonese accent and Malaysian accent as well if you like. The typical American accent is a pretty basic skill. Flatten the sound, broaden it, maybe stretch the sounds a bit. Easy peasy."

"Let's hear that as well then," Niall  told me.

"Oh ma gard, eet's wahn direection! Oh ma gard!" I caught all the boys laughing their heads off, and I was wondering why. "What have you guys gotten up to now? I feel like I can't do anything without suspecting something-" And then I realised. They had recorded it on their phones. Those monkeys. Monkeys. Lou's a Goat, if that helps you. If memory serves me, Monkey comes after Goat, then I'm a Rooster. Maybe Liam and Harry are Roosters, I think Zayn and Niall might just be younger than me. "Right. How old are you guys? Birthdays?"

"13th September 1993," Niall began. WHAT?!

"29th August 1993," Liam said.

"1st February 1994," Harry mumbled slowly.

"12th January 1993," Zayn muttered.

"Right. So. That makes Niall and Liam the same as me, Year of Rooster, Zayn should be the one before and Harry… same as me… I don't know, actually. But surprisingly enough Niall is older than me."

"Yeah, everyone thinks I'm the youngest."

"Baby," I mocked a grunt.

"Baby, baby oh!"

"Hm... I've never heard a girl sing like that."

"You hardly know anything, it's Justin Bieber."

"Yes, Niall, I know. Thanks for rubbing it in. I call the roof of my house 'a rock' for a reason. That reason being, I've been living under a rock for my whole life." Uh-oh, I didn't mean to let this much out. Damn. I gave Louis a look of what I assumed was sheer terror, conveying that I didn't want them to know of the entirety of my story. I don't want pity, that's the last thing I need. The kids at school know part of my story and even that is hard enough to bear, let alone four boys knowing the full story. At the moment Liam knows most of the story without details of past nuisances and that's already enough. I feel he knows there is more to me than what I've told him. But he seems to me a sensible person who's not particularly nosey, and one who knows better than to poke around in other people's business. In fact, to put it more directly, I like Liam. Not romantically, these boys, if I am correct in my assumption, have thousands of girls running after them and if we were to line up I would be dead last for any of these boys. I glance at Niall, he looks like he's up for a conversation. "Hey," he grins, showing his braces and crooked teeth. But if you ask me, I'd say that I have no opinion on it. He's the way he is, I'm more into the personality. There's no point in dating a really good-looking guy who is definitely going to cheat and making a fool of you if you could date a guy who might be a bit of a dork or nerdy but is faithful at the very least.

"Hey. You bored?"

"Out of me wits. But not with you around. You different from other girls, I sense that."

"Why do you say that? I'm not talented or pretty like other girls…" I drift off.

"I don't know, you're… mysterious, I suppose. It makes me think about what going on inside your head. Sounds creepy, I know."

"I have secrets. Secrets… that I sometimes don't want to share with people-"

"It's alright, just- I want you to know that you can talk to me anytime you want, about anything you want."

"I'll give that a go. But with this promise from me means you have to promise me something as well: you can't go round blabbing to everyone, alright?" I told him sternly. I'm not happy inside this means that yet another person knows. If my parents took me back, I would be in trouble. As would anyone who knew, as they didn't like Europeans to think they were sexist when in fact, they were.

"I pinky promise, Annie. You don't mind me calling you Annie, do you, Annabelle?"

"Not at all. Here, sit down and I'll talk. I'll try not to bore you." I turned on my side to face him. "My parents… they always wanted a son to be first-born. I'm… the eldest of three children, I've got two brothers, younger than me by 2 and 4 years. I can't be what my father always wanted. It all started with my dad, he's the one in control at my house. My mother… she's wrapped around his little finger. She's helpless, can't do anything against him for my situation. My brothers are both jerks, the 15 year old more than the 13 year old. The older one likes to push me around, often the 13 year old as well. One time I really lost it and feigned a punch. Daniel didn't know how to duck and so I tried to slow down my fist and it just manages to stop next to his ear. And then I got in massive trouble with a lot of 'what if's when he was unharmed. But then, considering he put in a bad word against me and my dad was the one taking this incident, I kind of expected it. I was terrified. I thought they were going to disown me, in which case I was already planning on going to the Tomlinson's next door. I got to school the next day and told Lou that if I got into more shit in the next few weeks I'd run away to his place and hope my parents don't… just… you know… disown me. But really, that's gonna happen any time now. They realise I'm gone, find all my belongings gone so they send me a text or call me to come home. I say no, make them angry, and there goes my home."

"That was never your home, the way you put it. Now, you're part of a larger family. The One Direction family. You don't get that sort of treatment in this family and there's only a foster dad, Liam. No one treats anyone badly in this family and I'm sure the fans will like you." I was relieved to hear this opinion from Niall, but little did I know how wrong he was in fact.