I Care a Little Bit - Rant Book Part 3

liam payne

"so I will keep you, day and night / here until the day I die,I'll be living one life for the two of us / I will be the best of me, always keep you next to me / I'll be living one life for the two of us / even when I'm on my own, I know I won't be alone / tattooed on my heart are the words of your favourite song / I know you'll be looking down, swear I'm gonna make you proud / I'll be living one life for the two of us."

- "two of us" by louis tomlinson

when i was in fifth grade, we had a class "auction" where we could bid on random items brought in with the "cash" we'd collected over the semester for good behavior. i was saving mine - and i was a goody-two-shoes, so i had quite a bit to spend - for one thing: a poster. that poster had five boys on it, and those five boys were none other than one direction, the quick-rising to fame boy band that took the world by storm. their first album had dropped, and their song "what makes you beautiful" was all over the radio at the time. it was also the start of instagram, and my friends were all gushing over these boys on the new social media.

truth be told, at the time of this auction i didn't really know a lot about the band, or the boys in it. but something drew me to the poster, and something in the back of my mind told me i needed to be the one to "buy" it. i really don't know what it was that drew me to bid on that poster, but i did. and i ended up winning it. it was like some divine intervention. i spent a good chunk of my hard-earned elementary school money on it, but it was so worth it. i was so excited to go home and put it on my wall. it was the start of something truly great, and i remember feeling that deep in my bones.

following the auction day, i went home and immediately went to pinterest to start learning more about these boys. i started with their names, ofc - they were Harry, Niall, Zayn, Louis, and Liam. they had auditioned for the x factor (alongside cher lloyd, who'd been one of my favorite artists for the past year at this point), then been put together as a group - a boy band. and they became friends. they'd made music together, done video diaries in a staircase, toured the world together - these boys were family, and i adored their bond. how incredible was it that these five strangers went to follow their dreams, and ended up getting four new brothers in the process?

with the boom of social media, access to their stories, music, and everything else was at my fingertips. and boy, did i consume it all. i was hooked on this band. all of the sudden, these five boys were my whole world. online, there was a community i could go to and share with people who felt the same way about the boys that i did. it was my first real experience with fangirl/fandom life. and that was a big thing for me - more than i can express with words. after joining the one direction fandom, i spread out to even more fandoms: henry danger, hunter hayes, girl meets world, the fault in our stars...it really was the start of everything for me, looking back.

eventually my family realizes that i'm a crazed fangirl about these boys, and start rolling their eyes when i start talking about them, or freak out when they're played on the radio, despite them being one of the most popular artists of that time. soon enough, my entire wall (on my side of the room - i'm a twin, so we split the room, lol) was covered in the boy's pictures. i got posters from the school book fair, j-14 magazines, and even used the black and white printer at home to add more. i was a full-fledged fangirl. at one point, i took a sharpie and wrote #I_Am_Diana on the wooden "A" that hung above my bed because other directioners were doing it, too. my grandma bought me one direction bedsheets one christmas, and i was so beyond happy.

i remember fleeting moments in the middle school lunch line when i would argue with my best friend at the time about which boy was better - she was team harry, and i was a niall girl through and through. though we didn't agree on that, we still had lots of sleepovers where we'd dance and scream to their songs, because it didn't really matter which boy was the best - they were the best when they were together.