During The X Factor (One Direction)

Chapter 5 - Backstage

Spotlights spin around, solely illuminating the people on the large stage, casting the audience into darkness. An eerie blue glow hovers over the faces of each person sitting here, just like myself, as we wait eagerly to hear those few but beautiful words.

“The twelfth act through to next week’s show is…”

For the twelfth time tonight, I cross my fingers, my toes, everything, hoping and praying that the next two words that Dermot speaks are…

“One Direction!”

“YESSSSSSSS!” We all scream. Harry’s mum is dancing happily with her daughter and the rest of Harry’s family are cheering and hugging each other. I’m stood on my feet, hands cupped around my mouth so I can cheer and whoop even louder.

Once the boys have vacated the stage, Gemma grabs my hand and pulls me away from my seat in the audience and down the stairs, around the back and into a very bright corridor. I have to shield my eyes for a few seconds, letting Gemma lead me blindingly past random walls and doors.

“We want to be the first to see them!” she shouts over her shoulder to me. I laugh back at her instead of answering, seeing as if I do answer she wouldn’t be listening anyway. She is too focussed on congratulating her brother.

However, at the end of the corridor we spot two huge men blocking the door. They remind me of those bouncers you see outside of the rough clubs in town, growling at people and picking them up like a discarded tissue, and then throwing them into the gutter.

I pray they don’t do that to us.

Gemma slows down so that I can actually walk beside her, instead of being forced to run so that my arm isn’t taken without the rest of me. The ‘guards’ ask for our passes, and I sigh with relief as they let us through the huge doors. They give us directions and return to guard duty. I look over my shoulder once inside I can hear a stampede coming. I’m sure that the rest of Harry’s family is there at the front.

At the end of the next corridor we spot the door with a large ‘X’ and underneath that ‘Groups’ written on it. Gemma screams and sprints for it, pushing it open with her free hand.

This moment has been acted out in my mind over 100 times. What else is a girl to do whilst sat in a boring hotel room alone? That was when mum was doing her yoga meditation thing in the bathroom and Gemma had gone shopping.

Anyway, my little made-up play went a bit like this: I would glamorously glide into the room, with perfect make up and wearing some utterly gorgeous clothes, and Harry would introduce me to the boys as his “best friend ever”, which is when I blush and make a silly joke (which I still haven’t figured out yet, so I’ll need a little bit of improvisation there). They will all laugh at me and see how much of an awesome person I am and then we can all be really good friends.

A little bit later, Harry, Zayn, Niall and Louis will wander off somewhere, leaving Liam and I on some couch together to have a lovely little chat.

This next part has had the same beginning an ending since it first entered my mind. It’s the middle section I can never decide on. I’ll show you:

It’ll start like this; I’ll watch the other boys walk off, and then I’d turn back to Liam and he would be staring at me. We’d start to laugh uncontrollably at each other for absolutely no reason, and then when we finally stop, he would begin to ask me questions about Harry and me.

This is where my mind takes a different path each time. Sometimes it goes on to my childhood, my family, things like that. Other times I’ll turn the questions on him, asking about his life in Wolverhampton, his family. I usually have to make up answers here because I know nothing about Liam, but the story always ends the same.

We’ll be laughing at some story and suddenly realise that the room has emptied of everyone, they had been called to a different room for drinks and food and stuff like that, leaving Liam and me completely alone.

So, what do we do? We play Monopoly! …That’s totally a joke, but I know someone who did that once – my friend and her boyfriend were completely alone in the house for nearly two hours, so sat playing Monopoly.

Anyway, that’s not what happened with us. It ends with Liam and me kissing, naturally. My imagination kind of skips a beat here, and it somehow happens, but that’s a mystery at the moment…I think that’ll be another ‘spur of the moment’ thing.

But, yeah, we kiss and then the room magically fills up with people again. They see Liam and me squished next to each other on the couch and immediately assume we’re now a couple (which does happen, later). Harry’s the first to congratulate us, wrapping us both up in a huge hug. The ending was always my favourite part, always made me smile like an idiot, which isn’t the best thing when you’re sat on the underground with a bunch of strangers.

Back in the too-bright-for-human-eyes corridor, before Gemma and I can make our grand entrance, half a dozen people with clipboards and headsets busily push past us, even though the show is over for tonight.

I then remember the Xtra Factor, and hope that One Direction aren’t needed tonight, otherwise we’ll get about three seconds with them. I’ll need more than three seconds if there’s any hope of my little plan working.

As soon as the doorway is clear Gemma bursts through and runs straight to her brother, who I can see was sat on a couch in one corner with his band mates, before being attacked by his sister. I follow her and laugh, and when Harry sees me he lets go of Gemma and wraps me up in a giant hug.

“I’m so glad you’re here!” he whispers into my hair, “And it’s such a relief we got through!” he added.

“Didn’t doubt you guys for a second,” I smile once he releases me

“Sure you didn’t,” replies Harry, rolling his eyes, “I could see you from the stage!” he then does an ‘impression’ of me by tightly crossing his fingers and legs together and murmuring ‘Please say One Direction’ over and over. I laugh along with the other four boys and Gemma, proving that I can take a joke, even though normally Harry would have stopped by now and would most likely have a black eye. Or just a small bruise on his arm.

The stampede has finally caught up with us now. As I guessed, it’s Harry’s mum and step dad that are first through the doors. Billions of strangers follow them, taking over the whole room and making it extremely difficult to move. I literally feel like a sardine, squashed up against some random woman on one side, a very, very large bloke on the other, and behind me is a wall.

Not exactly the ‘squished’ I had planned. It doesn’t stay like this for long, however, because a number of the acts have to leave for the Xtra Factor, so they and their families leave (with difficulty).

Once I have made my way back to the couch in the corner I find the Styles family on the couch together, laughing and joking for the cameras that have replaced the people who just left.

Harry’s mum invites me to join them on the couch, so I sit on the edge of the seat next to Harry. I look around the less crowded room now, wondering whose performances I can actually remember.

That’s when I remember Liam. I see him on the other side of the room sat amongst his family. He’s staring straight at me and my cheeks flare red. Time stops as I lock eyes with Liam, everyone else in the room seems to have frozen.

He smiles at me and waves, and I very nearly fall to the floor, but our little moment is over pretty quickly. Within seconds, time starts up again and a crowd of people flood into the room, blocking my view. 

“There goes my plan…” I mumble, plucking a loose bit of thread from the couch.

“Huh?” says Harry.

I’m not going to tell Harry about my plan, ever, despite the fact that he’s my best friend, so instead I shrug and reply, “I missed having you around last week,”

He laughs at me, calling me soppy again, but then wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me off the arm of the chair and into the tiny gap next to him so I can rest my head on his shoulder.