[ZaynMalik] Change My Mind

“I know that you're not really all that excited for this tour, but can you at least pretend to be happy when we meet them?” Glancing at her, I raise an eyebrow, because I'm not about to tour the world with a band who thinks I'm one of their obsessed fan girls, to which she rolls her blue eyes. “I'm not saying to act like their obsessed fans. Just be happy to meet them. Be grateful.”

Of course I'm grateful, and I place my hands on either side of me down on the couch and push myself up to walk away from her and storm out of the living room of the apartment the three of us live in. It’s frustrating that she thinks I'm not grateful for this tour. They didn’t do anything. It was their management who let us onto the tour, and, therefore, there’s no reason I need to be kissing their feet. And really, our talent got us onto this world tour with them.

I've been nothing but grateful my entire life. For my parents, who never let me give up on any crazy dream that I had. For my siblings, who still love me even though so many people want to use them to snake their ways into my life. For Alyssa and Laura, who make this whole thing work and who are my best friends. For Dre, who discovered us and believed in us. And for everyone else who has joined us along the way.

My entire life has been trying to make something out of myself. I had to prove people wrong. I had to do something productive with my life and get out of the town I was living in. We all had to. And every step of the way we did everything right. We never used people. We never told a lie. We never went against our morals.

“Stella, I'm being completely serious. You can’t go in with that attitude.” I know exactly what attitude she’s talking about, but I only have this attitude because I'm not about to mooch off of their fame. We were promised a headlining world tour, and the fact that we’re now the opening act doesn’t really bother me that much. I still get to tour the world, and that’s amazing. I'm excited to see the world, as much of it as I’ll be allowed to see with our crazy schedules. But, while they're super excited to meet them, I'm worried that they're going to think that we’re simply excited about their fame and it rubbing off on us.

And that makes me freak out, because I've never really cared what people thought about me before. I learned really quickly in high school not to care because the people who perform in the musicals, which is how I met Alyssa and Laura, are usually the butt of people’s jokes. Words were always just that to me; they never defined me unless I thought they were true.

It’s not true, that we’re going on this tour simply to mooch off of their fame. We were promised a world tour and it just so happened they had one coming up. And really, I'm not really interested in opening for the biggest boy band in the world. There are too many people around all the time. I don’t think they can go anywhere without being mobbed. I just wanted a nice time on tour. I wanted to be able to befriend the other band and go sightseeing during any spare time we can come up with.

Growing up how I did, all I saw were the streets that I walked every day and not much else. I love singing. It’s everything to me. And it’s helping me experience the world like I've never had the chance to. That’s all I want out of life; I want to sing and I want to explore the world while doing it.

So, for her to say that I'm ungrateful, it’s a slap in the face. She didn’t have to work her ass off in high school to keep her scholarship so she could attend the private school that happened to be thirty minutes from my house. Spinning around to face her, I raise an eyebrow. “Are you telling me that I'm ungrateful?” She shakes her head; her eyes grow wide as she finally realized what she said to me. “I want to tour the world, Alyssa. I'm sorry that I don’t want to tour the world as the opening act for One Direction.”