No Control | The Night Before

16~ Drag Me Down

June 2015

I spent Monday night at Louis' house, and almost fell apart with excitement when he invited me backstage before the Cardiff show on Friday. Although I trusted my sister Maddie implicitly, I couldn't be certain that her friend Phoebe would be able to keep quiet about my relationship with Louis, and so I decided not to say anything to them but to surprise them with the backstage passes on the day and hope that their shock and excitement would prevent them from asking too many awkward questions about how I had obtained them.

I knew Louis would be busy after Monday with preparation for the tour, and wasn't expecting to see much of him. However, I was a little surprised that after his invitation for Friday, I then didn't hear from him for a couple of days. I texted him on Wednesday afternoon just asking how rehearsals were going but my text went unanswered, even though I could see it had been read almost immediately. Although I hadn't known Louis long, I knew this was out of character for him, and an unease began to settle in my gut as time went on.

By Thursday morning, after I had tried to ring him and he had ignored the call, I was feeling a bit hurt, not to mention in limbo, as I now couldn't make any travel arrangements for the concert because I wasn't sure what was happening.

"Maybe he's just been really busy," Sarah suggested as we got on the tube after work that evening. I had told her about being invited backstage, and had made her promise not to mention anything about me and Louis to Maddie or Phoebe.

"Busy is fine," I nodded. "Busy doesn't bother me at all. It's just unusual for him not to answer my calls or texts. And I don't want to keep pestering him. Maybe he's changed his mind about the concert or something, and doesn't know how to uninvite me."

"What are we going to do?" Sarah asked. "If we're not going backstage, we need to get there early so we can be at the front of the queue to get a good view."

"I guess we'll leave early, as originally planned," I sighed.

Maddie and Phoebe were due to arrive in London just after six that evening, and everyone was staying over at my flat ready to drive to Cardiff the following morning. We were all just tucking into our Dominos takeout, when my phone buzzed next to me, flashing with a call. Louis Tomlinson.

My heart lurched and I jumped up, licking tomato sauce off my fingers and grabbing my phone from the arm of the sofa. The others were too engrossed in watching a One Direction music video compilation to notice I had left the room, and I slipped into my bedroom and shut the door behind me before I answered.

"Hi," I said casually.

"Hey."

"How are you?" I asked.

"Yeah, not bad. Just got home and relaxing with a beer before the tour starts again tomorrow."

Was it my imagination or did he sound... off?

"OK, sounds fun," I said, lamely.

"Yeah..," he muttered.

"Are you OK?" I asked.

"Yeah, yeah, fine," he replied dismissively, but in a tone that told me he wasn't fine at all.

"OK," I said nervously.

"You still coming up tomorrow?"

"Um, yeah, that's the plan," I replied. "I hadn't heard from you for a couple of days, so I wasn't sure what was happening. I guess we'll get there early and get a good place in the queue so we can be as close to the front as possible."

"Oh - you can have front row," he said. "I've sorted four tickets for you. Save you queueing. Get here for about five o'clock, then our meet and greets will be done. You can have something to eat with us backstage before the show starts."