Meeting One Direction

Chapter 2

                                                2

The doorbell rang as I was towel drying my hair.

“Coming!” I holler as I rush to answer the door.

I open it to find Jessica standing there cradling Liam in her hip. Liam screeches happily in greeting towards his favorite Aunty when he sees me. Jess hands me the diaper bag and switches Liam to the other hip at the same time.

“Okay so I kinda broke the stroller yesterday so you might have to hold him today, but don’t worry, he’s not heavy at all,” Jessica admits as she hands him over to me.

I wince as I put pressure on my left elbow when he’s in my arms. I switch him over to my own right hip as I lay the diaper bag on the floor next to the door.

“Does your elbow still hurt?” Jessica asks, warily looking at my free arm.

“Yeah,” I sigh. I never should have dived for that ball as goalie in the soccer game the other day. I had landed right on my left elbow and a shock had shot throw my entire upper arm.

Ever since then my elbow had been aching on and off for the past week, I couldn’t do as much as lean on it since then. So now I’ll have to hold a one year old baby for 12 hours today on one side of my arm, since Jess broke her only stroller for him.

“Alright, well he’s got plenty of enough diapers and bottles for all of today, I’ll come get him around midnight, I have to work later today,” Jessica informs me.

“Okay, oh and hey apparently I have to take Brooke today too,” I add as Jessica walks through the threshold and I close the door.

“Oh Ava, two children? To a signing, with thousands of screaming fans? Liam’s hard enough to watch, let alone Brooke too.”

“I know I know, it wasn’t my intention, May just called and basically ordered me to watch her until nine or something. I don’t want to watch her but you both need me so I guess I’ll have to push through it. Signing or no.” I sigh, my much anticipated day decreasing by the minute. All of these last minute changes are really pressing down on my good mood; I just have to remind myself that I’m meeting my favorite band today.

                Jessica eventually left and May showed up with Brooke at 6:45 on the dot. I left for the mall as soon as Brooke was ready, with Liam on my right hip, and my CDs and poster in the diaper bag.

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Brooke held my hand as we walked to the end of the long line in front of John Hawkes. Girls were screaming and talking loudly as we inched closer to where One Direction was sitting. We were just getting close to the actual entrance of the mall when Brooke tugged on my cardigan sleeve. The kids and  I had been standing in line for almost two hours now and I knew that Brooke would get antsy eventually.

“Sissy, I gotta go potty!” Brooke whined as I bounced a fussy Liam on my hip.

I sigh frantically as I realized I didn’t make Brooke go before we left the house. “Damn,” I mumble as I’m about to ask Brooke if she really needs to go but then I see her potty dance, indicating that she really needed to get to a toilet now.

I calculate in my head how long it would take Brooke to use the bathroom and then hurry to get back in line again, hoping that the mom with five screaming girls behind me would let me cut back in. I get an idea and turn around to offer her the ten dollars May so gratefully gave me.

“Of course I’ll hold your spot sweetie, just hurry back!” The woman cheerfully agrees as she takes the ten dollars I held out to her.

“Okay Brooke we have to hurry,” I tell her as I snatch her hand and whip her towards the bathroom. We push through the entrance and the mall is packed with security and screaming girls – everywhere. I shove past twelve year olds whipping signs around and drag Brooke into the bathroom.

She quickly uses it, sensing my impatience and we leave the bathroom about four minutes after entering it. However, after pushing past the crowd again, I don’t see my woman. I run up and down the line with a wary eye out for a large woman with bright red hair. Surprisingly, I couldn’t find her and slowly accepted my bad luck, dragging Brooke and Liam back to the end of the line.

“Sorry guys,” I sigh as we position ourselves back into the line that seems to last for miles.

However, over the next 3 hours we slowly proceed in the line, and make it through the entrance and close to the food court, where the signing was taking place. I finally catch sight of my favorite band and my heart starts to speed up. I’m actually finally going to meet them! I started to shake a little as I bounced a sleepy Liam on my hip and softly sang “More Than This”, my favorite song by One Direction, as he nodded off.

“You have an amazing voice,” The sixteen year old behind me in line told me.

 When I turned around to look at her I noticed she had braces and pimples – just like I did when I was sixteen. That’s why I had fallen so hard for One Direction because they were so intent on making every single one of their fans – called Directioners – feel so special and beautiful, even if we felt insecure about ourselves.

“Thank you and you are so beautiful,” I tell her.

She blushes as she glances down towards her shoes and mumbles a thank you to me.

“No, I’m serious; I wish I was even close to as beautiful as you!” I told her, knowing how she felt about herself, since that’s how I felt when I was her age; very insecure, and not really loving my body that much.

However, I had grown into a pretty eighteen year old, grew out of my pimples, and my teeth where straight and pearly white now, even if I still had glasses. I also knew that the girl behind me would grow into a beautiful young girl.

She mumbles a thank you again and Liam’s crying makes me turn back around to look at him.

“Shhh baby, it’s okay,” I croon as I bounce him up and down on my hip. I once again start to softly sing “More Than This” until he quiets down and stares at my mouth in awe. He reaches up to lightly trace my lips with his little baby fingers as he tries to figure out where the sound was coming from.

Brooke tugs on my arm again as I glance down at her.

“Sis I’m hungry!” She whines. Thankfully I was prepared for this and had made a couple of peanut butter and jelly’s for the both of us. I pulled out one sandwich and a water bottle for my little sister and handed it to her. Then I pulled a baby bottle out of the bag for little Liam and held it for him as he drank his full.

He finally pushed his bottle away when he was through and I pulled out a peanut butter and jelly for myself, along with a water bottle. Brooke ate the sandwich almost as fast as Liam drank his bottle and reached for my phone to play angry birds.

I took the water bottle from her and slid both of ours back into the diaper bag. I handed her the phone and started to sing to Liam again, since I had nothing else better to do other than listen to thousands of screaming girls pressing into both of my ears.

                We finally got close enough to the table where I could hear the boys greeting their fans and loosely chatting with them as they signed thousands of CDs, posters, pictures and books. Liam Payne – the band member – was at the end of the table closest to the line.

He glanced up from his signing and made eye contact with me – for about half a second – before he swept his eyes around the large food court as he gazed at his fans. I looked down at Brooke and saw her still playing with my phone, with Liam still talking in baby talk cheerfully.

I was finally, finally about to meet my idols I've loved for two years straight! We inched closer up the line towards the five boys...