Direction Dreamer

Chapter Twenty One

“MIK THE PLANE LEAVES IN AN HOUR THROW MY SHIT IN THE SUITCASES AND LET’S GO!” Harry yelled from downstairs. “UGH YOU’RE SO LAZY THROW YOUR OWN SHIT IN THE SUITCASES HAZZA WAH YOU’RE SO LAZY!” I yelled back. He ran up the stairs, shot me a look and had himself a good laugh. “You’re cute when you’re whiny.” he said, smiling. “Finish packing babe…” I scolded, and he threw piles of clothes into the suitcase with a complete disregard for organization. Typical male. “Come hereeeeeeee!” he whined. I refused until he finished packing. So rather than cooperate with me, he called Niall upstairs. “Don’t you two ever agree on anything you’re getting married after all!” Niall explained, trudging in. “TELL HER TO COME HERE!” Harry whined, pointing a finger at me. “You SERIOUSLY called me up here for that?! You interrupted me!” Niall said. “From?” Haz asked, raising an eyebrow. “I WAS TRYING TO SKYPE WITH MY GIRLFRIEND… and I was eating…” he said solemnly. “Typical you. Get her over here then you can go back to Jai!” Harry insisted. “Come here Mikaela!” Niall sang, walking over and hoisting me over his shoulder. I pouted. This was so not fair. “PUT ME DOWN YOU LITTLE LEPRECHAUN!” I teased. “FOR THAT? NEVER!” Niall said, and began spinning me round and round. Oh no, not this. Me and my big mouth! He spun me around until I was dizzy and felt like punching Harry in the face for calling him up here. Niall laughed the whole way through, then brought me over to my fiancé. “Satisfied?” I pouted. “Oh I love it when you pout love, you remind me of a bulldog.” he chuckled, a big, stupid grin spread across his face and he found himself hysterical. Did he seriously just compare me to a dog? He and Niall had themselves a good laugh before Harry took me from the Irish blonde so he could return to his lady in waiting. “You… look… like… a poodle! SO THERE!” I said. I wasn’t winning this one. He mocked everything that I said, making silly faces. He ended up getting his suitcase packed through the silliness, and then he took my hand to leave for the United States. Everybody came by to wish me good luck, the guys and the girls. They hugged Harry and I goodbye, with a bon voyage and confidence that I would win the X Factor. I just had to.

The plane ride from London to Los Angeles was endless. Harry fell asleep for an hour before I kissed him awake so we could do some wedding planning. We ended up accomplishing our color scheme and the cake design. We decided to have live music versus a DJ. We chose two: Jason Mraz, who would be singing the song to which we would share our first dance as husband and wife, and Lifehouse, to whom Harry proposed to me by. I knew that the day would be beautiful, romantic and just plain flawless. It couldn’t come soon enough. Harry and I began our guest list. I didn’t have anybody, really. It was kind of a sad predicament. I mean, we obviously had all of Harry’s family, we had my adopted family who would have gone anyways because of Harry, Niall’s family, Zayn’s, and Liam’s. Me though? It put me down a lot. As a little girl I fantasized about a huge wedding with lace and linen, surrounded by parents and grandparents, aunts and uncle’s, cousins upon cousins upon cousins. There would be enough laughter to go around that a boulder could be dropped on the floor and it wouldn’t make a dent in the laughter. I had dreamt about huge cakes and pretty dresses, best friends galore. I lived in a fairytale world as a little girl. I wanted to have what other children had, a family, happiness and love. I wanted to have friends, but nobody had ever really welcomed the “foster kid” with open arms. I never stuck around in one place long enough for friends anyways. The painful discovery made me feel like a child again, lonely and helpless. I recalled the nostalgic feelings of being held my mom as a toddler. I recalled the loneliness that I had felt, and the longing to live a normal life. Everything had been so hard on me. I never felt wanted, not really. Not until I met Jay Tomlinson and the boys from One Direction. They brought me back to live, nourished me with the love that I had needed all along. All of the feelings were so stirred up, and I just started crying as Harry rambled on about the guest list. “What’s wrong baby?” he asked. “I don’t have any REAL family to invite to the wedding…” I said. He looked taken aback. “Of course you do.” he said softly. “No I don’t… who do I have? Everybody died on me!” I snapped back. I shouldn’t have, he was just trying to be nice to me and I went and snapped at him. I’m so ignorant sometimes. “Family means more than a gene pool or blood type sweetheart,” he said. I must have looked puzzled, although I wasn’t. He continued. “Family are people who pick you up when you’re down, they stand beside you and support you. They love you. They care for you. It goes so much farther than your genes and your DNA.” Harry said. He was getting all sentimental on me. He wiped the tears away from my eyes telling me not to cry, I was too beautiful. He was right, and I felt more arrogant than I had before. I had nothing to complain about. I had an incredible family, and incredible fiancé, an incredible life. I should be so grateful to everything that I was blessed with, but I couldn’t shake off my deep love-hate relationship with Cancer. It may sound silly to love it. Twisted even, but it had done me as much good as bad. It brought me a family, a new life and a bright future. I guess there was such a thing as the rainbow after the rain.

Once the place landed on the runway in L.A. Harry and I stepped off of it to find thousands of screaming fans. Waiting for Harry. Apparently, they were waiting for me too. They had a million and one questions regarding the wedding, my disappearance, they requested autographs and pictures. Cameras flashed left, right and sideways and it was all just a lot to take in. We did what we could and ran for the limousine that Simon had waiting for us outside of the airport. I could tell that this trip was going to be quite an interesting one already.

We arrived at the place where Boot Camp was to be held to meet up with Simon before going to the apartment that he had rented for our brief time here. “For privacy!” he had said. It made enough sense to me. I knew that secretly it was because he wanted to try to convince me into his whole mental baby idea. I was still hurting. He needed to understand that. Of course, it caused a lot of arguments between us, and the paper thin walls of a hotel room would have caused a lot of commotion with the paparazzi, and bad publicity for One Direction. Once we got into the new apartment, it was already furnished but we began unpacking. That was where the first argument happened, luckily. Better there than in public. Harry really was itching to be together. He wanted to get in my pants, and as naïve as he may have thought that I was, I wouldn’t have it. He knew my opinions about having a baby right now and he was disregarding my feelings. “No Haz, it’s not the time.” I said coldly. “What are you talking about?” he asked, hands on my lower back, creeping around to the front trying to unzip my pants. “You know damn well what I’m talking about!” I had said, and brushed him away. That had been that. We settled into the apartment, still on edge. He was angry with me, I saw it in his eyes. There was despair there too though. I knew how badly he wished for a child. I knew that I was keeping him from that, but it just wasn’t the time or place. I wanted to at least have our wedding and get through the X Factor before we went crazy with a pregnancy and a newborn. I loved him to death, but he was getting way ahead of himself. I just wished that he could see things from my perspective.

Boot camp was tedious. It was cut after cut after cut, and I somehow survived. So much talent was just flushed away. I didn’t understand how I managed to stay - the others all seemed so much more talented than I was. After boot camp came the Judges’ houses. I wasn’t allowed to be placed with Harry or Simon - I was too personally involved with them. Instead, the producers put me with Taylor Swift. I had no objections - she had always been a major inspiration to me since I was younger. I lost a lot of friends that I had made through the show - my publicity was through the roof. Not only was I the future Mrs. Styles, but I also became a part of the Final 16. A major accomplishment. A live performance scared me, but back at home Harry prepped me for it. He wanted to make sure that I would be prepared for do or die, even if we were fighting constantly.

When the day came for the Final 16, I was prepared. I sang my heart out.

I made it through to the next round, the Final 14. I lost two more fellow contestants. It broke my heart watching them go. They all deserved to be there way more than I did. Final 12. Final 10. Final 8. Final 6. Final 4. This was it. My time to shine. Just before the show began, I was jumped on and screamed at. The boys, my boys were here to support me. They knew what it was like, they had done it. They were there to hold me up if I fell down, my support system, my brothers, my family. They were also there to perform. When it was my time to perform, I did. The audience went crazy, I was flying. Being on stage was so natural for me, I loved the atmosphere of it all. When it was over, I felt breathless. Weightless. I was so nervous. Then came the results. I was there for another day. The top 3. Another show, another performance. The boys stuck with me through it all. Top 2. Top 2. Top 2. I made it to the top 2. My head was spinning at that point. Everything was so incredible. I never thought in a million, trillion years that I’d make it so far, that I’d get here. That I’d be where I was that day. Whether I would be the winner didn’t matter. Either way, I would be a winner to myself, to my family and to the love of my life. I’d made it farther than even he had. This was my time to prove that you could go from rags to riches, you could go from nobody to somebody, you could go from the bottom of the world to the top of the world in just a few years. Just a moment could change your life forever. I may have come from nothing, but today I was something, I was somebody. I had a name, and a face. I had a dream, and I was so close to reaching it that I could lean outwards, touch it and pull it in. One more performance, one more shot. It was do or die time, baby. I was in it to win it.