Meeting One Direction

Chapter

Chapter

“Hey man, what’s up?” Niall said into the phone, pressing the speaker button.

“Where are you?!” Was the response on the other end of the phone.

“Um, I’m with Ava. . .  She told me Harry told you I was goin’ with her for my night off.” Niall sounded confused as we finally made it to my old blue mustang.

“Night off?! You need to come back to the food court now! We’re gonna miss our flight! And who’s Ava?!” My heart started to race as I realize I’m never going to see Niall again. However, a totally clueless Niall pulled back the phone and stared at it, bewildered.

Just then, we heard someone else’s voice through the phone, “Hi guys! I just wanted to apologize, Niall. And you too, Ava; Pauly caught us.”

“Don’t say that Hazza! HELP! HELP! A BIG BURLY MAN IS KIDNAPPING US! I’M LOUIS FROM ONE DIRECTION!!!” Louis shrieked into the phone. Just then, we heard loud screaming girls through the receiving end of the iPhone, and Paul shouting, “Get Back!”

There was a scuffling sound on Niall’s phone then the call was lost. “Oh my God!” Niall shouted, staring at his phone. “The boys are probably being attacked! We gotta go help ‘em!”

With the boys’ protection in mind, Niall completely forgot about what Harry had said at the moment; their safety took precedence. Niall turned around and was about to sprint back into the mall until I grabbed his elbow.

“Niall, you can’t! You’ll just cause more of a frenzy! The boys have got Paul, they’ll be alright; Louis did that so we could hang out a little longer.”

Niall stared at me incredulously. “What do ya mean, Ava? Paul sounded like we were leaving tonight… Harry said we had a couple o’ days here.”

I sighed, realizing I would have to tell him the whole truth. “Harry lied to you Niall. And Louis just did that so we could spend time together; the boys realized that you really liked me…. And that I… I like you back Niall. When you went to go get ice cream Harry made a plan to get us out of the mall; if we got you out, they would sneak out too and we’d all hang out at my place until you guys missed your flight. It was a good plan. That’s why I didn’t want you to answer Paul’s call.”

Niall sighed loudly, turning away from me as he ran a hand through his blonde hair. “I can’t believe this…” I heard him mumble to himself.

“Alright, let’s go,” He finally spoke after a couple more minutes of silence, turning back to me and grabbing my hand. “But listen Ava, all of us are going to get in really big trouble for this. But… if Lou did that for me, I might as well do this for him.”

He made it sound like he didn’t even want to spend time with me anymore. I felt a pang in my eyes that threatened tears, but I held them back. Even if I’d only truly met him today- aside from stalking him on Twitter for two years straight- his opinion of me meant a lot to me. And it seemed like I’d let him down somehow. And that made me feel really, really bad.

“Niall, you don’t have to come with me. Just… just go back to the tour bus. I’m really sorry I caused this. I’ll just go home… it was nice to meet you Niall.” I turned and directed the stroller and Brooke towards the passenger door.

I refused to look back at Niall, embarrassed to show him the tears that were forming in my eyes. I pulled the passenger seat forward so I could reach the backseats and unhooked the sleeping baby from his stroller.

“Ava…” I heard Niall start to say. For some reason he stopped whatever he was going to say and I heard a scuffling of shoes in the gravel.

My heart started to race as I realized he leaved me and finally let the tears start to flow, not caring who saw. Brooke had settled herself into the back seat quietly, noticing my mood. I finally strapped Liam into his car seat and closed the passenger door slowly.

It shut quietly and I leaned against the car, crossed my arms on top of the roof and leaned my head on top. I can’t believe how horrible this day was. It started to get a lot better after the boys met up with me at the food court, but immediately got worse after Niall answered Paul’s phone call.

Now Niall will never like me back, won’t ever talk to me again. I’ll just become yet another unnoticed fan in the background. Again. And that really hurts. Not because I want the boys to know who I am, but because I genuinely wanted to become friends with the boys. I wanted to laugh and hang out with them and play soccer with them, and just have fun.

But now that will never happen because I messed up everything. I never should have let Harry convince me to go through with his crazy plan. Because of that, I got the boys in trouble, and Niall’s now worried about them. I couldn’t even phantom the regret I would feel if any of the boys got hurt during the mob that Louis caused- because of me.

Everything’s my fault. It always is.

I finally somewhat pulled myself together and went to pull the keys out of my pocket. But they weren’t there. I frantically reached into my other pocket, but they weren’t there either.

“God damn it! Can anything else go wrong today?!” I shouted into the empty, dark parking lot. I even went as far as to slap the top of the car, waking Liam up, and making Brooke jump.

I scanned every surface of the stroller, and yanked everything out of the diaper bag, chucking everything onto the ground. Even the precious CDs and poster I cherished only a couple of hours before.

I finally gave up and opened the passenger door again. “Brooke, honey do you know where my keys went?” I said this as sweetly as I could, trying to hold back my overwhelming sense of self pity and pain.

I just wanted to go home, get the kids to go home and take a long hot shower and curl up in my bed and pretend this day never happened. I even had that lingering urge in the back of my mind that I hadn’t felt since the day I found out about One Direction. I had the urge to cut.

I admit it; I used to cut myself in a really bad time in my life. But after I saw One Direction while they were on X Factor for the first time, I hadn’t felt the urge to do it since. One Direction dragged me out of my stupor and probably saved my life; they sure as hell changed it for the better.

Unknowingly, they had helped me out of my depression. And now I’ll probably never be able to thank them, or pay them back in some way. Because I screwed everything up. Again.

“Umm I think you dropped them when you were putting Liam in the car Sis,” Brooke said uncertainly, glancing at my feet.

I glanced down towards my feet and lore and behold – my keys were lying directly next to them. “Oh Jesus I need to go to bed,” I mumble, bending down with my left arm reaching out for the keys.

At that moment my left elbow cracked loudly and then my whole arm went limp. I shrieked out in extreme pain and clenched the passenger seat. I fell down onto the ground and sat there sobbing, leaning against the car for support. I gingerly pulled my arm up and rested it on my bent knees and examined it.

I have no idea how I did it, but I believe I dislocated my elbow. It happens a lot in soccer to goal keepers, but it takes extreme pressure to dislocate it though so I couldn’t imagine how bending over to pick up keys could do it. Unless I had somewhat dislocated it a little bit before last Tuesday during the game, and fully dislocated tonight when I stretched my arm to pick up the stupid keys.

I was gazing stupidly at my arm for what felt like forever until I heard a scuffling of feet coming towards me. I started, thinking it was a murderer coming to kill me and the kids. But when I looked up I just saw a blurred Niall staring down at me. I blinked away my tears and gazed up at him, having nothing to say to him.

He shouldn’t even be here; he should be on the tour bus with the rest of the One Direction crew, or on his flight by now. But who was I to tell him that? He didn’t care about me anymore. He never even started to care about me. If he did care – even a little bit – he wouldn’t have left me. He would have actually stayed with me when I told him to go. But why would he? He didn’t care. No one cares.

“Ava…” Niall’s voice trailed off as he stared dumbfounded at me.

 I probably looked like a mess. My face was probably blotted from crying, my eye black an purple, my hair more of a tangled mess than it was before; and now my arm was hanging limply on my knees at an unnatural angle. I wouldn’t be surprised if he just turned around and left me there, broken and ugly on the ground.

But surprisingly, he didn’t.