Ladies First (Zayn Malik) Book 4

Chapter 17

The weeks fly by and each week we manage to stay out of the bottom two. Our song choices ranged from Cindy Lauper’s “True Colors” for the Inspiration week to Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” for the Guilty Pleasure week. We tried to vary the songs so as not to become to repetitive. The latter had everyone laughing uncontrollably by the end. It wasn’t our best performance vocal wise by any means, but we had learned the whole dance and apparently watching it was hilarious. Simon could barely stop laughing while giving his opinion.  

Just like Zayn said, things just got busier and busier. We started going to red carpet events and interviews. I started carrying a camera with me everywhere we went. Our fan group kept growing and every chance I had, I was out by the gate signing things for the people lined up hoping to catch a glimpse of us. If someone wanted a picture, but didn’t have a camera, I’d take it with mine and tweet it to them.  Fans kept trying to give us presents and I felt weird taking them seeing as I didn’t need any of it and the fans were already doing so much for us just by keeping us in the show. I accepted it of course because they had put time and thought into it. Our twitcams became a scheduled event, twice a week, once on Tuesday morning and once on Saturday night so fans from everywhere could at least watch one.

The most shocking thing to happen was, one morning when I signed onto twitter to see if Zayn responded, I saw he’d left his number. And of course, being the idiot I am, my first text to him was ‘Won’t this cost a fortune?’ As soon as I hit send, I wanted to smack myself for saying something so stupid. Luckily, he seemed to find my worry funny and assured me it would be fine because it was his American phone so it wouldn’t cost me anything extra. After that, our conversations became a lot more frequent. Especially after they came to the US so the time zone wasn’t so different.

“No way!!” Haley had screamed when I’d told her I had his number. I just nodded my head, unable to wipe the huge smile off my face.

“Oh my god! I knew it! Can you introduce me?” she begged. I’d laughed and proceeded to tell her it’d be hard to introduce her to someone I’ve never actually met either. She’d just hushed me, telling me to stop destroying her dreams.

“Stop texting your boyfriends and come on. We’ve got to get to final rehearsal,” Carmen says with a smirk, using the name she’d given to Zayn and Chris when they weren’t around. I just roll my eyes with a laugh and get up. In all the interviews, either Zayn, Chris, or both were brought up as rumors flew over whom I was dating. Of course it didn’t help that Carmen and Hannah poked fun at me during all those interviews. I grab my camera, unplugging it from the charger as I follow Carmen out of the room. We were down to the semi-finals. It was hard to believe that there would only be one more performance after tonight. We head to the boy’s room and walk in, not bothering to knock.

“Ready to go?” I ask with a smile, seeing Hannah and Lilly chilling in there with the boys. Lilly had been hanging out with us more since that first twitcam. It seemed like the boys had adopted her as a younger sister almost, the way she was always with them, except during rehearsal time. We meet up with the last contestant as we get to the stage for one last run through of the show. He was a nice guy, one of the boy contestants; he was just kind of a quiet kid. He didn’t hang out with us that often. We get through rehearsal and then it’s just a waiting game until the show starts. At dinner, I can’t keep my leg from bouncing as I nervously pray that we get through tonight. Now, I more than ever wanted to win this thing. We’d gotten so far and grown so much as a group. To be able to win would be incredible. 

Then finally it’s time for the show. Since there are only 4 of us left, we are performing two songs each. The show starts off and from backstage, I can hear the three of us talking as they show part of the interview we’d done earlier.