Shortly after the boys arrived and they introduced themselves, another man with an authoritative air around him entered the room. The boys had been messing around, the way they had always been rumored to, but the second that man walked in, they went silent.

It was Simon Cowell.

Before I could be completely frozen into place, Carah whisked me out of the room and into the hall just outside. “You’re not part of the team, so you can’t be at this meeting,” She said apologetically. “Wait here for a bit, I won’t be needed in there long. They’ll probably send me out to do some photo-copying or run to get some drinks.”

“Alright,” I said, and sat on another couch, resuming my earlier position of lying down and listening to music. But it wasn’t long, maybe fifteen minutes, before my iPod shut off with a resounding silence left to take its place. I pulled the ear buds out of my ears angrily, clicking the home button over and over again, pretending that maybe it’ll turn back on if I wanted it enough.

Sadly, it didn’t.

Then, everything hit me all at once.

I just met One Direction. I managed to be relatively normal in front of them, and oh my God I just met One Direction.

I got up from my spot on the couch and wandered down the hallway, consumed in my own thoughts. I found a door that was slightly ajar, which led to an empty conference room. It seemed like this place was full of them.

Inside, the blinds were open to let light stream through in stripes, landing on a long, shiny mahogany table with chairs placed around it. I took a seat at the largest one, a black plush rotating chair at the head of the table. There were still screams outside, voices of dozens of teenage girls meshing together so that words were no longer audible. Idly, I wondered what any of them would have done if they were in my position. Probably more than sit there with their mouths open, gaping like a fish plucked out of its tank.

I tapped my fingers against the table in a non-sense rhythm, attempting to pick up a melody from the song I’d be listening to when my iPod shut off.

Suddenly, the door to the conference room was pushed open roughly, slamming against the wall and nearly bouncing shut again. A figure stood in the doorway, their posture almost sagging with relief. Quickly, they turned out into the hallway and screamed out, “Oi! Lads! I found her!”

Niall shuffled in, grabbing a seat beside me at the table. “Why’d you wander off?” He asked worriedly, grabbing my hands in his. All his fun and boyish qualities had faded into dust the second something became serious. I stared down at our hands for a second before saying anything.

“I got bored? So I walked around until I found something to do?” I said hesitantly. “Why are you acting like I got kidnapped?”

There were the sounds of footsteps in the hallway, and familiar voices, until the whole of One Direction and Carah pressed into the room, all saying things at once. Carah threw herself onto me, arms wrapped around my torso so tight I could barely breathe.

“Car, you’re squishing me to death, let go, please.”

“Bloody hell, Linnie, I told you to stay on that couch, have you gone mental?” She replied, loosening her grip a little but not completely.

“What’d you think I was going to do? Jump off a roof? I was bored so I went walking around the building. Sue me.” I managed to wriggle out an arm from under Carah’s and ran a hand through my hair, catching a couple knots on the way down.

Silence fell, and the room suddenly felt ten times smaller. No one would look at me.

“No way,” I said softly, touching Carah’s chin until she looked me in the eyes. “You actually thought I was going to hurt myself. Are you crazy? Why would I do that?”

I stood, shaking my head and moving away from the group and towards the window again. I didn’t know what it was about this place, but I always tended to drift to the windows here.

“Lin, you left all of your things out there. You never go anywhere without it, don’t freeze me out because I got worried. You and I both know I have reason for that.” I stiffened.

“Could we not talk about that here? In front of them?” I faced her and tilted my head in the direction of the boys, who were all wearing confused expressions on their faces. Even Niall, who seemed the slightest bit offended that I’d pulled my hands away from his so abruptly.

“We know, Carly,” Louis said, trying to be reassuring.

“You told them?”

“She didn’t tell us everything!” Liam piped up, sensing an impending fight and smacking Louis on the back of the head. Louis pretended to be offended and dramatically dug his head into Harry’s shoulder, fake sobbing wildly. I almost cracked a smile.

“She was panicking when she saw you were gone and told us that things hadn’t been going great for you and that you’d been sad lately, which we could see clearly on our own. Carah was worried enough that it got us all into a frenzy, don’t be mad at her,” Harry added while patting Louis’ head soothingly, as if he were a mother trying to calm a baby. This whole situation was awkward and ridiculous and I just wanted to be done with it, so I changed the subject.

“Well, what about your special meeting, or whatever? I didn’t interrupt that, did I?” I glanced down at my watch and had to blink a few times. There was no way that an hour had passed since I’d found the room. No way, I couldn’t have been in here more than fifteen minutes!

“No, it’s already over, and it went remarkably well, thanks for asking,” Louis said, deciding he was done with his dramatic crying scene, and I could immediately see why everyone called him the Queen of Sass.

“How’d it go?” I said, fighting a smile. The tension that had filled the room not ten seconds ago had already dissipated.

“Oh, you know, off the charts album sales, recording time for a new single, a year long tour starting next year, which, may I add, is already sold out, the usual.” Louis smirked at me as my jaw dropped.

“Sold out? That’s great!”

“Yeah yeah, it’s not all us, y’know. It’s the fans, we’d be no where without them,” Niall replied, and his response sounded almost robotic, like it was something he’d rehearsed so many times he didn’t even have to think to say it.

“Well, now that that’s all cleared up, Management piled me in paper work and errands to run, so now I’ve got to run. See you next week, boys!” Carah said hurriedly, pulling me by the arm and giving the boys no time to say goodbye and me about five seconds to grab my things before we descended into a throng of screaming fans.

So many different questions were thrown at us and I was overwhelmed, feeling as if the crowd was going to close in and trample us to death. Carah had a cab waiting out front and practically threw me inside before getting in herself.

“You don’t have any errands to run, do you?” I said knowingly, because Carah’s classic excuse to get out of anything was that she had errands to run. Clearly the boys didn’t know her all that well if they hadn’t figured out it was her default lie.

Carah smiled guiltily. “Nope. But we have a few things to talk about, Carly Cynthia Gordon. And we are not going to avoid them this time. I thought letting you hide yourself in the flat would help you gather everything together and you’d be ready, but it’s been almost a month and I know for a fact you didn’t come here just to see me.”

I winced. She used my full name and she voiced what I’d been thinking ever since I got off the plane in Heathrow. “It’s not that I didn’t want to see you, Car, it’s just that—”

“I know, Carly. But please, don’t shut me out anymore. We’ve always told each other everything and I hate the fact that you’re so sad and I can’t do anything about it. Please tell me.”

I sighed dejectedly and sat back in the worn leather seats of the cab. We were immersed in traffic, and Carah was giving me the biggest puppy eyes a person could possibly manage.

“Okay, I’ll tell you. But I’m warning you now, it’s not pleasant. The last year hasn’t been good for me, Carah.”

She only nodded.

With anxiety weighing down on my chest, I began to talk.