The hallway has always been a deadly place for me.

All those stares thrown my way – always judging me, no matter what, all those obnoxious laughs coming from the people I feared every day and, of course, all the torment I forced myself to live with: pencils thrown at me, being pushed against my locker and, now, apparently, bacon.

I honestly don’t know what I could have done to deserve such treatment. Was I such a horrible person? Have I really done something so wrong to someone? Was I a terrible child, did I honestly force my parents apart as Jackson and his gang kept yelling at me?

“The reason you never met your mom,” repeated Jackson on a weekly basis, “is that she ran away as soon as she saw what a disgustingly ugly baby you were. Can’t blame her, can you? I bet she regretted not getting an abortion every day.”

After an entire hour of being thrown pencils, erasers and papers whenever the teacher turned his back on the class, I was unable to gather my thoughts, nor walk or see straight. Turning a corridor sharply, hoping to escape my bullies for once, I came face to face with one of them.

“Watch where you’re going you freak!” A high-pitched voice yelled only inches from my ear. I winced, jumping back, looking up at one of the people who caused me so much pain every day: Kerry.

“I’m sorry.” I sputtered out. In a second, she grabbed my shoulders and shoved me to the floor. I gasped, grimacing at the pain shooting up from elbow; a bruise was sure to form in the morning.

“Get out of here,” said Jackson, appearing behind her. “You’re not wanted. Here or anywhere.”

Tears brimmed my eyes as I tripped over myself collecting my things. I stood up and made a mad dash down the hall to my locker, located just by the entrance of the school. Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I dialed my locker open to dump my books in. The foul smell of bacon was still wafting through the vents and I had to hold my breath collecting the books I would need for the weekend. At least, I would get two days of peace – unless they decided to harass me directly at home. Facebook, obviously, was a big “no-no” for me; I couldn’t even create a profile in peace.

I slung my bag on my shoulder and looked at the back of my locker where a One Direction poster was hung. It was small but it still managed to hold all five of their shining faces. They made me happy –or as happy as I could get on days like these.

I sighed, shutting my locker and walking to the front of the school, out the doors, into the crisp air. Today was a particularly cool day, October being the beginning of autumn. I dashed to the stopped city bus and hopped onto the steps, paying the fee and taking a seat.

Within the hour, I was at my small house: a small cottage squeezed between a duplex and a triple decker. I breathed in the familiar smell of Mexican food; a family on the top floor of the triple decker was always trying to imitate traditional recipes.

I walked up the steps to the door and unlocked the two locks I had put on the door. You could never be safe enough in this crime-filled city.

Shoving my shoulder into the door while twisting the knob, the door finally came loose.

“I’ll need to fix that,” I muttered to myself, dropping my bag on the couch. I walked into the kitchen, hitting the light switch – it flickered for a moment, and then held power- and then opened the fridge. Nothing new was in it and nothing fresh either. I should have known better: I hadn’t done groceries in a while.

I ignored my thoughts of hunger and ran up the stairs, snatching my bag along the way. Making my way to my room, I woke up my cheap second hand laptop to twitter. I had zero to no followers, but that was okay: I only wanted to know where the boys were. They were my source of almost all my entertainment.

I scrolled through Harry’s feed to see nothing new; just the same old confusing tweets that didn’t make sense, and a few replies to certain fans. Not me, obviously. I hopped over to the One Direction channel and almost immediately felt my heart stop.

I couldn’t believe it…this wasn’t possible. No freaking way.

They were coming, to my town, this weekend, for a concert.

This had to be a dream, someone should pinch me. Am I really seeing this? How could have I not seen that before? Oh, a surprise concert, of course! No way, I couldn’t believe that was happening.

Tickets were going on sale tonight. No, that wasn’t fair! I was working tonight! Well, I probably wouldn’t be able to go anyway. All the money I had saved up – which wasn’t much - was for college. Ah, college: finally, I would get out of this place forever. No more Kerry, no more Jackson Trent.

Here, everything was always the same. The bullies and their endless torment, the financially struggling life I shared with my dad, not to mention my want or rather need to escape this place. In college, finally, everything would change. I would be able to breath again. Maybe even have… a boyfriend. Definitely not a pig. The sooner the world would forget about this the better.

I couldn’t justify spending so much money on one night: it was almost a month of savings for even the lowest-priced tickets. But at the same time, it was an absolutely unique occasion - things like this usually don’t happen here.

I took a deep breath: this might be my only chance to ever see them live. I knew all their songs by heart. At this very second, I decided I was going and that nothing could stop me! I just wanted to be happy, if only for a moment, and this was just… perfect. Yes, it was expensive, but I could always work overtime to make it. I just needed tonight’s paycheck to deposit into my bank account, and I would be good. Everything would be good. Everything would be fine, that’s it.