Hi!
Here is the first chapter! Let me know what you think and see you at the next one!đź’•
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JUNE, 2013
Except for one thing.
My alarm yanked me out of sleep with its usual annoying chiming, my hair looked like someone had spent the night trying to invent a new dimension of messy bun, and my dorm room delivered its regular chaotic aesthetic—piles of clothes, half-finished mugs, and a textbook that had been begging to be read for days. (It won't be.)
Everything was exactly the same as always. And yet... something buzzed in the air.
Because tonight I would finally be at my first ever One Direction concert.
Even sitting at the edge of my bed, my chest tingled, and my stomach felt like a colony of panicked butterflies. Even the blanket seemed softer, as if it somehow sensed it was a special day. It was ridiculous that a concert could hype me up this much... but this wasn't just any concert. This was the concert.
Yawning, I stood up, shivered at the cold floor, and dragged myself into the bathroom. The mirror showed me a crumpled face blinking back and hair that looked like a tiny tornado had detonated around my head overnight.
By the time I returned to the room, Delilah was awake.
Or—more accurately—sitting at the desk like a half-living corpse, clutching a mug that probably contained enough caffeine to classify as a moderately dangerous laboratory experiment.
"Good morning!" I said with a grin as I wrestled with my hair. "Concert tonight!"
Delilah lifted her eyes at me as slowly as a tired teacher being informed that her class has just been merged with another.
"Samantha," she croaked. "I'm still asleep. My body just refused to follow."
"That's because you went to bed at three minutes to midnight," I shot back.
"I went to bed that late because I was trying to mentally prepare myself for the fact that tonight..." Her eyes narrowed like a soldier heading into battle. "I have to go. To that thing."
"That thing?!" I raised an eyebrow. "You mean the One Direction concert? One of the greatest miracles of the world?"
"One of the greatest nightmares," she corrected. "Sam, I only listened to that album yesterday because I lost a bet, not because I like them."
"Then you'll enjoy tonight double!" I said with sparkling eyes.
"Or suffer twice as much," Delilah muttered. "But since I'm a woman of my word, I'm going with you. Straight into hell."
"Take Me Home is not hell!" I huffed and reached for the speaker to prove it.
"No, please. Don't be like this." Delilah was already curling into herself on the chair. "Dear God..."
But it was already too late.
Kiss You started playing, and before I knew it, I was halfway through choosing a T-shirt while belting out, 'If you don't wanna take it slow...'
Delilah, meanwhile, looked at me like she was narrating a nature documentary: "And here we see the wild Samantha in her natural habitat, performing her mating ritual, which primarily involves loud British pop..."
"Why do I have to listen to this?" she asked, pressing her forehead into her palm.
"Because you lost," I said, grabbing a pair of jeans. "And because you secretly love them."
"I do not," she groaned. "Last night is proof that I am unhinged enough to try listening to their music for an hour straight, and not one moment made me think, 'wow, this is actually good.'"
Right then the first chords of They Don't Know About Us began.
Delilah lifted her index finger.
"This is literal physical pain, Sam."
"This is the emotional peak," I said reverently.
"This is my soul crying out for mercy," she shot back.
While I did my makeup, Delilah sighed dramatically through her coffee, already looking like someone on her way home from the concert—not heading to it.
And meanwhile, I was smiling at myself in the mirror.
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After Delilah stormed out of the room with her usual dramatic sighs, I was still standing in front of the mirror, the Take Me Home album thundering through the speakers, and I couldn't wipe the grin off my face. Sometimes I feel like, at twenty, I shouldn't be this excited about a boyband, but then I remember that I absolutely do not care.
My reflection looked somehow brighter today, more alive—maybe because I'd been waiting years for this day, and now that it was finally here, everything inside me felt like it had been switched to high speed. Even the dorm hallway was strangely quiet—summer break meant everyone had scattered in a hundred different directions, and there I was, practically vibrating, because in four hours I would be standing at the edge of the stadium where they were performing tonight.
And yes, Delilah would be there suffering beside me, and honestly, that thought alone was enough for me to crank up the volume again.
As I stepped out of the room, the music still buzzing in my ears, I decided I needed some air and a bit of a distraction before I drove myself insane with anticipation. So I headed toward Trader Joe's, walking with that slow, lazy pace you adopt when you're not really in a hurry but you still feel like you're on your way to something.
There's something drowsily charming about summer in New York: a little humid, a little sticky, but just enough to make you feel the city's breath on your skin. Sometimes I swear this place knows exactly when I'm tired and chooses to go easy on me.
Inside the store, everything was exactly the same as always, and weirdly, that calmed me—the humming coolers, the neatly chaotic stacks of fruit, the occasional laughter of a student or two who hadn't abandoned campus for the summer. I grabbed a lemon water, and then, thinking I should at least attempt a gesture toward Delilah's impending misery, tossed a bag of gummy bears into the basket.
If anything could help her survive the "I don't want to go to a One Direction concert" tragedy, it was that.
Walking out of the store, I already felt that the day was different somehow. Like in movies, when the main character walks through town and everything looks a little more golden, every sound a little clearer, every step carrying them toward something good.
The warm air pressed against my back, the grocery bags weighed down my hands, and I knew that with every passing minute I was getting closer to that moment when I'd be standing in the Wells Fargo Center screaming with the crowd. And yes, Delilah would probably be cursing every bet ever made by humankind, but that didn't matter.
Today I was happy. Nothing was going to ruin this mood. Not today. Not on this summer afternoon when finally—finally—everything I'd waited for was happening.
After loading the bags into the backseat of my car, I pulled out my phone again and hit shuffle. The soft opening notes of a song filled the car, and my lips immediately curled up before the melody even kicked in. I turned the volume up.
The road out of the city was always crowded, but now that it was summer and half of New York had fled the heat, the traffic felt lighter than usual—one of those deceptive kinds of ease that makes you believe the whole day will go smoothly, right before everything crashes down on you at the worst possible moment.
With the window rolled down, my hair slapped against my face wildly, but I didn't care. I belted out parts of the song, then let the next track wash over me.
I'd waited three years for this.
Three years since I first started putting money aside from a crappy student job I hated. Three years of watching every concert video, even the grainy, static-filled ones, because I needed to believe that someday I would be there.
And now I was.
I'd imagined how it would feel so many times, but somehow it was so much more—like everything I'd done up to this point had been leading here. Ridiculous, maybe. But true.
As I reached the outskirts, the traffic thinned even more, leaving only trees rushing past and the occasional random shop or coffee place. The quiet felt good. Well—quiet outside; chaos inside my car.
The shift happened before I even realized it—one moment everything was perfect, and the next the engine gave a soft, apologetic cough that basically said, "Hi, I'm done, goodbye."
It was so sudden that it took me a second to understand why I was slowing down, heart pounding as I searched frantically for a place to pull over. Thankfully, there was a wide little cutout at the side of the road, and I managed to coast into it.
"You've got to be kidding me," I muttered as I got out. The sun felt hotter, the air heavier, and I pretended I knew what I was doing as I popped the hood—even though I'd already accepted internally that this was all for show.
I stared into the engine like it was a language I'd once studied and forgotten entirely, when suddenly a voice spoke up behind me.
"You know you can't park here, right?"
The voice was sweet, a little amused, but with a hint of authority. I didn't even look up—I just exhaled sharply through my nose.
"And according to who?" I snapped.
"According to me."
That made me look up. And when my eyes met his...
If there has ever been a moment where I questioned reality, it was this one.
Niall Horan stood in front of me.
Oh my god!
First I stared at him. Then past him—right where an actual car was trying to exit a driveway I had magnificently blocked.
"Oh!" I blurted out, suddenly feeling very small. "M–my car died. Uh... sorry. Really. I didn't mean to, I just—" I rambled helplessly, and hated myself instantly.
But he just smiled.
The kind of smile that momentarily makes your knees forget how to function.
"Let's take a look," he said as if this was the most normal thing in the world. "May I?"
I nodded, stepping aside. He leaned in, checking under the hood with the sort of ease that suggested he fixed cars recreationally or something.
Meanwhile I... tried not to stare.
I failed.
The way his arm tensed, the sunlight catching on the back of his neck, the tiny smile he made whenever he spotted something—honestly, I should've called a mechanic, because this was a hazard all on its own. My heart threatened to punch through my rib at least six times.
"Maybe it just needs a little momentum," he finally said, closing the hood. "Hop in, I'll push. If we're lucky, it'll start."
"Sure! Yes! I mean... okay." I prayed I sounded normal. I probably didn't.
I slid into the seat, he positioned himself behind the car, and when he signaled, I turned the key and gently pressed the gas. He pushed, and for a moment it felt like the whole scene belonged in an action movie.
Then the engine roared to life.
"Oh my god, yes!" I shouted—right as the radio switched to Summer Love.
Perfect timing.
Tragically perfect.
I realized far too late. I slapped my hand toward the volume—only to accidentally blast it even louder. The soft, emotional ballad suddenly transformed into a stadium-sized emotional attack.
"No, no, no, NO!" I panicked, fumbling desperately until I finally silenced it.
The resulting quiet was so sharp it could've cut glass.
And at that exact moment, I heard laughter beside my window.
I looked up. Niall stood there. Laughing.
The kind of laugh that makes you either fall into the ground or fall in love.
"I think you'll be alright," he said, giving the hood a light, almost cinematic pat before turning to walk back to his car.
I collapsed forward onto the steering wheel, dying inside. Laughing, crying, but mostly wanting the earth to swallow me whole.
After a full minute of gathering whatever dignity I had left, I straightened up, steered back onto the road, and kept going. My hands were still shaking on the wheel, my mind reeling with everything that had just happened.
And as the next song began, I simply let the day carry me forward—into whatever came next, on a day I already knew I would never forget for as long as I lived.
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