Andy On My Mind (1D/ Liam Payne)

CH26

 Thanks for being patient with me, you lovely lot :) x

As always, when there's a song, there's a link for you on the side if you want to listen to it. 

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'Come on', I exasperatedly sighed inside my head as I stared daggers at the back of Liam's head. It had been almost five hours since our last encounter this morning and he had yet to even give me a second glance. Every attempt of getting in close proximity sent him running in the opposite direction. As each minute ticked, I was starting to lose hope.

The only good thing that was coming out of this whole ordeal was that all I could think about was conflict resolution, which left little room for my brain to pick apart every worry I could possibly have about getting through the first round of bootcamp.

Though now that I was the next person up to perform, I could feel the wave of nausea and nervousness like a tide swallowing me whole.

“Andy Flynn,” Simon called out on the microphone. I snapped out of my paralytic state and walked as confidently as I could to centre stage. If I couldn't get Liam to listen to what I have to say, maybe he would listen to what I have to sing. After all, he was sitting in the audience, among the sea of faces along with the rest of the contestants. What better way to get his attention now?

“What're you singing for us love?” Louis wondered.

“I'm performing Cannonball by Damien Rice,” I announced.

“Go on,” he replied, gesturing with his hand for me to begin.

Still a little bit of your song in my ear

Still a little bit of your words I long to hear

You step a little closer to me,

so close I can't see what's going on

Stones taught me to fly

Love taught me to cry

So come on courage, teach me to be shy

Cause it's not hard to fall

When you float like a cannonball

Simon reached his hand in the air upwards to signal for the backing track to stop playing and I could immediately feel myself freeze.

Was it something I've done? Did my voice crack behind my back? Was I too lost in the song to notice that I was completely butchering it to pieces? I couldn't figure out what was going on and I felt like I was going to explode if the judges didn't say anything in 3, 2,...

“Andy, what was that?” Cheryl asked timidly, as if she were making her way barefooted on broken glass.

“Um...” I mumbled, staring down at my shoes, not knowing what to say.

“What were you thinking about?” Cheryl continued.

“Just regrets, is all,” I replied, adding a shrug to downplay my state of disappointment.

“There was a lot of feeling and emotion in that,” Tulisa piped in. “That was a stellar performance. Shake those regrets off, Andy. I can already see you doing successfully in this competition, and there's no room for dwelling in what happened in the past when you're headed for a bright future.”

“I definitely agree,” Simon said.

And with that, they sent me off with words of encouragement and four massive yeses to continue through. I walked down the stairs side-stage and through the aisle, many of the other contestants cheered me on and gave me high fives for my performance. They all looked at me proudly and ecstatically, and I couldn't help but feed off their good vibes.