Capturing Memories (NH)

Chapter 17: The Last Challenge

I look over at Louis, who was sitting next to me, tap his leg and slightly point my finger over to them. When he looks over, Niall is in a deep conversation with Mia as she laughs as she puts her hand on his knee. Louis' eyes fill with anger. "I will talk to him, trust me," he tells me, "after the concert, he will get a talking to."

I nod my head in approval as Paul comes in to let the boys know they will be going on stage in 30 minutes. I get up to get my things ready and decide to head to the front of the stage before they head backstage. "Wish me luck, guys!" I say before heading for the door.

"You got this, Char!" Liam calls from the other side of the room, where he is getting his hair done.

"Good luck, love," Harry says as he walks past me, giving me a small hug before joining Louis on the couch.

"You don't need luck, you got this," Louis says with a big smile.

"Good luck," Niall says blankly with no emotion in his voice at all. He didn't even look up from his phone. I look over at Louis and Harry and give them a look of disappointment before turning and leaving the room.

I meet Paul in the hallway who gives me earplugs and directions to get to the front of the stage. Following his instructions, I make my way through the venue. The hall was cold, and sadness crept through me. I used to be so excited to take pictures for their concerts, now it felt like a task that I just had to complete. Hopefully, I am just having a bad couple of days, and things will look up after this is all over. Hopefully, things will change once the winner is announced. Hopefully, I can fix things with Niall because as much as I promised I wouldn't let this get in the way of my job, it's fucking hard.

A security guard opens the doors to the venue for me, and I walk into the room, hearing girls screaming from every direction. I find the spot I was going to start the night in, and I took some practice shots. I decided to take some shots of the crowd this time too. Seeing the excitement on their faces strangely made me feel better. These pictures weren't just for the boys; they were for the fans, so showing them appreciation was important too.

I took a couple of pictures from further down the stage, and when I turned to walk back, I felt a tap on my shoulder, "Remember me?" a girl says as I turn around.

"Violet!" I exclaim, hugging her across the barricade, "I didn't realize you were coming to the concert."

"Yeah! How are you and Niall doing? I watched their interview they had yesterday, he did not look like he was having a good time," she said as I see Mia walk into the room and towards where we were standing.

"All I can say is that it has been an interesting couple of days, but hopefully things will work themselves out," I explain before telling her I had to head to my spot before the concert began.

Before I got too far away she grabbed my arm, "things will work out, the fandom has your back."

I gave her a big smile, "Thank you, I needed that," I said before finally heading to my spot. I don't exactly know what she meant by that, but it helped nonetheless.

Right as I got back to my spot, the lights dimmed, and the screaming began again, the band ran on stage and soon after the beginning of What Makes You Beautiful played as it has for the concerts before. I took a deep breath, "I got this."

This time, instead of taking as many pictures as I could, I planned my photos out. I had watched them perform a couple of times at this point and generally knew what was going to happen. While at One Direction concerts, anything could happen, I knew the regular things they did during every show and I planned my creative pictures around that.