Chapter 20

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I wake up the next morning to screaming.

"What the hell, Caitlin," I moan groggily, squinting in the light that peeks through the curtains. I kick off my covers and flop over to face the clock: 8:47.

"Jesus, Cait, it's too early for screaming. Go back to sleep." I slam a pillow over my head to block the noise, but her screeching is too loud. Over on her own bed she's sitting up, staring at her wrist, which still has Niall's unmistakeable signature scribbled on. I was anticipating her reaction this morning; unfortunately, it happened a little earlier than I'd like. I'd stayed up until at least two last night answering tweets and trying to convince myself that what happened that day really did happen. Now, I'm all out of energy from just six hours of sleep, so the most I can do at the memories is smile.

Through the night I'd kept getting images thrown into my head, like when I first laid my eyes on Liam, or when Louis had sped by in the laser tag arena before I could even shoot, or when Harry had held me as I sobbed into his shoulder. It all seemed so surreal and too good to be true. But it was, and now I have Caitlin's spine-tingling screams to prove it.

Suddenly there's a loud banging on our door and Caitlin immediately covers her mouth. "Smooth," I tell her, getting out of bed and cussing under my breath as I go to look in the peephole. I see a very tired Steve standing in the hallway, probably woken up just now also. Uh oh.

I expect some serious scolding when I open the door, but instead Steve looks behind me at the hyperactive Caitlin with a look of understanding.

"Just be lucky there aren't any strangers rooming next to you," he says simply, yawning.

I cringe. "Sorry, did we wake you?"

"It's no big deal," he says, swatting his hand. "It's just that Ricky and I stayed up pretty late, you know, uploading the photos to the website-"

"OH MY GOD!" I slam the door in Steve's face and rush to my laptop, raping the power button. "Turn on turn on turn on..."

"What's your deal?" Caitlin asks, watching me as I type in my password and wait impatiently for my desktop to load.

"Steve said they uploaded the pictures," I burst out, and within half a second Caitlin's sitting beside me on the bed. I rush to open up Safari and, with shaking fingers, I type in the radio station URL.

"Hurry, you freak!"

"I think I'm trying!!"

The website loads and the first thing I see is a banner with One Direction and four other faces, all standing together. It takes me a few seconds to realize that the girl standing in between Harry and Louis is actually me.

"Click on it, for the love!!"

I click on the photo and the title of the new page reads, "A Day with One Direction: 502.4 Gives Four Lucky Girls the Chance of a Lifetime." Cheesy much?

"Scroll down already!!"

I scroll to a paragraph of text that says something about how "if you didn't win then just enter in the next 502.4 contest for a similar prize," blah blah blah. I don't really pay attention, I'm too busy clicking on the Photo Gallery link that leads to a whole album on Flickr. Over three hundred pictures fills the screen.

"Oh my god..."

"LOOK THROUGH THEM!!"

"OK!!" I shout back at Caitlin, and I use the arrow keys to flip through the pictures. The first few are boring, like us at the London airport and in the hotel lobby, but then I flip through a few shots of us girls being led, blindfolded, onto the red bus. I remember being in that position only twenty-four hours ago, not having a clue where I was going.

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