It's Crazy How Much We Can Fit in A Year

Our last hours in the U.S. were spent well. And spent completely together. Seriously, us four were practically joined at the hip. But for good reason. 

Saturday night, our last night, we went to One Direction’s concert. We planned our entire gap year around it, as we weren’t missing them in town for anything. ANYTHING. After groggily waking up after grad night, we immediately went to the concert area in hopes of catching a glimpse of them before their concert. Sporting our homemade One Direction bro tanks, bandeaus, and shorts, we grabbed our posters, cameras, and presents for the boys, just in case we saw them. 

After walking around downtown San Jose for a few hours, we decided to stop at a Yogurtland for a quick yogurt break. We had kind of accepted the fact we wouldn’t be seeing them, but were still praying we would. My mango, and vanilla blend of yogurt tasted incredible, until I nearly choked on it. Because right across the street was a sight that made my heart beat a million times faster. My breathing quickened, and kept blinking, thinking that I could only be imagining what lay before my eyes. I clumsily stood up and began stammering, trying to get out words. I ditched my yogurt, grabbed my camera, and ran out the door, motioning frantically for them to follow. God, they need to brush up on their telepathic skills. My messages should have been crystal clear, as this sight was what we had been waiting for our entire lives, but the messages were not getting through. 

“Clair--what in the world are you doing? Why-why-wh.....Holy fuck One Direction is across the street! Move! MOVE!” Kendra was the first to realize what was going on, and immediately went into drill sergeant mode to get Melanie away from her food, and Rachelle to get up and get over there. 
“OMFG. You’re not kidding, right? Don’t fool with my emotions!” exclaimed Melanie while sprinting out the door and along the sidewalk with ease. Damn her and her running abilities. 
“I’m dying, oh-my-god-we-are-within-100-feet-of-them. 100 FEET!!.....” Rachelle trailed off, too bloody excited for words. 
“Guys they are exiting Subway. Repeat; exiting Subway! Ahhh what do we do?!? We’re too far way. No. NO. We are not going to get this close and not see them!” I blubbered on and on.
“Chase the bus!” screamed Melanie over her shoulder as she quickly changed directions and breezed past us. 
I quickly glanced over at Kendra and Rachelle and shrugged my shoulders, before chasing after Melanie.

The One Direction gods must have been smiling down upon us. We miraculously got the ‘walk’ signal and crossed the street just as they reached the tour bus. We could all see them closing in on the door opening. They were going to be on the tour bus, and gone in a matter of seconds. I did the only thing I could think of to stop them from leaving our lives, possibly forever. And that was to scream at the top of my lungs like I have never screamed before.

“Oi!!! One Direction!” I yelled.
“Wait up! Please!” Kendra added.
We breathlessly reached their bus just as Louis and Zayn were entering the staircase. Paul protectively stepped out in front of the boys as we arrived, staring at us with a bewildered expression.

“Goodness, what have you babe’s been doing? Running a marathon?” Liam questioned, the rest of the boys staring at us with half-smiling, half-shocked faces. Paul moved slightly away, but was still looking at us like we were crazy (which we kind of were), probably figuring that as we were so tired, we didn’t have the energy to mob or hurt the lads. 

“Ummm not quite..... but we might as well have been...” Kendra barely made out, in between deep breaths. Poor girl, she absolutely is horrified by running. And her bad knees don’t help the matter.
“Well, we were eating Yogurtland, happened to glance up, and once we saw your bus, we dropped everything and practically ran for our lives over here to make it in time to see you guys.” Rachelle said, then immediately started blushing because of how much that showed our obsession with them. 
Even though we were all embarrassed at our rather blunt entrance, we were on cloud nine that One Direction, THE One Direction, was standing in front of us. And that was before they started talking. TO US.
“We are huge fans, and are going to your concert tonight. We were wondering if we could get a quick picture.....?” I explained, all of us silently praying they would say yes. 

“Well, normally we wouldn’t because of our tight schedule,” Louis began while smacking his arse to show off his tight pants. The rest of the boys grimaced, but the four of us could barely contain our emotion. I’m sure we began smiling like idiots at that point. Countless tumblr blogs have made our ‘smiling-like-complete-fools‘ faces pretty good.

“But, since you practically broke the Olympic record for sprinting coming here, and it was quite funny to watch, I’d say we can.” Louis continued on while laughing. Thank the lord for dear Lou and his sense of humour. 

We all grabbed our cameras and snapped a few pics of them, including one of them all doing superman and cat poses. Might have had something to do with the superman symbol on the front of all our shirts and the pussy-vsorry, I mean, kitty- ears atop our heads.

“Dontcha want to be in a pic with meself and the lads?” Niall asked. Thank the lord for dear Nialler as well. Bless his sweet little heart for offering. 

“Of course!” I squealed, probably a little too enthusiastically, flashing a cute smile at them and standing next to Harry and Niall. I swear, I thought I would die, or at least faint, on the spot. I’m sure that Kendra, Melanie, and Rachelle were hyperventilating just as much as I was at that point. Especially after Harry tightened his grip on my waist. Please kill me now, I thought to myself. 

“Thanks so much for the pics. We really appreciate it!” Melanie added. Her shyness had kicked in at the beginning of the meeting, but she managed to get that out with a big smile.
“Yeah, thank you!” Kendra and Rachelle chorused.
“Of course.” Zayn stated while fixing his quiff. Oh my, that quiff. It will be the death of the world.

“Well, see you tonight then?” I asked. I could feel the excitement surge and my ovaries begin to explode as Harry looked over in my direction. His curls, his eyes, his lips, his....’Focus, Claire, Focus! He’s speaking!’ I sternly thought to myself.

“I hope you enjoy the show. See you later, babe.” He smiled at us all, and I swear, winked at me. AT ME. Of all people on the face of this Earth. That did it. I am dead. So, so, so dead. Someone pinch me, because I feel like I’m in heaven.  

“Bye!” we all called as the doors to their tour bus closed. We stood there on the sideway, four girls, with uncontrollable emotions, watching their bus drive off into the distance......
“Shit!” Melanie exclaimed out of the blue. We all looked over at her in surprise. “We forgot to give them our presents. We brought these IN CASE we meet them and had a chance to give these to them. And guess what? We ACTUALLY met them, and forgot all about our prezzies. I can’t believe this. I hate my life.”
We all groaned at how stupid we were. Hours and hours were put into those gifts and we really though the band would love them.
“Well.... you know.... that’s just one more excuse to have to see them again......” Rachelle added with a wink.
“Amen!!” Kendra and I agreed, all laughing as we headed over to the concert venue.

Throughout the concert, we were singing and dancing our hearts out. And crying a whole heck of a lot. Even though I’m sure we looked like freaks, we didn’t give a damn. We just had the best day of our entire eighteen years of living (or sixteen for Rachelle), and no one was going to ruin it for us. But what really turned on the waterworks was during the Twitter Questions. 
On the screen popped up the final question, asking the lads, ‘How can you tell if girls are truly your fans or not?’ The boys stared at it for a few seconds, before Niall spoke up. 

“Well, one way to tell is if they are willing to break the Olympic World Record to sprint after your bus. That’s dedication.” He chuckled. I could feel my face turning bright red, and my eyes started glistening with tears. We immediately grabbed each other’s hands and began squeezing. Then Hazza started adding on.

“And it may seem hard to tell, but we know. If the girls are truly your fans, they will truly care about you and your dreams. And love you for who you are, not for the fame. Knowing a million facts and always tweeting us is great, but that doesn’t mean you’re a true, true fan. When we meet real fans, we just know it. There’s something about them....” Harry trailed off, looking into the distance. I knew exactly who he was referring to and looking for, and that someone was a girl I knew very, very well. Someone should really call a medic. I am 99.9% sure that my heart just stopped beating and my lungs stopped breathing. We all closed our eyes and squeezed tight, not wanting to let go for fear of tumbling out of this dream. But it wasn’t a dream. And it was just getting started.

“Almost ready, slowpoke?” Rachelle teased me as I frantically ran around the room. It was our last day here, meaning my last day to pack. And, boy, were the hours ticking down. I was running out of time, and the girls all knew it.

After the blur of the rest of the concert, we only had a few hours left to get ready. Unlike the others, I hadn’t really packed ahead of time. And when we were comparing packing essentialls, I got more caught up in helping them and giving advice than packing my own bag. What can I say, I get distracted easily? But being easily distracted, having an empty suitcase, and leaving for the airport in 3 hours and 26 minutes was not my idea of a good combo.

“What happened in here?!?” Melanie exclaimed when she walked into my bedroom.
“Looks like hurricane Clarice strikes again!” Kendra jokingly added.
“Ughhh I know, guys. I need some serious packing help.” I muttered while slumping to the floor.
“Well, you always could go without any clothes. I’m sure Hazza would endorse that....” Rachelle smirked, knowing that I had been having nonstop daydreams about Harry.
“Oh, shut up!” I smiled at the thought of Harry. Mhmmmmmmm.
“It’s the truth!” Melanie exclaimed while switching on my iHome and selecting none other than my British playlist for motivation. “Let’s get this shit done!”
“Cause bitches get shit done!” The rest of us chorused, smirking. After Melanie had said that once back in sophomore year, we had used it as one of our many go to quotes.

After a few hours of clothes flying, shoes being scattered, and toiletries being lost and then miraculously found, we had my bag packed and we were all ready to go face the airport. Which was a whole new cup o’ tea. But not a good one, if you know what I mean.

Our journey to our plane included, but was not limited to; forgetting Melanie’s suitcase in the taxi and running our arse’s off to get it, Kendra and I getting coffee spilled all over our shirts, Rachelle getting caught up in a dog leash (damn miniature poodles have no sense of direction!) and effectively knocking down an entire row of line dividers, getting our I.D.’s mixed up and almost getting questioned by the police as to why they were wrong, Kendra getting patted down by a creep, all of my favorite hair styling products getting thrown away, Rachelle asking directions and getting pointed in the complete wrong direction, none of us realizing that until we were clear across the terminal (We then ‘accidentely’ spilled water all over that lady- sorry but not sorry), and Melanie getting a sneezed on right in the face.

By the time we got to the boarding gate, we were overjoyed to be boarding a stinky, freezing cold, gas-guzzler, complete with stale peanuts, bad movies, and all. That was easy and pleasant compared to what we had gone through to get here.

The second we settled into the seats and were air-borne, we all crashed. During the entire 9 hour flight, we slept like little babies. I awoke with a start what seemed like days later. I glanced around the airplane cabin, taking in my surroundings. I felt the urge to open the window, and thank the lord I did. Because right in front of me was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. Rising up in the distance, I saw the London skyline perfectly silouetted against the glowing orange and yellow sunrise. Around the gorgeous city I could make out lush, rolling hills, numerous quaint towns, and buzzing metropolitan areas. I felt so at home.

Smiling to myself, I shook Rachelle, Melanie, and Kendra awake. “Welcome to England.” I murmured. “Let the games begin!”