Maybe they didn’t intentionally mean to leave me in the dust… you keep thinking over and over again.  You are attempting to walk home all by yourself along a highway in the dark at 11:00 PM.  You were just in the next town where One Direction were rumored to be.  Your friends had quickly ditched you when the crowd thought they saw them and began running.  You weren’t mad at them, knowing that they were such big fans and happy to drive them there, being the only one among your friends with a driver’s license--until one of them ran off with your car keys. 

It feels like you’ve been walking for hours, staring at the paved road with your hands in your sweatshirt pockets.  As you walked and felt the cold breeze on your face, you suddenly panic, hoping it won’t take you until morning to get to your home that was only a half hour away—by car. 

You were thinking about such things when you looked up and saw two glowing lights in the distance.  It was obviously a car, so you just watched as its headlights slowly got bigger.  But as it got closer, you realized it wasn’t a car.  It was something larger.  At first you thought it might be a semi-truck, but no—something about it told you it couldn’t be that, either.  Now the vehicle was getting really close, but you still couldn’t make out what it was against its extremely bright headlights.  You keep walking, never even thinking to move over.  As you stare into the lights you begin to get dizzy and feel yourself wandering out into the middle of the road.  Suddenly you look to your right and see a huge flash of light, hear a loud honk, and then feel the vehicle whizzing by you at an incredible speed.  You find yourself flying onto the ground.  You hit your head, and everything goes black…

You slowly open your eyes.  Everything’s blurry, but you can tell it’s morning.  Or what if it’s something else?  Am I dead?  You think to yourself.  All of a sudden you feel a slight jerk.  You open your eyes wider and find yourself looking at a fuzzy beige ceiling.  Confused, you look to your right and out a window.  You see trees and telephone poles going by.  Even more confused, you realize you’re lying on a red leather couch with a thin blanket covering you.  You look to your right and you see nice white carpeting on the floor, a small table along the wall, a mini-fridge, and even a wooden door.

“Oh!  Guys, she’s awake, come quick!” you hear someone shout.

Suddenly someone bursts out of the door.  You realize that that room was the bathroom.  You look into the boy’s face.  He has brown hair and brown eyes.  You swear you’ve seen him before…maybe I know him but I’m having a hard time remembering since I hit my head?  The boy smiles and sits at the table.

“Guys, she’s awake!” you hear the same voice shout again.

You wish he would just be quiet, but there’s something about his voice that makes you smile.

Two other boys of the same age pull open a curtain and come in also, one with brown hair and blue eyes sitting next to the one at the table, while the other with curly hair sits across from him.  You’re just lying there, staring at the three at the table as they stare back at you.  Your eyes move down where you notice a blonde boy sitting in a chair with a guitar on his lap, smiling at you, too. 

You watch the boy with brown hair and blue eyes snatch a pillow from his seat and toss it at another couch near yours. 

“Zayn, wake up!” he shouts.

The pillow hits the sleeping boy.  He doesn’t stir, just breathes loudly.  He has dark brown hair and a slightly darker skin-tone than the rest with a bit of scruff on his jaw line.

The blonde boy laughs.  “Louis, just shake him,” he chuckles. 

Louis, the boy who threw the pillow, approached Zayn quietly and then shakes him.  “Zayn!” he says, “She’s awake!”

Zayn instantly sits up and looks at you.  You look into his dark, brown, shining eyes.  Louis went back to his seat.  There was this awkward moment when they were all staring at you and once.  You stare back at them, still confused at exactly where you are.  You slowly sit up, not taking your gaze off them.

“Hi!” Louis suddenly shouts. “I’m Louis!”

The blonde boy bursts out laughing while the others chuckle.

“Come on, guys, introduce yourselves!” Louis says, smiling.

“I’m Harry,” the curly-haired boy says.

“My name’s Liam,” the brown-haired boy with brown eyes says.

“I am Zayn,” he says sleepily in his strong British accent.

“That’s Niall,” Louis says, pointing to the giggling blonde boy.

“How are you?” Harry asks.

You open your mouth but no words come out.   

“Oi!  Can you speak?” Louis asks.

“Guys, stop it,” Liam says.  “She’s probably hurt.” 

Liam got up out of his chair, walked over to you, and kneeled down beside the couch. 

“Are you okay?” He asks.

You finally find words.  “I’m fine, thank you.” 

“Are you sure?” Liam asked.  “It looked like you hit your head pretty good out there!”

“Yeah, what were you doing out in the middle of the road, anyway?” Niall asks.

Zayn chuckles.

“Maybe she was tired,” Harry guesses.

“So what’s your name?!” Louis asks, excitedly.

“(Your Name),” you say.

All of the boys instantly smile. 

 “But…” you begin to say.

“Yeah?” Louis asks.

“Where am I?”

Louis laughs.  “In our tour-bus, silly!”

“Your…tour-bus?” you ask. 

“Yeah,” Liam says, “One Direction needs a tour-bus, don’t you think?”

“One Direction?” you ask, “You’re…One Direction?”

They all chuckle and say yes.

“So I guess you’re not a fan?” Zayn asks in his strong British accent.

“My friends are HUGE fans…but me…I guess I just don’t get too excited over that kind of thing.  No offence,” you explain, but you can’t help but feel a little overwhelmed by the fact that you were actually inside the tour-bus of such famous people.

“None taken,” Louis says.

“I understand,” Harry says.

“We knew you had a phone in your pocket…” Louis says, “and figured we should probably get it to call your parents, but we…” -Louis looks at Harry- “we didn’t want to reach into your pocket.”

Harry chuckled and looked into his lap.

You smile.  “That’s okay.  I’m sure my mom isn’t too worried.”

There was an uncomfortable pause, yet all of the other boys seemed totally comfortable.  Niall began to softly strum on his guitar to fill the silence.

“So…” Liam says, “We’ve decided we could let you off tomorrow at the next town so you can get back home.  We would take you there ourselves, but we kind of have to keep moving so we don’t miss any concerts.”

“No problem—thank you.”  

“Until then we can we can just hang out and have fun,” Louis suggests, but nobody seems to have any good ideas.

“How about truth or dare?” Harry asks, eyeing you.

“Oh come on, Harry, you always suggest that!” Niall complains.

“We could sing,” Zayn suggests.

Niall smiles and begins playing one of their songs.

They all begin to sing while you listen.

“Come on, why don’t you sing a little with us?” Louis asks while the others keep singing.

“Oh, I … I don’t know any of the words,” you lie a bit.

“Okay, wait for the chorus,” he suggests.

You do as you were told and when the chorus comes you begin to sing along quietly.  All of the boys look at you, who are listening hard enough to hear your voice over theirs and smile.  You happily sing the rest of the song with them and when it ends they all applaud you. 

“You’re a pretty good singer,” Liam comments.

“Th—thanks,” you stammer, surprised that such a famous singer would say that to you.

“Can you play guitar?” Niall asks.

“Oh, no—I’m more of a book person…” you say.

“I could teach you,” Niall says, smiling.   

You give him a smile but also a strange glance because of the fact he couldn’t possibly teach you how to play guitar by the time you had to leave tomorrow morning.

Louis gets up and walks to the mini-fridge next to the couch you’re sitting on.  He grabs several cans of pop and tosses them to each of his band mates and holds one out to you.  You smile and take it from him.   Louis sits back in his seat and begins drinking his pop.

There is a pause as everyone opens up their cans and starts drinking out of them.  The first thing to break the silence is a huge burp. 

“Louis!” Liam scolds, “What do you say?”

Louis and the rest of the boys were laughing hysterically.  “Excuse me!” he says.

Suddenly you feel brave and let one out, too, even louder than Louis’!  The boys laugh harder. This time Liam doesn’t scold you, but laughs along with them.  “Excuse me,” you giggle, as you notice Louis not laughing at all but looking at you intently with a big smile on his face. 

Later, when it is about supper-time and you are all getting hungry, Niall is the first to complain.

“Aw man … when are we gonna stop to eat?” he asks.

“Niall … I’ve told you already that we’re not going to stop tonight.  We have leftover pizza from last night we can eat,” Liam says.

“Aw, but Liam…” Niall groans.

“Wait a minute…” Zayn says, “But what about (Your Name)?”

“What about her?” Louis asks. 

“She can’t eat leftover pizza!” he says.

“No, that’s okay,” you say.  “I love leftover pizza.”   

You can tell Zayn thinks you might be lying but leans back and decides not to protest anymore.  Liam gets out the leftover pizza and sets the box on the table.  All of the boys sit at the table while you are still sitting on the couch.

“Come sit,” Louis says.

You smile and walk to the table.  You were about to sit next to Louis when Harry spoke up.

“No, I want her to sit next to me!” he said.

“Why do you get to sit by her?” Niall asked.

“Yeah, why?” Zayn chimed in.

“Because I think she might…have a thing for me…” he said quietly.

“Aw, shut up you guys!  The girl can sit where she wants!” Liam yells.

You sit next to Louis anyway since there’s the most room there.  They open the pizza box and you all grab a piece.  You immediately begin to chow down, since you haven’t eaten anything since yesterday.  You smile without knowing it, thoroughly enjoying the pizza.  You notice Niall in the corner staring at you, smiling.  You smile back as you see him chow down with you.

It is now dark outside, and the boys are ready for bed. 

“You can sleep here,” Harry says, pointing to a top bunk across from his.

You hear Liam grunt in disagreement, but you accept it anyway, noticing that it’s the only open bunk.

“Is that what you’re wearing to bed?  Do you want something more comfortable?” Liam asks, as if he actually has something for you to wear.

“This is fine,” you say.

Harry suddenly comes really close to you.  “Do you need me to undress you?” he whispers.

Your eyes grow wide but Harry just chuckles and hops into his bunk.  

Zayn looks over suspiciously before continuing to brush his teeth at the kitchen sink.  You also hop into bed and smile at Harry.  He smiles slightly but then quickly lies down, facing the wall.  Liam tosses a blanket up to you what he just got from the closet.  Zayn finishes brushing and then the rest of the boys get into bed. 

“G-night,” Louis says, turning off the light.

“Night, Louis…” Niall yawns.

You cover yourself with the extra-thick blanket and smile.  You let the minutes roll slowly by until you’re sure the boys are asleep.  You quietly take out your phone, pull the blanket over your head, and text your mom, telling her that you’re fine, you’re in good hands, and you’ll see her tomorrow.  You were sure to close your phone before pushing aside the blanket so its light wouldn’t flood the room.  Then you rolled over onto your side when you jumped in sudden fright.  There Harry was, across from you in his bunk, his eyes wide open, staring at you, smiling. 

“Harry, I thought you were asleep,” you whisper.

“I was awake the whole time,” he whispers back.

“Well go to bed!” you say.

“Not until you do first,” he insists.

“Fine,” you say, rolling onto your other side so you won’t have to look at him.

You hear him chuckle and then let out a long sigh.  A minute later you peek over at him and he’s fast asleep.  You just shake your head and within minutes you’re asleep, too.