Andromeda

Alexis, Jane and I walk into the concert hall where there are fifty thousands of teenage and preteen girls here to see a boy band named One Direction. Alexis had gotten three tickets, so Jane had dragged me along for moral support.

"Alexis, if I get trampled by hormonal teenage girls at any time during the night you are so paying the medical bills," I say as I dodge a couple of girls who are completely fangirling and are probably going to maim someone if they keep jumping around like that.

Alexis grins and laughs a little, "yeah, that might be me in a little bit."

"Great. Warn me when it happens so I can get out of your way," I joke.

Jane winks at me and pokes me in the side; "don't pretend that wouldn't be you if this were a Logan Lerman event."

"True. But he doesn't have concerts," I pause for a second, thinking about the possibilities of that. "But dang, if he did he could make a fortune just sitting there talking."

Alexis does this weird dance and grins, "Oh my god, Logan, Lerman, is, so, hot, I, could, cry."

I smile at here suspiciously, "How many celebrity crushes do you have?"

She blushes and grins sheepishly, "like a million."

"Wow."

Jane rolls her eyes at us, "Can we focus on One Direction while we're here?"

"Hey!" I say indignant, "You brought it up."

"True, but I didn't think it'd go on this long," she smiles at me and waggles her eyebrows.

I scowl at the ground but can't help smiling, "Thanks sis."

She smiles, "anytime."

Alexis goes back into fangirl mode, "Oh my god, this is the best thing ever! We're going to see them! We're going to know they're real people!"

"Of course they're real people. It isn't like they're robots or anything," I roll my eyes at her.

She protests, "but it's like how no place seems really real to you until you see it yourself. Same concept with them! And we're going to see them!"

I shrug, "I guess. I never really had that feeling with places either though. That what happens when you travel to Italy at the age of two."

Jane rolls her eyes again, "oh, rough life." She says sarcastically.

I grin, choosing to ignore her sarcasm, "I love it! But I don't understand how all of this," I gesture to the screaming girls, "doesn't drive them crazy." I pause for a minute then smile wryly. "And this is why I don't want to be famous."

Jane shrugs, "they seem to endure it well. And they don't seem like jerks either so there's that."

"That's because they aren't jerks! They're the sweetest nicest guys ever and they're cute and damn Liam is hot and I just wanna cry every time I look at him!" she looks like she's going to hyperventilating.

"Breath Alexis, breathe," I say concerned.

Now she really is hyperventilating, "and then there's Harry and Zayn and Niall and Louis and they're all perfect too and I want to die they're so hot."

She's starting to scare me, "Alexis, please don't die. Breathe. Come on. If you want to see them you have to survive until the concert and to do that you have to not hyperventilate and end up in the hospital."

That gets her to stop, "ew, no, I can't go to the hospital but seriously how do I look? That's like my biggest fear, seeing them and not looking good."

Jane just rolls her eyes so I say, "you look amazing. Trust me."

"No I don't," Alexis protests but she grins anyway, mollified.

I dodge another clump of girls that look to be rushing for the merch table. Somehow they always miss Alexis and Jane but not me. "Hey can we find our seats before I get trampled?" I ask.

Alexis freaks out again, honestly it's like she's constantly on the edge of freak out mode, "yes, yes, yes! They're right by the second stage where they do twitter questions so we get to see them up close! Come on don't just stand there! Lets go!" she shoves us and then runs off in front.

"Sorry I mentioned it," I mutter to Jane.

She grins, "you didn't really think that anything you said could calm her down, did you?"

I shake my head, "I wasn't trying to calm her down. I was trying not to get killed in this crowd."

"And it just might work! Actually screw that, the twitter stage is probably going to get mobbed sooner or later," she makes a face.

I do the same and mumble, "brilliant."

Alexis lets us put our stuff down by our seats and sit down. She pulls out her camera and starts taking pictures of everything in sight: the stage, the crowd, the banners, us, the seats, I even thinks she takes a picture of the floor, but that might have been by accident.

"Now we go to the merch table!" she squeals, grabbing our hands and dragging us up. Dutifully I follow, wondering if five boys are really worth this much trouble.

Alexis continues to squeal over everything at the table, bugging Jane about her crush on Niall. At some point Jane tries to bug me about Harry, but I remind her that I'm over that crush now, have been for a while. It was just for a summer.

I think Alexis ends up buying over fifty dollars of One Direction merchandise, Jane buys a Niall bracelet. But neither of them can make me buy anything. None of the things have just song lyrics on them, and that's all I would consider buying.

Finally we go back to our seats, just before the opening band is about to go on. Most of the girls have sat down and are fangirling in their seats, just as Alexis is doing now.

I turn to Jane, "hey, I'm going to go find a bathroom. Be back in a minute."

She nods, "okay."

I get up and walk out of the theatre. There is no one around and the signage in this building sucks. I'm going to have to tell my mom to contact this place for a project for the graphic design students. Eventually I pick a direction and walk around until I find a door that looks relatively like a bathroom. I thought I saw a line of girls around her somewhere earlier.

Tentatively I open the door on the right. When no one yells at me, I push it fully open. Bang. I must have hit something, or more likely someone with the door.

"Sorry," I say quickly.

"Ow," a male voice says.

My eyes widen, I must have gotten the wrong door. "Gosh, I'm so sorry. I was just looking for the girls' bathroom."

A boy in his early twenties with a whole lot of curly hair comes out from behind the door, hand on his head. "I'm pretty sure this isn't it."

I nod, horrified. "Are you okay? I didn't mean to hit you. I'm sorry. Does it hurt a lot?"

He smiles at me, making my heart stop and then go into overdrive, "It's fine, trust me. I've had worse."

A giant man comes up from behind the boy, "Harry, is everything okay? Would you like me to escort this girl from the premises?"

I look from the man to Harry and then it dawns on me just who I hit in the head with the door. My face turns beet red.

"No, it's fine. Thank you." Harry smiles at the man. He turns back to me and sees the blush all over my face. "You okay?"

"I'm about as embarrassed as you can get, but apart from that I'm good," my sarcasm kicks in.

"I told you, it's fine. It doesn't even hurt anymore," Harry assures me.

I shake my head, "But it was while I was looking for the bathroom. Though technically that's not my fault because the signage in this building sucks. It's worse than when I was in Germany and they didn't have those little stick figures that let you know which one they are and they just had the words in German. I don't read German and I was so terrified of going in the wrong one, cause those words look nothing like English or Spanish." I think of something else and my eyes widen, "This isn't the men's room right? Cause that would be even worse."

He laughs, not grossed out at all by me, "No, it's backstage. Normally they have a sign but as you pointed out they need to fix that."

I nod, "It's really going to start being a problem. I mean I can't be the only one that this has happened to. Not hitting you in the head with a door," I amend quickly, turning even redder. "I meant not being able to find the bathroom."

He smiles even bigger, "I'm not sure I've ever been hit by a pretty girl looking for the bathroom."

"I'm not that pretty, that's Alexis. She's the one that made us come here. Me and my friend Jane that is," I inform him.

"Well, I've never met her so I can't argue, but you are pretty. What's your name?" He says, before I can argue further.

"Andromeda," I stutter. "Andromeda Larsen."

He holds out his arms to hug me, and not knowing what else to do, I hug him back. I feel this spark between us when we touch but I step back before I can find out if he felt it too.

"Err, you don't possibly know where the actual bathroom is?" I ask, looking down at the floor.

He shakes his head, "no, but I'm sure Paul does."

Paul, the name of the big man that is probably one of the bodyguards, walks up to us, having heard his name. "Yes?"

Harry looks at him, "Do you know where the girl's restroom is for Ms. Larsen?"

"Of course," He says. "Come with me ma'am."

I turn to Harry before I leave, "I hope your head is okay."

He rolls his eyes and grins at me, "It'll be fine."

In a bit of a daze I follow Paul out and he shows me the bathroom. Only one door over, evidently the boy's room is on the other side of the hall.