I waited for it, anticipating its arrival as I stood there staring out at the crowd. I knew it was coming, I'd heard the rush of it, increasing its sound as it got closer and closer. Cringing ever so slightly, but always remembering our manager -- Jake's -- reassuring voice in my ears, Dougie, just because you're the youngest doesn't mean you can chat about odd things on stage and make faces at the crowd. I did what I could and continued to keep a smile on my face as the scream rippled towards the stage, practically shoving me backwards. I could see the heads in the audience, small from where I was, and speckling the arena like ants on an ant hill. Was I honestly that far away? It seemed I was light years away, in this world that had come on so quickly. This world of competition and music that I'd never dreamed I'd be in. Right here, in Madison Square Garden, doing what I loved most.

The tip of the screams transformed into blood-curdling cries as the lights flashed on and the fans caught a glimpse of us on the stage. As I made my way toward the microphone, jumping into the air and sporting my bass I shot a smile at Danny. He winked me with his hands held high above his head in a victorious way. "We did it, mate." He mouth lipped to me just as Tom struck the first chord. I adjusted my bass on my hip and slugged him with my free hand. He laughed in spite of himself and ruffled my ever-changing mop of hair.

He began to sing the first verse of "I Wanna Hold You" and his Bolton accent that usually made it hard to understand him turned into a sing-song American voice.

I smiled to myself, knowing that we really had finally made it. No matter how hard it was for me to get here… I was finally here. I smiled out at the crowd, knowing that regardless of what Jake had told me in the past I was going to say something dumb tonight. And I really didn't mind.

I felt a nudge from beside me, and Tom was there nodding his head in the direction of a few photographers that were directing their large cameras and tripods in my direction, I knew he wanted a perfect shot of the two of us singing into the microphone together and I instantly obliged.

Licking my lips I leaned in closer to the mike and began bopping my head as I usually do, as I turned my focus away from the photographers and back to the crowd I couldn't help but realize that tonight we would find out if our 4th album had gone to the number one spot on the Billboards.

I looked back at the photographers for a moment, to see if there was any hint of expression on their face as to what kind of article would be written about us the next day, but as always they were stone cold.

I sighed heavily and ran my fingers through my hair, knowing I only had one more song before the show was over. The pressure that I still felt on our forth album was unbelievable and already in the time span of ten minutes I'd gone from feeling like I was unstoppable to realizing that this whole music thing was a lot harder than just showing up.

Before I knew it "Obviously" had ended, the girls had erupted into another scream and Harry had come out from behind the drums. He wrapped his arm around me and patted me on the back just as the lights dimmed and we all began rushing off stage.

I tossed my bass at a random man backstage, grabbed a towel, wrapped it around my neck and charged towards the backstage door. I threw open the door and beamed at our management who were sitting on the couch. I turned myself around and awaited the others. They walked in slowly, but clearly just as excited/nervous as I was. I was shaky, and I squinted at everyone in the room, reading their faces as best as I could; the sides of my mouth curved into a smile as I fell onto a nearby couch with just enough of an idea about how everyone felt to feel good myself. I looked around just as everyone began jumping up and down with delight.

I stayed situated on the couch, not wanting to tell the boys but feeling rather dizzy. "Dougie! Dougie!" Harry was shouting at me and tugging on my arm. I stood up quickly, a little too quickly and became even lighter headed than I had before.

There was a shout, one which I thought was a shout of approval, but when I caught the look on Harry's face my heart dropped. I raised my hand as quickly as I could to my face in the direction that he was pointing and felt the coolness of the blood. I looked at my hand, closed my eyes, slumped onto the couch and let the world go black around me.