Five minutes.

Five minutes until we had to go on stage. I was shaking uncontrollably, feeling a little bit dizzy, and I started to feel more and more hot as the time went by. We were waiting for our turn to walk behind the opening doors of the stage along with some staff members, listening to the other contestants perform. Niall was jumping up and down, shaking his hands, trying to compose himself, while Liam, Zayn and Harry paced back and forth, calming down their nerves. Me and Louis stood in one place, watching Cher Lloyd perform on the screen backstage. I didn't pay attention to what she was singing, or what she was doing, I just stared at how many people there was in the arena, and started shaking even more.

Louis seemingly noticed my uncontrollable trembling, because I felt his eyes on me for a few seconds, studying me. Then he grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me up a little bit, as if to shake me nerves away.

"You're shaking, love, calm down..." No shit Sherlock, right now you're the one shaking me. I looked him in the eyes, and he stared back at me with worry. I probably looked sick, I was paler than usual, I was shaking, I was dizzy and my eyes went in different directions without me wanting it and I was starting to get ice cold in my arms and feet from the panick. I diverted my eyes away from his blue ones, and looked back at the screen, bringing my hand up and pointing weakly at it.

"Just look at how many people are there, Louis, I can't do this..." I said, my voice shaking. Louis looked at the screen to see what I was talking about and then quickly looked back at me, his hands still squeezing my shoulders.

"Cara, I want you to calm down, these people here are going to love us, no matter if we screw up or not. You should have seen the positive comments on Twitter, instead of paying attention to the hate ones, these people like you even more than me and the boys, trust me, they love how you sing, they love how you carry yourself on stage, they are here for you as much as they're here for the other contestants." He said and smiled a little at me, but I shook my head at him. I know he was telling me this to make me feel better, but it didn't. I felt even more nervous and pressured to do everything without a single mistake, because if these people really liked me as much as Louis said, then I couldn't dissapoint them.

"Louis, I can't dissapoint them, nor you and the boys, but I know that I will mess up..." I felt my eyes watering up a bit, I tried to blink the tears away, but I didn't succeed, and I felt a few starting to make their way down my face. I was an emotional mess, I was way too dramatic for the situation, but when you are in that position you just can't control yourself. I couldn't at all. Louis saw my tears streaming down my face and his eyes widened a bit, panicking about what should he do now: did he had to hug me? Or pat me on the back? Or leave me alone? He obviously haven't dealt with a hormonal fifteen year old girl before, so it was completely normal to not know what should he do.

In the end of his obvious battle in his head, he wrapped me in a hug, rubbing my back, trying to calm me down. I felt how one of his arms was no longer on my back, and then I heard quick steps coming towards us, maybe he signaled the boys to come over and calm me down.

"Hey, hey, hey, Cara, what's wrong?" I heard Liam's voice asking me and he put a hand on my shoulder, making me pull away from Louis' comforting hug and look at the boys. They were looking at me worried and panicked like Louis, and I felt horrible that I was making a scene right before we were going to go on stage, but I just couldn't help my too emotional self. I was not that emotional before X Factor, you could hardly make me cry, but since I stepped my foot on the stage of X Factor my nerve system just crashed down. The boys probably thought that I was crazy, because since they met me they saw me panick more than they saw me laugh, I was getting angry and mad for the smallest things, and now they saw me cry and make a scene in maybe the most inappropriate time.

"I'm sorry that I'm like this, boys, I don't want to make you upset right now, I'm really sorry..." I started to ramble and wiped away my tears, my voice shaking uncontrollably. Harry shook his head and hugged me instantly, Zayn, Niall, Liam and Louis joining us right after him.

"It's okay to cry, Cara, there's nothing you have to be sorry about." Harry said and I hugged him even tighter, the boys squeezing us too. I didn't know what I did to deserve such nice and comforting friends, if I was in their place I would have kicked myself out long time ago. I was like a pregnant woman, with my emotions out of control, but the boys didn't complain even once, and I was really grateful that they handled my mood swings so well. Being put in a band with a fifteen year old girl was definitely not easy on them too, just like it wasn't easy for me, so I wasn't the only one who was going through this hard.

"Now calm down, it's probably not that scary out there." Zayn said. Oh, my dear Zayn, have you even looked at the screen to see the thousands of people at the arena...

"Yeah, we're gonna kill this, guys!" Niall said, trying to convince us and mostly himself. We pulled away from the group hug, I wiped my tears away and looked at the boys. They looked back at me too and I smiled at them with my biggest smile, showing them that I'm okay now. They smiled back, and I turned around to look at my makeup in the mirror. It wasn't that smudged, but it was not the way it was before. I tried to fix it with my fingers, but it didn't work, so I gave up, deciding that the make up was the least of my worries right now.

"Is my shirt okay?" I heard Louis ask from the other end of the room while looking at himself in one of the many mirrors in the room. "Something seems off."

I walked over to him to look at his white shirt, instantly noticing that the collar of his shirt is turned upwards in the back, causing it to look weird at the front. I fixed it, and he thanked me continuing to study himself in the mirror. What a princess...

I decided to look at the other boys' clothes to see if there was something wrong too, not wanting them to come on stage with their clothes not right. Zayn was okay, Liam was okay, Harry's jacket sleeves bugged me because they were too long so I folded them up one time, and Niall's top button of his black shirt was in the wrong hole, so he had to unbutton his shirt all the way down for me to fix. If it was any other boy except one of the five boys, I would have felt super strange and awkward at the sight of a boy with unbuttoned shirt, but for me it felt like I was fixing up my little brother's shirt, even though Niall was older than me. And I have also seen him and the boys change in front of me numerous times since moving in in the house of X Factor. Mostly Harry, because it was like that boy hated clothes, he was only in his boxers all the time since the second day we moved in, and I started to wonder if that boy had a real psychical problem. I got used to it pretty quickly, but it was not like I had a choice not to get used to it either.

Niall thanked me after I fixed his buttons, and I walked over to a mirror myself, checking to see if there was something off on my clothes. There wasn't as far as I could tell, so I walked back to the boys, who were now gathered in a small kind of a circle, having a conversation about something.

"-and we won't agree to any choreographies if we get through to the next live shows, deal?" I heard Harry say in the middle of his sentence, and I was the first one to say a loud "yes". I hated dancing with a burning passion, and I felt like the main reason they didn't put me through in the beggining was because when we had to dance on Bootcamp I was the most horrible dancer out of the girls. I didn't even try to make myself look good while dancing, because no matter how hard I tried, I looked like a skeleton trying to come back to life.

"I completely agree." Zayn said after me, we both shared the same amount of hate towards dancing. The boys told me a few days ago how Simon himself went to convince Zayn to dance on Bootcamp, because he didn't show up on the dance off. I completely understood him, I knew how awful it was to must dance even though it was your least favorite thing in order to continue in the format.

"I don't mind dancing, but when I think about it, we better not." Liam said, and nodded to himself. He was maybe the best dancer out of all of us, he had the swag we were all missing.

"It's the best if we don't dance." Niall said, he was not that bad of a dancer, but he was not that good either, so we were better off without dancing.

"If you ever agree to a choreography, don't count me as a member of the band anymore." Louis said, he himself had said previously that if we ever did a choreography like a stereotypical band he would automatically leave, and I fully agreed with him. Most of the bands had choreographies and even though it was enjoyable to watch them, I didn't want us to be like them.

While we were talking I suddenly heard the music stop, and then Simon's voice started speaking something I couldn't quite hear that well. Cher was done with her performance, meaning that we were next.

"Oh my fucking god..." I cussed under my breath, the boys looking at me questionable because they didn't hear what I said. A staff member came towards us and told us that it was our turn, and that we should follow her to go behind the opening doors of the stage. The boys and I shared a scared glance at each other and followed her, Louis, Niall and Zayn at the front, Liam and Harry next to me. I was shaking, Niall was too, the other boys had trouble steadying their breaths and we all looked around us at the new surroundings. We were walking down a hall that we have never seen before, it had dark walls and floor, and the only light came from the tiny lamps on the ceiling. It was a pretty long hall, and after one or two minutes of walking, we came to a huge dark brown door. The woman opened it for us, but it was obvious from the strength she had to show that the door was massive and heavy.

Behind the door, everything was quite dark, but there were a few lamps on the celing, too, so we saw where we were walking. There were small stairs that led to a podium just as big for us six to be on, and in front of the podium were the huge opening doors. The staff woman gave us our microphones, turned them on for us, and explained when the doors will open, what signal we have to do if there is a problem with the microphones and all the things we had to know before going on stage. After wishing us goodluck, she opened the huge door again and walked out, leaving us to wait for our turn.

"We can do this, guys." Harry said while looking at us. We nodded, trying to pump ourselves up before going on stage.

"Yeah, we have to push through this live show, and the rest of them will be better because we will see what it's like." Louis said and we nodded again. Niall stretched his hand in front of us, waiting for us to put ours on top of his. Oh, he wanted to do a coundown. After a few seconds of wondering why his hand was stretched in front of us, we all finally realized what he wanted to do, so we put our hands on top of his. I was the first one, then Liam, then Harry, then Zayn, and then Louis.

"You ready, guys?" Harry said and we nodded, smiling.

"One, two, three..." We moved our hands up and down with every count, and after they all said three and threw our hands up, I yelled:

"Push!" The boys looked at me weirdly, and I stared at them for a moment, then innocently shrugged my shoulders. "What, we have to have a signature hand coundown, guys!" Niall stared at me for a little and shrugged too, as if to say "yeah, makes sense", and put his hand forward again. We placed ours on top of his too and did it again.

"One, two, three, push!" We all yelled, and a few seconds after our coundown, we heard a voice from the stage yelling: One Direction! and my heart skipped a beat. That was it. We were next. That was our que to walk on stage after the door is opened. We heard wild applause and I started shaking again, but tried to hide it, because the doors opened and I was in sight of the public, and I didn't want them to see that I was shaking.

The music started. We were faced with thousands of people, hundrets of lights and I was a little blinded by them again like the time we were formed as a band. The crowd was still applauding us and I couldn't help but give them a nervous smile, trying to seem a little bit ready to perform in front of all these people.

I was between Louis and Harry, and Liam was in front of me, hiding me a little bit from the crowd, but not completely, so they could still see me. Zayn was next to Harry and Niall was next to Louis, making me the center of the line behind Liam, who had the first solo and because of that he was in front of us all. I looked at Louis to calm my nerves down to find him looking at the crowd with amazement in his eyes and a small smile on his face. When he sensed that I was looking at him he turned his head to look at me, too, giving me a small reassuring nod when he saw my worried eyes. Turning my head on the other side I saw Harry and Zayn looking at each other with small smiles, as well as amazement in their eyes like Louis. Niall was looking at the crowd the whole time, trying to smile and seem calm, but I could see right through him that he was at the verge of shitting his pants. Then the beggining instrumental of the song was at its end, and I saw Liam raising the microphone in his hand to start singing. I clenched my own, and took a deep breath, as we all started walking forward on the podium at the top of the stage stairs.

Here it goes, Cara, don't act like an idiot.

"I used to rule the world, seas would rise when I gave the word..." Liam started singing, his voice confident and with emotion, sounding incredible. I still wondered how this boy could be so confident on stage. At the end of this verse we were at the end of the podium, creating a line, and I was now between Liam and Harry, fully in the sight of the crowd with no one hiding me. I inhaled a deep breath and then exhaled, trying to compose myself and seem even a little bit confident like Liam. "Now in the morning I sleep alone, sweep the streets I used to own..."

After this verse we had to walk down the stupid stairs, my biggest fear of the performance. I was almost 100% sure that I was going to fall, and if I fell that meant that the whole media would blow up with pictures and videos of me falling down the fucking stairs in just the first live show. And that wasn't even the worst part. I was sure that if the boys weren't mad at me for ruining our performance, then they would make fun of me for this all my life, so I definitely preferred to not fall down the stairs at all. So when we started walking down the stairs, I looked at my feet the whole time, careful to not skip a stair and fall. The boys skipped the stairs without a worry, Liam and Harry were in front of me for a few seconds and when Harry saw that I was walking down in the speed of a snail, he gave me a look that said "Hurry up!", and I discretely shook my head at him. He continued forward and I looked down on my feet again, trying to be faster but I ended up as slow as before. When I was on the last stair I looked up and saw that the boys were already switching their places like we all agreed to do on the rehearsals. I quickly walked towards them, trying to not seem obvious that I was late in comparison to the boys, and took my place between Zayn and Harry.

Zayn was the next one who had solo, so him and me were in the middle. I didn't have a solo, but I stood in the middle all throughout the song because I was the only girl and it wouldn't look aesthetically good if I was at the end of the line in Simo's words. I wasn't too fond of this idea because most of the people looked at the one who is singing at the moment, and I was next to the soloist all the time, meaning that they looked at me too, but I just sucked it up ignored it the best I could.

The next moment where we would find out if the performance will be going to hell was Zayn's solo. He had trouble with the rhythm of the song on rehearsals, and couldn't start singing on time. He got better on the last few rehearsals, but with the nerves we all had, there was a chance for him to be off rhythm again, so I prayed that he would start on time this time.

Thankfully, Zayn started just on time, and I let out the breath I was holding and smiled with a big smile, less nervous than before. Another thing I worried about down. I walked down the stairs without falling, Zayn started his solo on time, and over all these were my only worries for the performance, so I got more calm and started loosing up a bit, moving to the rhythm as best as I could.

"I used to roll the dice, feel the fear in my enemy's eyes..." Zayn sang, and we all started dancing a little bit. Well, if you could call some uncoordinated shoulder movements dancing. I looked at Harry and Liam to see what they were doing and if I was the only one awkwardly moving my shoulders and legs trying to dance with the rhythm. Liam was really going for it and it looked good, and then on the other hand it looked like Harry was trying to pop his shoulder out, aggressively thrusting his shoulder with a serious look on his face.

Harry, dear, calm down...

I couldn't help but snort a little when I saw him looking that aggressive and mad and I quickly moved my eyes away from him so I wouldn't draw attention to us. I continued moving my body awkwardly, hating every second of it, because the choreographer told us to improvise and dance how we want to in this part. How was I supposed to improvise when I couldn't dance in the first place? I couldn't wait for this part to be over and start the chorus, because on the chorus we only had to sway back and forth and walk around switching our places, which I preffered over improvising for sure. "Listen as the crowd would sing: Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!"

Zayn finished his solo, and then Niall was next.

"One minute I held the key, next the walls were closed on me..." He sang, and I was taken aback from how confident he sounded. I snapped my head towards him, and saw him smiling and dancing like he wasn't nervous at all, having the time of his life. I smiled too because his excitement was contagious, and I felt even more calm than before. I looked over at the judges to see how they were reacting, and I saw Cheryl Cole smiling at us, tapping her fingers on the table in front of them, Simon had a poker face and didn't show any emotion, only tapped his fingers in the rhythm like Cheryl, Louis Walsh was smiling too, and Dannii Minogue was smiling the wildest and clapped with the rhythm. "And I discovered that my castles stand upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand..."

Niall finished his solo and that meant that I had to start singing now too. I took a