I Will go down with this ship

Live shows

We moved into the X-factor house after that and got to share a room with bunk beds once more. Louis was the messiest of us all even if I can't really pretend like anyone of us was a neat freak, well except Harry maybe. We were all away from our parents for the first time I and won't lie, it was hard at times. But I think our parents had it worse. I think Harry's mum once said that she hadn't been prepared. They went to the audition and then he never lived at home again after that.

Harry's and Louis's bromance continued. The crew always ran around looking for them because they disappeared together when they weren't pranking everyone, Louis being the biggest prankster of us all and he got Harry to help him.

One day Harry told me something interesting. Apparently, he and Louis made out once before we were put in a band together when they were in that band competition. That blew my mind. They kissed? I tried to get a hold of Louis who was away for the day but he didn't answer so I tweeted him. I got to talk to him later that night. Harry never said it was a secret so I asked Louis about it, I mean, wouldn't you if you found out that two of your bandmates snogged? Louis just shrugged his shoulders and acted dismissively about it, like it wasn't a big deal and that it didn't mean anything. I mean, fine, it could have been a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing. I didn't even know what sort of kissing we were talking about? Was there tongue involved? After that, I started to observe them more closely.

We started the live shows. I don't have so much to say about that. We were all very excited every week we got through. Harry developed a stagefright but we all supported him, especially Louis. Louis and I didn't get that many solos and I took one for the team you know? What really pissed me off though was the fact that Louis' and my mics were really low. I mean, if they didn't think we could sing, why did they put us in the band in the first place? It took a toll on my self-esteem and Louis' as well.

We got to do these video diaries every week and this is where Harry and Louis' fondness for each other started to show. I was just amused. Louis really had a thing for Harry's curly hair or Harry in general to be fair.

Louis was always really loud and theatrical and you never knew what he would do. Looking back, I loved this young and innocent Louis, carefree and happy. This was my mate before he had the weight of our management on his shoulders but we'll get to that later.

Back to Louis and Harry. There was a lot of fond staring between them, that's for sure. I noticed that Louis always looked uncomfortable as soon as we answered a question regarding girls but I didn't put much thought into it back then.

It actually looked like they were about to kiss each other a couple of times during these video diaries which made me giggle. When we got the question of which celebrity we'd like to marry Louis turned to Harry.
"And I'll marry you, Harry, because it rhymes."

They were always like this. Joking, hugging, or just staring at each other. I thought it was great that they were such good friends. We all were, even if Harry and Louis had been the closest from the start.

They were always ogling each other, and it didn't matter if we were in the middle of an interview or on stage. I mean, I found it kind of weird but I didn't question it. There was nothing wrong with it.

We went through live show after the live show and we had a really busy schedule. We rehearsed every chance we got because we wanted to sound as good as we possibly could. The weeks went by and our fandom grew bigger and bigger. It was crazy! I don't think any of us was really prepared for it. We were just five normal teens.

On November 3 Louis went missing all of a sudden. Not even Harry knew where he was and that was strange. They were always together. Louis had been called to a meeting in the morning and after that, he just vanished. We were all really worried but Harry almost had a panic attack.

When he finally was located we found out that he had gone home to his mum in Doncaster. It was strange. Why would he just take off like that? Sure, we all missed our families but we all wanted this more than anything.

He came back the next day and we could all see that something wasn't right. He was sad and something was clearly bothering him but he refused to tell us what happened.

It wasn't until years later that he revealed that Simon and his team had told him that he had to act less gay. I still can't believe it to this day and that was just the beginning of it. Harry would get the same reprimand later on. It breaks my heart every time I think about it. They were so young and they were told that they couldn't be themselves. It makes me so fucking angry.

Anyhow, the competition continued. Outside the show, Louis and Harry continued to spend time together. Louis cooked dinner for Harry one night, the famous chicken stuffed with mozzarella, wrapped in parma ham with some homemade mash. He would bring that up in interviews for years to come.

In December our X-factor journey ended and we came in third place. We wanted to win of course but we were happy that we had come this far and sad that it was over. It was a shock to come out from the X-factor bubble and we didn't really know what we would do now. All we knew for certain was the fact that we wanted to stay together as a band.

Simon offered us a record deal and we couldn't believe how lucky we were. Ahead of us were some of our best moments in life but also some of our hardest. Was it worth it?