Melody's POV

"Five minutes, people!" a voice shouted backstage. I started to hyperventilate.
"Hey, hey, it's gonna be fine Mel," Louis said, putting his hands on my shoulders.
"Um, I... uh, I don't... I don't know about that. I've never performed in front of people before," I said, trying to calm myself down.
It wasn't working.
"What about the kids at the hospital?" Harry asked.
"Well, yeah, but that was different. There weren't any people there!"
Harry raised his eyebrows. "Kids are people."
"Oh, you know what I mean! That was only a couple of kids, maybe ten or twelve, but not hundreds of screaming One Direction fans and paparazzi!" I shouted. "What if I mess up?"
"You won't."
"But I haven't played guitar in a year! How am I going to remember?"
"Well, you did just play most of the songs we have perfectly, and you've never played them before," Louis said. "I think you're going to do just fine."
Niall walked over and held a guitar out to me. "Here you go," he said. "What's wrong?"
"She's scared she's gonna mess up," Zayn said. I hadn't even realized he was there.
"You're not gonna mess up, Mel! And even if you do, nobody's gonna notice," Niall said.
"Two minutes!"
I tugged on the hem of the dress I was now wearing nervously, then started fiddling with my necklace.

"Mel? You okay?" Tristan asked, walking up to me.
"Hunky-dory. 'Cuz everyone hyperventilates when they're okay," I snapped.
Tristan took a step back. "Okay, okay, I was just asking."
"Sorry. I'm just really nervous right now," I apologized.
"One minute people! Let's get a move on!"
I took several deep breaths then walked onstage, pulling the guitar strap over my head. I looked back at Harry. He smiled, then followed the rest of the boys under the stage. I looked ahead of me again, and gasped. There were so many people!
I forced myself not to hyperventilate again, and took slow, deep breaths. That helped a little. I looked for Katrina in the crowd, and I smiled. She had absolutely no clue where I was. I "accidentally" hit a string, and it echoed throughout the dome. Katrina's head snapped toward the stage and she looked for the culprit. She still didn't see me.
Grr.
I watched the floor where the boys were supposed to come up from and saw that five squares were open. I raised two fingers above my head, and Tristan did the same, signaling the drummer. I played the opening instumentals of "Live While We're Young", and when I looked up, the boys were at the edge of the stage already, and the floor squares were back in place.
When the song finished, the Fargodome got really dark, and I felt a hand grab mine. The mysterious hand pulled me somewhere, and I momentarily panicked, but went along with it. A few minutes later, the lights came on again and I realized I was standing behind the boys.
"Say, Harry," Louis said suddenly. "We had some problems with our instrumentalists, didn't we?"
"Yes, Louis, we did. And we almost had to cancel the second half of the show, didn't we, Niall?" Harry answered.
"Yes, yes, we almost had to. But thanks to some quick thinking by a... rather lovely lady, we didn't have to!" Niall said. "And Liam, we had problems with not one, but two of our instrumentalists, didn't we?"
I was really confused for a second, then it hit me.
Liam nodded. "Yes, but this lovely lady who has backstage passes and is a rather personal friend of ours-- wait, where is she?" he said, looking behind him, failing epically at acting..
"Why, Liam, she's right here!" Zayn said. All the boys stepped aside. I couldn't see much because of the lights, but from here, the Fargodome looks even bigger than I thought it was. I looked at Katrina and smiled. She was just kinda staring at me with her jaw on the floor. I looked back at the rest of the audience and started to hyperventilate again.
Harry leaned over to me. "Smile," he whispered. I did as I was told and took deep breaths.
"Melody here saved us from having to cancel the show at the last minute," Harry said, grinning down at me. "She's playing guitar for us tonight, and Tristan over there is playing the keyboard piano."
"Be afraid. Be very afraid," I said, then walked back to my spot and picked up the guitar.
"Okay, so now we're going to answer some questions from Twitter," Niall said.
Liam picked up the laptop that was sitting on a couch in the middle of the stage and sat down.
"Okay, so, the first question is: What hotel are you staying at?" Liam laughed. "We're not. And even if we were, we wouldn't tell you."
"Who has a crush on Melody?" Louis read the next question. "Do we have to answer this one?"
All the boys raised their hand and the screams got louder. I just laughed, knowing they were joking. Harry looked back at me and grinned.
"If you're not staying in a hotel, where are you staying?" Niall read.
"Mr. Scott's house!" Zayn shouted.

Notes

Okay, so I'm not sure if they even HAVE people playing instruments, I'm just guessing, so don't kill me. Please. I'm begging you.
And I don't know if instrumentalists is even a WORD, but I'm just putting that in there because I'm too lazy to Google it or look it up.
My dad's kicking me off.