Chapter Twenty-Five: Change

Chapter Twenty-Five: Change

-Lilah's POV-

I think it takes me twice as long to get to the drama building than it ever has. My body just protests against my every step. I'm not used to being worked out this harshly and yesterday seriously proved that I need to exercise more. I haven't done much since high school.

I groan as I shove the theater door's open. Since they are part of a drama building, they're much heavier than normal doors. They close silently so that they don't intterupt the actors. It seems like a good invention until you're a sore, overworked girl whose body complains about just lifting one leg before the other.

I notice the lads are already in the room. They're joking and chasing each other around, their typical boy behavior. It exhausts me to even see them running around. How do they have that much energy?! Oh right, they didn't have to go through hell yesterday.

"HEY THERE DELILAH WHAT'S IN LIKE IN NEW YORK CITY?!" Louis sings at the top of his lungs, throwing his arms in the air when he notices me. The other lads cheer and wave at me. They're seriosly acting like little kids and it amuses me.

"YOU'RE A THOUSAND MILES AWAY, BUT GIRL TONIGHT YOU LOOK SO PRETTY, YES YOU DO!" Zayn jumps onto a chair and cabbage patches. He's going to fall. It's inevitable.

"TIME SQUARE DON'T SHINE AS BRIGHT AS YOU! I SWEAR IT'S TRUE!" Niall's turn.

I sigh and shake my head. If they're going to do that the entire time, I'm keeping my distance. I can already feel the headache pounding in the back of my head. I don't need them screaming in my face.

"BABY IT'S YOU. OH IT'S YOU, THEY ADD UP TOOOOOO!" Everyone stares at the curly haired boy standing by himself on the stage. He grins madly at us all.

"Harold, that's not the lyric," Louis points out.

"No, but it's a better lyric," Harry beams him a dimpled smile before jumping off the stage.

I slide my phone out of my pocket and check for a new text message. I had texted Jared earlier this morning with a request, but he hasn't answered back. I only hope that he got the message. I sigh and slide the phone back in before walking the rest of the way towards the boys.

"Morning boys," I greet them.

Louis dramatically bows in front of me. "Why hello madame," he says with a thick accent that I can't place. I roll my eyes at his behavior.

"What did you guys eat for breakfast today? Pot? Cocaine? Meth?" I joke and take a seat. I groan as my body screams at me.

"Nope, one giant bowl of COOOOOOKIE CRISP!" Niall actually howls the name and I hit my forehead with my palm.

"Great, remind me to buy-out all the local stores," I say sarcastically. Not that I could actually afford that. College is way too expensive.

"Oh Lilah," Harry chirps and sits beside me. "You've just got to learn a couple things." He brings his hand out in front of us and slowly moves it from one side to the other.

I look at him with doubt. "Learn a couple things," I repeat. "Maybe you should learn to tone your volume down," I make a twisting knob motion in the air towards him and he laughs.

"Someone didn't wake up on the right side of the bed," he teases, tapping his finger against the tip of my nose.

"Someone doesn't have a right side because every side of her own body is angry," I say back in the exact same tone.

"SASS!" Louis exclaims.

At this rate, I'm going to have to buy earplugs. Do they ever speak at normal volumes? I mean really, I'm only a couple feet away from them all.

My phone buzzes in my pocket and I force myself to get up so that I can answer it. It takes so much energy to just not complain, but I manage it. I walk a couple feet away from everyone and answer my phone. The lads all start playing some kind of game of Freeze Tag. How that works out with five boys? I have no idea.

"Lilah," Jared says immediately once I've answered.

"Jared, you got my texts right?"

"Yeah, and I picked evreything up already. I'm going to need some help carrying everything in though." Louis suddenly screeches at the top of his lungs, a sound that resembles some kind of dying bird, and I watch as he jumps off a chair, rapidly flapping his arms as if they were wings. "What the hell was that?" Jared asks.

I sigh and try not to giggle, it makes my stomach constrict and my abs were not up for that work. "Just Louis being Louis," I tell Jared.

He laughs and I imagine him rolling those blue eyes of his. "Of course, why am I not suprised? Alright, well just meet me outside and come get this stuff. I think we'll need like two of the boys as well."

"Aye captain," I salute Jared even though he can't see it then hang up my phone. "Boys! Listen up!" I clap my hands for their attention.

Louis is frozen in a half running motion about ten feet away from Niall who's also frozen. Harry is in the process of being cornered by Liam and Zayn.

"Boys!" I call out again and they turn towards me. "I need two of you to help me carry in some stuff."

"Lou and I can help," Niall unfreezes from his pose and grabs Louis' arm. Louis tries to walk over with his frozen body, but he fails and walks normally. "Besides, Harry still hasn't been tagged!" Niall calls out over his shoulder.

"GREAT!" Harry yells as Liam and Zayn lunge towards him. Harry quickly gets on the stage and sprints away.

Louis and Niall fist bump each other before turning their attention to me. "We're all yours," Louis smirks.

"Great, follow me."

I lead them outside to the parking lot. A couple more girls are arriving already and we wave to them before continuing towards Jared's car. We get to him and he steps away from his car, looking more like a model than anything. He grins at us and takes off his sunglasses.

"Well don't you look nice today," I tell him.

"Why thank you," he sticks his tongue out at me. "Okay, so Lilah, I think you can carry this one." He reaches into his car and pulls out a camera. I look at it with wide eyes.

"No, no way. My body is not up for that," I wave my hands at the giant piece of equipment. Okay, it's not that big, but it's pretty heavy looking.

"Fine, princess, you can carry this," Jared puts down the camera and takes out one of the kick stands that holds a camera. It doesn't look too heavy. I take it from him and am relieved to find that I'm right.

Jared hands Louis and Niall things to carry and then we all head back to the drama building. We've borrowed two of the school's best cameras. The only reason we can even get them is because Jared has been owed a favor for a couple months now since he did the hymlech manuevor on the principal of our university. Yeah, it wasn't a pretty sight.

We take the things to the stage and set them down. The boys don't look worn out even in the slightest, but I groan like an old man as I lift the holder to the stage. Talk about exhausting.

"So what's with the cameras? We haven't even gotten through hell week," Harry comments. He, Liam and Zayn walk over to look at the things we brought in.

"Well, I have a new idea for the movie," I say and the boys all groan.

"New idea?! We're working on your first idea!"

"What about the girls working hell week?"

I raise my hand for them to stop talking. "It's all still going to keep happening, but the movie is going to be revolving more around reality than fantasy. I mean, sure I had thought up this brilliant script that would make people cry buckets of tears about how emotionally compelling it would be, but does that sound like a real One Direction movie?" I look at each one of them and they give their heads small shakes. "Exactly, it doesn't."

"So what are you saying? Stop hell week?"

"No Louis, we film it as part of your movie. You guys would do all the filming, that's what fans love the most. When you guys take charge and make something that you personally want. Take for example those video diaries from years ago, they were super successful," I point out.

Liam looks at me doubtfully and runs a hand over his head. "But those were diaries, not movies."

I nod. "Yes, that's true, but I'm telling you guys, this will work. I think I should know since I'm the 'biggest directioner'," I airquote. "All I'm asking for is a little trust."

The boys all look at each other and exchange silent conversations. Jared and I give ourselves our own little silent pep talk as they do it.

Finally, they turn back around. "So you're saying that our movie, the one we have chosen you to write, is now turning into some 'Day in the Life' video?" The way Zayn words it makes me feel a little upset.

"It's not a day in the life video though. It will be a movie, but it'll be about you and how you actually act around each other. It'll be more personal. You guys can each even record your own parts without telling the other lads and I'll piece it all together as a final project. You can consider it a movie for you." I smile at the thought of them recording videos of themselves that the others won't see until it's a finished movie. It's kind of cool to have the idea come from me.

Niall is the first to nod his head. "Well, I personally think it's a cool idea," he says to the other boys. "I mean, it's better than some romance story. The fans get really defensive when they see us with anyone."

"That's true," Harry mutters and shakes his curls. "I'm in."

One by one, each member agrees to my plan and I feel a burst of pride. They actually like my idea and it took only a couple hours to figure it out myself. I guess not all by myself though, since Thomas has kind of brought me down last night with the whole "don't take on anything too big" talk. But without him, I wouldn't have come up with this idea. So I guess I owe him a thank you.

Jared takes the boys and shows them how to work the cameras. They set up the stands and get behind the cameras, swiveling them around and around to get used to how they work. As they do this the rest of the girls start filing in, letting out their own pained exclamations as they take their seats. I'm not the only one in pain from all this.

Lena comes over to me and motions towards the camera that Niall and Liam are at. "What's with the cameras?"

I take my hairtie from around my wrist and start tieing up my hair. "We're going to start filming the movie."

"But we haven't even gone through hell week," Lena says confused.

"I know. It's part of the plan."

"Oh," Lena nods, but still looks confused. She must decide to just go with it though because she turns her attention to fixing her shoes.

Once everyone is in the room, the boys all get up on the stage and ask for everyone's attention. I lean back in my seat and work on stretching out my neck. I know that they're just going to announce the changes to the whole movie ordeal.

"Okay girls, today we will be working on our ability to improvise. Improvisation can be one of the hardest things about theater or the easiest, depending on your capability to adjust to a given situation," Louis explains.

"You will all be paired with one of us and given a certain situation. We want to see how you choose to react," Harry adds, earning himself a nod from Louis.

"Once again, not all of you will make it through today. If you lack improvisation skills entirely, then we will have to unfortunately ask you to leave the theater," Niall announces and the girls start whispering unhappily.

"But that doesn't mean that you aren't all beautiful," Harry says cheekily and I roll my eyes. He would.

"Okay, so with that being said, everyone on your feet and start stretching. Afterwards, I want ten laps around the audience section," Louis commands and I drop my head into my hands.

More. Excersing. What is he trying to do?! Kill us?!

I get up along with all the other girls and start heading towards the stage to stretch out. The boys all spread out and get behind cameras. Louis directs them to do things and they oblige.

I wonder why they didn't mention the whole movie change. I at first thought that that was what Louis was announcing, but instead he gave us another hell day layout.

Whatever the reason may be that he didn't make the announcement leaves my mind and I stop thinking about it as I'm forced to start running.

The only thing left for me to think as my feet hit the floor at a rapid pace is "ow, ow, ow."

And double ow.