Dreaming about London

Cakes, chocolates, sausage rolls, candy. God, I hated my job for this. All these different temptations and nothing being just a tiny bit good for you – or at least not good for me. Being a slightly overweight girl at age 21, I didn’t remember the last time I hadn’t been on a diet.


And that’s the thing, you know. See, officially I am on a diet; I am eating healthy and exercising three or four times a week and should, according to what I tell people, be losing weight. But nobody knows. Nobody knows anything about me. Cause I’m the master of creating the perfect picture of a chubby, yet completely happy, young girl with many talents. And I rarely let people see the person behind the smile and the bright eyes – I’m afraid it will scare them.


I have my struggles, like most people. So many struggles. They often seem endless.

My biggest struggle is my weight. I hate what I see in the mirror, and yet I feel completely helpless when it comes to doing something about it, and I know the exact reason why. I simply love food too much. The cakes, the chocolates, the sausage rolls, the candy. God damnit!


But 2 years ago I – unfortunately – found a way to regret the food I ate too much of. Bulimia has since then played a big role in my life, and I am still fighting the same love for food.

And my part time job at a gas station hasn’t helped solving my problem with the everyday binges, and of course the reunion with them right after. But I need the money for an apartment in London.

This might be the right time to introduce myself. Hi.

My name is Maja, I am 21 years old and live currently in Denmark in a terribly small village, which I won’t make you try to pronounce the name of. I take joy in playing a lot of music, and my dream is to move to London and give the life as a musician a chance, before I lose the courage. I’m moving there with two of my very good friends, Aida and Em. They both have their own dreams to follow, and London seemed like the right place to begin – Denmark is way too small of a country to make anything big happen.


So every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I would stand at a gas station named “Hell” in a village, also named “Hell”, in my opinion.

I remember in the beginning of my eating disorder, I kept wondering why I wasn’t losing weight, when I didn’t take in any food. But then I read about how the body immediately starts to consume the food, and how bulimia is destroying the body’s ability to burn off calories.

That’s why most bulimics are not underweight, but at a normal, or in my case a bit too high, scale. This statement made me tell my mother and seek help.

I’ve been seeing a psychologist for 2 years now, it was not as easy as I’d hoped to get rid of a habit like that.


All these different flaws may make me appear very unhappy. But I can assure you I am not.

Even though I hate my looks I still love myself as a person, and I know that my family and loads of friends feel the same way – I guess I did learn something from that psychologist anyway.
In order not to put on any more weight I run several times a week, every time the binges suddenly pile up. And that is one great thing about this little, crappy village: It’s right next to the sea and there’s a wonderful path at the water, where I run. It feels amazing, such a relief, when many other things may seem as nothing but burdens.



One early morning when I was running I managed to look up through my sweat to see boy sitting on a bench at the path with his iPod in his ears. He was looking down wearing sunglasses and a hoodie, so I didn’t too much further about it. But you always notice new people in the area, because it is so small, and especially in the morning, when I preferred to do my training, the number of people at the sea was always very limited.


The three following mornings during my run - I and the binges has a very bad week - I saw the same boy sitting at the same bench, but I never got to see his face cause he was always looking down when I ran past him. Maybe he just enjoyed the fresh morning air and the sound of nothing but the waves like I do, I thought to myself.


So one morning, when I had gotten used to his presence, I almost fell to the ground when I suddenly heard a deep, soft voice suddenly saying “Hi”.


I couldn’t manage to do anything but smile an incredibly awkward smile and mumble “Hi” back at the guy behind the sunglasses. He looked very familiar in a weird way, even though I couldn’t see much of his face because of the hoodie. I didn’t look at him for too long, incredible embarrassed by my stunt seconds earlier. I did notice that he wasn’t Danish though because of his accent.


Normally I get to empty my head when I’m running, but this time I kept thinking about the boy. Who was he? And why on Earth did I have this distinct feeling that I’d seen him and heard his voice somewhere before? I certainly did not know many people from outside Denmark, so that made my review of international friends very short.



At Wednesday I went to the psychologist for our weekly meeting.


“Hello Maja, nice to see you. Come in and sit down.” She said in Danish nodding towards the big and comfortable chair in front of her. I cuddled up in it as I used to do, waiting for her usual opening question.

“How did it go this week?” There it was. The question she always knew the answer to.

“Not good. I had to pull two extra shifts at my job at the gas station and so it kind of… went wrong. Again.” Gosh, I was really bad at talking about my feelings, even to people I had known for years.

“I see. Remember what I said a few weeks ago? About quitting that job, it’s doing you no good.”

“I know, but in a few months I’m moving anyway and until then I really need the money for an apartment.”

“Yes well alright. You’re a clever girl. But then I really need you to try harder not to eat the wrong things. Are you bringing lunch to work?”

“As always.”

“But you don’t eat it?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I eh… binge… after eating my lunch, and not because I’m hungry.”

“London is where you are going, right?”

I nodded.

“You see, I have a friend, who is a psychologist, and who lives in London. I want you to talk to her, when you move, cause I don’t think you’ve improved enough to carry on without any help from a professional.”

I nodded again. Couldn’t wait to get out of that room.



Twenty long minutes later I closed the door to her office behind me and ran down the stairs to get outside as fast as possible. The tears started to stream down my face. Why the hell hadn’t I improved?! 2 god damnit years for nothing! Still the same fat idiot, still the same eating disorder, still the same ugly look!


I turned right in to a pizza place after wiping my swollen eyes.

“Hi, I would like to order a number 7. And these two.” I said placing two Cokes on the counter.
After paying I quickly picked up a bunch of napkins and left with my food. I sat down among some trees in a deserted forest near the village to line up for my binge.

Checking that the pizza is properly cut out, don’t want to waste time on tearing it apart. Open both of the Cokes so I can drink faster. Coke makes it easier to get rid of the pizza again. 1, 2, 3.

Notes

Hi guys! So this is my first chapter! I have postet this story on Harry Styles fanfic and Niall Horan Fanfic as well, but since it involves all of the fantastic boys I decided to post it here as well! Hope you like it! I will update as much as possible, probably around a chapter a day.
Feel free to leave any kind of comment with ideas or suggestions and please vote! :-)
Love you, really hope you'll enjoy "Dreaming about London" <3