Dreaming about London

Half an hour later I left the trees to go home. I threw my trash – an empty pizza case, two empty bottles and a bunch of smelly napkins – in a dustbin nearby. It’s silly, I thought to myself, quitting my job will probably not help at all on this eating disorder. I pulled out my phone and typed the only number I felt like calling right now.

“Hello?” a deep woman’s voice said.

“Aida, it’s me. I’m not feeling well, can I… Can I come home to your place?” I said with a lump forming in my throat.

“Yes of course! I’ll be waiting.” I could tell she knew what had gone wrong.

“Thank you so much, see you in ten minutes.”



It didn’t take me more than five minutes to get to her house, I ran all the way like a maniac, needing the presence of my dear friend.

She was waiting for me at the door, I stopped in front of her.

“Don’t worry, my parents are not home,” she said, knowing that I didn’t want them to know anything.

Immediately she pulled me in for a hug and there in the doorway the tears once again appeared in my canthus.

“Shh, it’s okay. Don’t be mad at yourself. Come on, I’ve made some tea.” She said rubbing my back calmingly. I then followed her in to the living room where a film was paused on the television.

“What are you watching?” I asked.

“Love and Other Disasters.” She answered while handing me a warm cup of tea.

“Oh so what do you think?!” I asked, suddenly cheered up.

“So far I hate it.” She laughed and I couldn’t help but laugh as well. That’s what I loved about Aida. Just the fact that we could hang out and have fun like normal, always helped no matter what mood we were in.

“But what about her clothes? And her car? And the apartment?”

“I love all that! Visually it’s a very beautiful movie. Not very artistic light though.”


I looked at her with a smile, but she just continued watching the movie with a frown on her forehead. She really did like movies. Every time she were to pick one for us to watch I could never understand why she found it interesting, when it to me always seemed weird or meaningless. But it could be the light or a great acting performance that made her love a movie, where as I on the other hand was a fan of clichéd Hollywood movies that would end with a kiss. I had recommended Love and Other Disasters to Aida, because it was about a girl living an absolutely lovely life in London, and so I would always get so excited every time I watched it.
I had to leave an hour later, so that I would be home for dinner. I was so lucky to have a friend like Aida.


“Hello honey, where have you been?” my mother asked when entered the kitchen.

“I was at Aida’s.” I answered while sitting down at the dining table with all of my brothers and sisters, mother and step father.

I was starving, since I hadn’t eaten anything since... you know.

“Maja, do you know what? Today I discovered that the swallows have been building a nest up under our roof!” my youngest brother at age 8, Lars, said excited. He had been crazy about birds for a good couple of years now, and I had gotten used to his excitement, so I just nodded and smiled at him.



After dinner I checked my e-mail to see if I had gotten any information about the move-in date in the apartment in London. A few weeks ago Aida, Em and I went to London to look at different apartments, and we got one in West End, a small, but very nice place, and we were supposed to move in late in September, but we didn’t know the exact date yet, which bothered me, since it was only in 2 months.



The next morning I felt like going for a run, before the summer whether would get too hot, feeling guilty about what happened the day before. But it was already very hot and I quickly started to sweat like a pig. To my luck it was quite windy down at the sea, so that cooled me down just a bit. A gust suddenly threw my ponytail in to my face, and my sweaty forehead made it stick. I couldn’t see anything with all that hair in my face, and I stumbled in to a dustbin on the side of the path.

“Aw!” I couldn’t help but shout a bit too loud – no one was down here anyway. I removed my hair and kept on running. A minute later I saw the same boy I think, he was not wearing his hoodie though, it was way too hot for that I guess, and a head of blond hair was now visible in the early morning sun.

“Hi,” he said when he saw me running. “Can I join you?” At this point he looked up at me, he was not wearing sunglasses either. And just has I thought I was done stumbling around, I now again almost fell to the ground, when I realized where I had seen the boy before. It was no one else than Niall Horan, a member of the famous boyband, One Direction. I used to be a huge fan of them a couple of years ago, but not as much anymore.


“Sweet Jesus!” I exclaimed and immediately stopped and stared for a few seconds.

“Excuse me?” he said.

“I mean… What? What was your question?” I said breathless.

“I just asked if I could join you. But I understand if you want to run by yourself.” He smiled.

“Hi. I’m Maja,” I said reaching out my hand.

“I’m Niall.” He took my sweaty hand.

“Yeah. I know,” I said with a huge grin on my face. “Come on, let’s run.” I exclaimed in order to do something, I didn’t think I was able to carry on a descent conversation with a person that famous.

“Are you okay? I saw you stumble in to that dustbin before,” he asked.

“Me? Oh, that was nothing!” I tried to smile. This was the only time I actually appreciated the tomato red color on my face whenever I exercised, then maybe he wouldn’t discover the huge amount of embarrassment I felt at that point.



I have to admit it was without doubt the best workout I’d ever had, because I was so nervous about him running with me, so I had to make sure he didn’t think I was too much of a fat looser.

“So for how long did you plan for us to run?” he suddenly said gasping for air.

“We’re done just over this hillside,” I said with having the same breathing problems.



“Jesus, you do take this running seriously,” he said placing his hands on his knees once we had stopped.

“And even more seriously when people are looking,” I said while trying to smile through the pain and not show my struggle with breathing too much, it was difficult though.

We both stood there looking at the sea, I didn’t know for how long.

“I need to sit down!” he suddenly said and went to a bench nearby. I followed him and we sat down.



“So, Niall. What are you doing here?” I asked after a few minutes of taking deep breaths.

“Currently trying to survive that run.” He smiled and so did I. “I just realized how long it has been since I’d had a proper workout.”

“I’m on vacation,” he said when he saw me waiting for a real answer. “My friends and I are staying in a summerhouse for some time.”

“But why here? There’s nothing happening in this village,” I said.

“That was the exact reason why we came. Just to spend some time without doing anything, we’ve been on tour for a good 8 months now, and I think we all needed to relax in a place where people wouldn’t recognize us that much. And we heard that this village was filled with old people, which is not exactly our target group.” He looked at me with a pair of bright blue eyes.

“Yeah, you’re damn right about that!” I said and he smiled. “So for how long are you staying here?”

“Don’t know yet. A couple of weeks I think, but we have to go back to London though to record a new album.”

“How is it?” I asked.

“How is what?”

“How is to be on the go constantly? Do you ever find it exhausting?”

“Yes of course, it’s a lot of hard work. But we’ve all had time off with our families for a month now. That was amazing. ” He smiled at the thought of his family revealing a set of perfectly white teeth. “Well, I better get back to the house, I’m in desperately need of a shower.”

I smiled and nodded. “Yeah me too.” I stood up. “It was nice meeting you, Niall.” I again reached out my hand, hopefully it wouldn’t be as sweaty now.

“Nice to meet you too, Maja.” We shook hands and I started to walk home, when I suddenly heard a wonderful Irish accent shout: “Can I join you again tomorrow?” I turned around.

“That would be nice,” I said and he nodded. “I’ll be waiting on my bench,” he said again revealing his teeth.

Notes

Second chapter! I'll give you a few more quickly, since I have them all ready to post! :-)