Why was it that even when I felt so low as I did at that moment, Harry still managed to put a smile on my lips? Even though if it was just the sight of his boots lying at the floor that did it this time.



The next morning I woke up by a spasm in my right leg, probably caused by another sick workout the day before. I squealed as I sat up trying to massage it.


Tears were streaming down my cheeks, not only because it hurt in my leg. But at that exact and extremely terrible moment I remembered how Niall’s massage was the only thing that had ever helped. I wasn’t strong enough to numb the pain as much as him. And then I just got angry with myself for crying all the fucking time. I mean, Jesus Christ we hadn’t even been a couple or anything?! And yet, here you sit, Maja, crying because of some stupid memory of a guy that you barely know. Or at least you thought you knew him, but that was probably just imagination. Cause you’re a sad loner, Maja, that has to fake the slightest relationship in order not to break down.



Then my self-destructive thoughts were interrupted by a humming Harry opening my door.


“Breakfast’s ready and it’s a beauuuuutiful day…” he sang – probably a self-made one – but stopped as soon as he saw me turning my face away wiping my eyes.

“Oh Maja, don’t be so sad,” he said.

“No…” I said, “no it’s just… my leg spasms again.”

Even though it was true both he and I knew that I would never be crying like this if it hadn’t been for Niall. Harry jumped down at my matrass and moved my hands away from my leg and started rolling his fists up and down, luckily his strength helped making the pain go away.

“I had one earlier as well,” he admitted. “Your exercising can’t be very healthy.” He tried to cheer me up and I decided to give him a little credit.

“So. Where did you sleep last night?” I asked winking at him with a red swollen eye.

“Uhm. The sofa,” he said looking down but I could tell that he was smiling widely.

“Yeah that’s funny… Cause I went out to brush my teeth when you’d all gone to bed and I didn’t see anyone on the sofa. I saw you boots lying on the floor though.”

“Well that can’t be true,” he said now knowing that I was teasing him.

“Yes, they laid right next to your jeans, your underwear had somehow landed on the lamp, can you explain that?”


He hit my shoulder knowing that I was only joking. Thank God, I was only joking, that had been some sight.


“Did you guys do anything?” I asked curiously.

He blushed insanely and glanced out the window away from my eyes. “No,” he said. “We didn’t do anything actually.”

“What, not even a kiss?” I asked feeling a bit let down.

“No, I… We're in no rush,” he said now looking at me and I couldn’t agree more with him. He was completely right and I just nodded.



Once my leg had calmed down we went out in the kitchen where Em was making smoothies for all of us, something she always did better than anyone else.

“Mmh, what flavor?” Harry asked looking at the yellow consistence forming in the blender.

“Banana Pineapple,” she smiled over at me. “You’re favorite.” I forced a smile on my lips knowing that I wasn’t in any position to eat anything – since Friday night I hadn’t felt hungry at any point because of endless stomach cramps and gagging feeling every time I put something in my mouth.



Aida came in and we sat down to have the smoothies and some toast. I took one sip of mine but was just about to run to the toilet so I just sat trying to seem happy anyway.


“Is something wrong with the smoothie?” Em asked concerned that she might had done something wrong.

“No, I’m just not feeling very hungry,” I said trying to seem unaffected.

“But you always use to like…” she began but I exclaimed: “I’m sorry,” before she had any chance to fulfill her sentence.


When they were all staring at me I felt another outbreak bubbling up in me as I spitted:

“I’m sorry because I’m a mess! I feel like shit, both because of that asshole, Niall, God I hate saying his name, and because I completely destroy the mood around here and it just feels so selfish, and there’s no sweet thing that you can do or say that can make me feel better, because you know as well as me that that is the truth. I know I destroy the atmosphere and I don’t really care that I might have an excuse for doing so but I’ve never been this moody. I have to say I’m not loving it.”


I stood up and went towards the door and Harry was just about to follow me looking very concerned, but I immediately stopped him. “Please don’t! I really want to be alone and the only thing that might help would be for my friends to still feel happy and unaffected by my crappy person.”


I left just in time to see a scared, but also understanding look on his face as he sat back down. I went in to my room and put on the white oversize sweater that I’d worn the day we arrived exactly a week ago, some black skinny jeans, a knitted beanie since it was beginning to get a bit cold outside and my hair looked like hell anyway, and my purple Nike Free.


“I’m going for a walk,” I said as I went out the door not answering Aida questioning when I would be back.




I walked around at some different paths down at the lake that I used to run around. I sat down at a bench breathing in the crisp fall air. This is London at its best, I thought as I looked at the trees, the grey clouds and the ducklings swimming around in the lake. No matter how many assholes that might cross my way this city would always stay exactly as beautiful as now, I comforted myself as I lid up a cigarette.



“Maja?” I heard a somehow familiar voice saying from my right. I looked up to see Eric standing and smiling at me while holding a golden retriever in a leash. He was wearing a tight pair of denim jeans and a blue sweater that really looked extremely comfortable.
“Hi. Eric,” I said as he came closer. “What are you doing here?”

“Walking my dog. And you?” he asked.

“Walking myself. Which is pretty much the same thing,” I said and he smiled. “What’s its name?” I asked patting the dog.

“Pete,” he said. “Such a good boy.”

“Yes, I can see that,” I said as the golden retriever put its cute face at my thigh. “I have a dog at home, she’s called Luna.”

“And where’s home?” he asked looking at me with his warm eyes.

“Denmark.”

“Denmark, holy shit that’s a bit far away. For how long have you been staying in London then?”

“I moved in my apartment with two friends a week ago.”

“Wow, you must really have felt intimidated by my behavior at the bagel shop then! I’m really sorry!” he exclaimed.

“You weren’t so bad,” I smiled at his wide eyes.

“Okay nice. So can I buy you a cup of coffee? There’s a great place over that hill.” He pointed behind my ear with his finger.

“You will never stop being cheesy, will you?” I asked.
“No.” The fact that he didn’t smile at all when he answered made me laugh.

“What the hell,” I said and followed him and Pete to an old but very cozy coffee shop, called “Sophie’s coffee”.

“It’s my sister’s place, so I get a discount,” he said smirking.

“Star fucker,” was my only comment and that made him laugh.



We sat down outside and chatted for a while and drinking cappuccinos. He actually seemed like a really nice guy, but because of Niall I had had enough of guys pretending to be nice and then turn out to be complete assholes, so all my prejudices weren’t gone at all.



“Well I better get home, before my friends think I’ve been sold to white slavery,” I said and he smiled.

“When do I get to see you again?” he asked.

“God, so cheesy,” I said but he just kept looking at me. “At the bagel shop?” I then tried but he still refused to settle with one of my rejecting answers. I rolled my eyes and then said: “Fine, I’m playing a concert at Dirty Dicks next Saturday, you’re welcome to stop by and listen with maybe a thousand of your closest friends.”


That seemed to satisfy him cause he nodded smiling at me. “It was nice talking to you,” he said.

“Nice talking to you too,” I said and reached out my hand for him to shake, and so he did but with a huge grin on his face though.

“Bye Pete,” I said patting the dog that had been lying next to the small round coffee table. Then I turned around and walked back towards the path that led to my neighborhood.




“Oh my God, where have you been?! We’ve been calling you a hundred times,” Aida exclaimed suddenly standing right in front of me when I’d shut the door behind me.

“Wow, you scared me!” I said.

“No, you scared me!” she continued. “It’s almost four in the afternoon, we thought you had died or something!”



Now Em’s face was also visible from the kitchen door and she had the same blaming frown on her forehead as Aida.

“Guys, relax, I just went for walk at the lake, you really need to calm down…” I began but then Em cut me off.

“Look! You might think that it lightens the mood around here if you walk away with your problems, but how exactly do you think we feel when our friend have been gone for 5 hours in one the biggest cities in Europe which we just moved to a fucking week ago? Do think that lightens our mood?!”

She was pissed, they both were. And I knew that they were completely right about everything.

We stood there at the door and looked at each other for a while and me biting my lip before admitting:

“All right, I’m really sorry. You’re right it’s only selfish of me to act this way. I promise I won’t do it again.”


They both already looked a lot calmer.

“Fine then,” Aida said. “Now, I was thinking that maybe we could discuss the music for the concert now?”


I smiled at my girls, cause sometimes they acted almost like men – they never wore any malice toward anything for longer than it took for them to get an excuse. They were simple and always so easy to be around.



We sat down in the kitchen and I lid up a cigarette.

“Where’s Harry?” I asked.

“He went home a few hours ago, we should say hi from him,” Aida said and I nodded.



“Okay, so for how long did the concert have to be?” I asked Em, who was the one that had talked to the owner of Dirty Dicks.

“Uhm. About an hour was what he told me,” she said.

“Man, we have to write new songs then!” Aida said opening her eyes while pulling out some paper and a pen. “Okay, what songs do we have already?”

“There’s Copenhagen, To Open Up My Heart, Gone, So Mornful the Elegy and then we could choose some of the covers…” I began still thinking about other ones that we played together.

“Not enough at all,” Aida admitted looking down at the paper. “We could… perform some songs alone or something? I mean, Maja you can play a song or two, and Em you wrote that song a long time ago. If you sang that without any instruments it could be really good.”

“Good thinking Aida! We’ll do that then,” I said smiling.

“Wait, you want me to sing all alone?” Em asked looking at us with a nervous expression.

“Of course. You’re an amazing singer.” Aida looked at her like she was some sort of idiot and I think that might helped a bit on Em’s nerves, cause she didn’t argue anymore and was just blushing now.

“Hey Aida, couldn’t you and Em play that uhm… the one you made the guitar to that has like a bossa feeling to it?” I asked her.

“If The Stars Were Mine?” she asked.

“Yeah that one! So delicious chords, it would fit perfectly in a bar like Dirty Dicks,” Em said.



After discussing for a few moments I suddenly became a bit nervous myself.

“What song do you think I should play?” I asked them. “I mean, I can’t any of the ones in Danish that wouldn’t be fair to the audience, don’t you think?”

“I would say Your Heart Is As Black As Night or…” Em began, “or the one I heard you play last night.” She didn’t look in to my eyes saying that last bit.

“What, the song I wrote yesterday?” I asked with both my mouth an eyes flying open.

“It was beautiful,” Em just said still looking down at the table.

“Oh no, that wasn’t a song, more likely a complete devotion of some extremely heavy feelings. I don’t think that people would enjoy that one…” I began seriously doubting the quality of that song. Their suggestion almost made me laugh.

“To be honest…” Aida suddenly cut in, “I haven’t heard so many feelings being put in to any of your songs. It’s very special and I’m very positive that people will think that as well.”

“You guys are serious?” I asked still not believing a word of what they said. They didn’t feel the need to elaborate any more than by their way of looking at me.

“Uhm… I think you should hear it a couple of more times before you make the decision to put it in the program,” was all I could say.




After another hour of planning songs and rehearsals for the rest of the week, since we all had to work at every day and we wanted to make sure that we didn’t have to stress too much about the concert, that would never make it a good experience, we made some coffee and went in to the living room.



Aida pulled out her guitar and started to play a few chords. It didn’t take any more than a few seconds for Em and I to recognize the sound of What Makes You Beautiful and Em started on the first verse. We always had so much fun singing that song, nobody ever trying to make it sound pretty.




And there we sat for the next couple of hours, not rehearsing anything seriously, but just having great fun with playing and singing in order to get our minds off the long days of work the following week.


“Thank you so much,” I said as there was a short break in the sound of Aida’s guitar, “I feel so much happier now.”


“That’s the thing about music…” Aida said smiling down at her fingers on the fingerboard.

Notes

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