I saw Mr. Martin jump up from his chair and over to pull the red string that in this hall apparently meant real danger instead of just a little wee like I’d been using the string for, when I’d been in here, cause soon there were several doctors rushing in and Niall pulled me away from the bed to give them some room. Then we were quickly all being sent out in the hall to wait, but only a few seconds later they all came running outside as well pushing the bed with little Cara in front of them.


“They have to operate, her heart is very unstable,” one of them stopped and informed the parents that were looking absolutely horrified.


I saw Harry and Louis standing with their own scared face expressions but at the same time struggling to act cool and calm in order to make it as easy for Cara’s parents as possible.
The doctor that had informed us showed them the way to yet another hall way, where we weren’t allowed to come and so we had to stay where we were.


“Wow,” Louis sighed as soon as a crying Mrs. Martin with her husband’s arm around her shoulders had left. “This must be so tough for them,” he said glancing after them.

We all nodded agreeing not knowing what else to say.

I actually felt reasonably strong and calm as we sat there waiting, surprisingly enough.




Once again I don’t have much idea of how long we waited, but it was dark outside when Harry decided to go outside to call Aida and say that we were here and what had happened, since cell phones weren’t allowed in the hospital. Louis did the same with Eleanor and followed his friend towards the stairs. And so I sat in the uncomfortable chair leaning up against Niall’s chest and his arm around me.

I think I might have fallen asleep cause the next thing I remember is him lightly shaking me awake.


“Maja?” he asked. “Wake up, the doctor is back.”


I sat up immediately almost falling back down because of the dizziness that followed. “What? Where? Where is he?” I asked still befuddled from sleeping.

No one needed to answer me, cause there he was walking down towards us from the door that he’d disappeared through a couple of hours earlier.


“Mr. and Mrs. Martin have given me permission to inform you about what happened, but they would like to be let alone for now,” he began.

“What happened?” I asked concerned.

“Turned out Cara’s heart wasn’t strong enough anymore to cope with the damage that it had gone through for a long time. We did everything we could, but unfortunately that wasn’t enough. She passed away,” he told us.


His words made my body freeze completely, everything literally got cold around me, even Niall’s hand on my back.

Dr. Anderson continued since no one of us seemed to know what to say. “I suggest you guys go home and sleep, I know this is a bit of a shock, but it’s probably best if we obey her parents’ wish and leave them alone.”

Louis managed to nod slowly.




Harry was the first and only one to let out a tear from his eye as we were almost at the two cars in the parking lot.

“That poor girl,” he mumbled sniffling. “Can I drive with you guys home to your place?” he asked Niall and I. We both nodded.

“Where are you going, Louis?” Niall asked his other friend.

“Home. Eleanor is there, I think I want to be with her right now,” he said obviously feeling very affected by what had happened in the hospital.

“Tell her I said hi,” I said hugging him tightly before he got in his car and the rest of in Niall’s.



The silence between us continued all the way home to West End, it was really hard to figure what to say, do or even think.

“It’s weird,” Niall said at some point as if he’d read my mind, “I don’t exactly know how to react on this, cause it’s like… Since we’re definitely not the people closest to her at all, it feels like we shouldn’t be too sad about it compared to Cara’s parents for instant, but at the same time it still just feels so heartbreaking... that this little fantastic girl should ever get a destiny like she did.”

“Yeah, I know,” Harry mumbled from the back of the car and as I noticed his runny nose I turned around from the passenger to see the tears still streaming down his cheeks.

“Oh Harry,” I said concerned and quickly gave him a tissue from the packet in the side of the door. “Here”.

“Thank you,” he sniffled.

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

“Yeah, I’m fine, I just…” he stumbled. “I just can’t believe that this just happened. She was… the sweetest and most innocent child.”


The way he got so affected by this situation almost made me cry as well, but I figured that it was probably a bit of an awkward situation for Niall to be in, if he sat in the car with two sobbing creatures and trying to drive safely at the same time, so I restrained myself to trying to say a few hopefully comforting words.



“Thank God, finally!” Aida exclaimed when we walked inside the apartment a few moments later. “Harry! You didn’t tell me you were coming,” she smiled but then quickly noticed his red eyes. “What’s the matter?” she then asked concerned.

“It’s uhm…” I began but also felt the tears pushing their way through my lacrimal ducts. “It wasn’t just a stroke… it was uhm… She died. Cara died. A few hours ago.”


The last were so hard for me to say out loud, it all just overflew and became too much for me and so I let a few of the tears leave my eyes for the first time since we’d gotten the terrible news. Niall quickly came over to me and wrapped his arms around my shaking shoulders.


“Oh my God,” Aida mumbled putting her hands in front of her mouth.

At that second Em and Liam came out of her room. “What is going on?” she asked when the look on all of our faces.


But she didn’t even have to have anyone tell her anything before she started tearing up as well.

“Did she…” she began stumbling and breathing more rapidly, “Did she… die?”


It took a while before any of us did or said anything, the fact that that sentence Em had just said out loud would actually be true seemed so unrealistic and shocking. Not to mention terrible.
Niall ended up being the one that nodded looking down at his feet.


“I’m going to make us some coffee,” I said finding this tense and depressed atmosphere very uncomfortable.

When I got in to the kitchen I lid up a cigarette thinking that might help on my tense body.

“Can I have one?” Niall asked behind me.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” I said handing him one of my Marlboro Lights and a lighter.

“Well, every once in a while I kind of like it,” he smiled.

“Gurl, you’re living it dangerous,” I smiled back at him.

“That’s how we rock stars are doing it,” he smirked which made me hit his shoulder laughing at his stupid comment.

“Thank you though,” I admitted a few seconds later.

“For what?” he asked.

“For always saving every mood from being tense and depressed. I can really always count on you,” I said kindly.

“You can always count on my horrible jokes, if that’s you’re thinking about,” he smiled.

“Yeah okay, I’m not doubting that!” I chuckled before wrapping my arms around his neck and kiss him.


We returned to the others with the coffee and smiles on our lips, which was the exact opposite of what was going on in the living room where people had sat down. Em had cuddled up in Liam’s arms in the armchair still having slightly red eyes from crying, just like Harry who sat in the sofa with Aida leaning against his shoulder staring out in the air.


Though it looked like the coffee brightened everything up just a bit we all sat down without saying a word, once again none of us didn’t have any idea of how to react. But I still felt incredibly relieved that my mood wasn’t nearly as bad as before and feeling the warmth of Niall’s body against mine felt so comforting in all this kind of mess happening around us.




The next morning the tense feeling was still there, but at the same time I was also feeling very nervous. Nervous because of my appointment with Lena Henderson, my new psychologist, later this afternoon. I had told Niall to stay in bed and sleep for as long as he wanted since I had to leave pretty early, and as I was putting on my clothes that that day consisted of black skinny jeans – that actually weren’t skinny anymore, but they felt so comfortable, so I didn’t want to get new ones straight away – red Nike Free shoes, a grey hoodie and my leather jacket, I glanced down at the sleeping Niall hating myself for not having told him anything about my big secret.
It felt so weird to know that Harry knew all about it, but somehow I felt that I’d already destroyed my boyfriends’ incredible happy self too many times with all my stunts during the past couple of months and so I didn’t feel ready to tell him. Not yet…


After work, where Eric actually stopped by to get some lunch and say hello, Harry picked me up as promised to take me to a house in a very nice and neat looking neighborhood in Notting Hill.


“Are you nervous?” he asked when we were sitting next to each other in the car.

“Yes,” I admitted. “But it still feels so weird to be thinking and talking about myself, when you keep remembering what had happened yesterday. It feels very selfish.”

“I understand. But I’m sure that Lena will be the nicest person to talk to, no matter what your mood would ever be like,” he said.

“Probably,” I mumbled not being convinced by his positive attitude at all. After having seen a psychologist for several years and without a result the skeptical feeling about this had gotten its grip on me.

“How long is your session?” he asked.

“Half an hour.”

“Good, I’ll pick you up then.”

“Thank you so much, Harry.”


I was a bit early, so I sat and waited in a chair for a few minutes in front of a door saying “Lena Henderson” on it, after having confirmed my arrival at the secretary’s desk at first. Even with my horrible place sans I figured I’d come to the right place.

I’d been really lucky that my old psychologist in Denmark knew her, or else I wouldn’t have had any chance getting any appointment for months and then it would also had cost a hell of a lot of money, if she hadn’t got to know that I wasn’t here just for fun.


“Maja Lings?” a woman’s voice said in quite the wrong way, but I had pretty much gotten used to the fact that everywhere outside Denmark people would find our language and pronunciation extremely fucked up and weird. The woman, who I guessed was Lena, had stuck her head out of the door.

“Yes,” I said and stood up to shake her hand.



It actually went quite well. She reminded me a lot of the one I had had in Denmark, it wasn’t hard to tell that the two of them were friends at some level.



“So how did it go?” Harry asked once I’d gotten in his car next to him.

“Fine,” I said shortly, both because there weren’t much to say but also because I honestly didn’t want to drag him in to any of this more than necessary, it was a big mistake that he found out in the first place.

He seemed to sense how I felt and kept quiet, I relieved to feel my phone buzz from a call, which would keep my mind off all this for a moment. It was Niall.


“Niall, hi!” I said. “What’s up?”

“Oh not much, I was just wondering if you wanted to come home to my place, you can cook me dinner,” he said and his immediateness made me laugh.

“Sure, I would love that,” I giggled.

“Great, then we could invite El and Lou, they’re at home as well,” he suggested which only made me even more happy as I said I was looking forward.

“Okay, I’ll come pick you up then…” he began.

“Oh no, that’s fine, I’ll drive with Harry,” I blurred out before thinking.

“Harry? You met him today?” he asked confused.

“Uhm… yeah,” I said as I was desperately trying to figure out an excuse, while Harry looked at me concerned from the other side of the car. “Uhm… he was doing some shopping and I ran in to him after work and so… yeah.”

“Oh. Okay,” he said still sounding pretty confused.

I hung up before he would ask any more questions and quickly texted the girls to tell that I wouldn’t be home tonight.



We arrived at Harry and the boys’ home half an hour later.

“So same time next week?” Harry asked when we got out of the car.

I smiled at him. “I want you to know how grateful I am for this, Harry. And though I might don’t want to talk about it that much, just the fact that you’re here makes it a lot easier,” I said hugging him.

“I’m more than happy to do it,” he chuckled at my slightly emotional words. “It means a lot to me.”


“Do you want to have dinner with us?” I asked him as we walked up the stairs.

“No, I’m actually going over to Lou and Tom for dinner,” he said.

“Oh, I really need to meet them one day, they seem so nice. You’re good friends with them, right?” I then asked.

“Yes, very much. They’re like… wise. They always have an answer to any problem you might have, they’re just so chilled out. Truly nice people,” he said. “I’m actually going over there on Saturday as well, do you want to join?”

“That sounds…” I was just about to exclaim, but suddenly remembered Nathalie. “Actually I have to look after my colleague’s child, Brady, that entire day, she’s going on a date.”

“Really? Where is that?”

“Uhm… East End.” I told him the area.

“That’s near Tom and Lou. We can go for a walk or something all of us, if you want to?”

“Sure, that would be nice.”


We said goodbye at Niall’s door and he want further upstairs another floor and I knocked on the locked door. My blue eyed boy opened a few seconds later with a wide smile.


“Hi love,” he said before pulling me in for a deep kiss.

“How did everything go this morning?” I asked as we sat down with some red wine in the kitchen.

“Fine. You know… had a bit of breakfast, a cup of coffee and… oh yeah, I saw Em naked,” he said showing no emotion at all.

Notes

Please vote <3