”What?” I asked feeling very confused by their behavior.

“I mean…” Zayn began. “It’s like… you don’t have to add fuel to the fire, you know.”

“No, I don’t know,” Niall joined in. “What fire?”

“You know exactly what we’re talking about,” Harry said looking a slightly bit angry which only made me even more curious.

“What on Earth is this about?” I exclaimed not being able to stand all their inside comments at each other and so Zayn turned towards me saying:

“Our manager, Paul, has told us not to actively promote any of our relationships. Not because of business, but because of you. And us. These fans are so dedicated that it kind of becomes an obsession, they can be really mean sometimes as well.”

“Oh…” I said not lifting my eyes off my black leather boots. “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be,” Harry luckily smiled which made me feel a bit relieved. “But just… Wait until they have gotten a bit more used to you guys before posting any pictures yourselves.”

“It’s bullshit,” Niall mumbled as he had done the same move as me by staring down at his white kicks.

“Yes,” Zayn admitted. “It really is. I remember how they started to calm down a bit when Perrie and I got married, but it’s still pretty bad.”

“Yeah, the only couple that all the fans seem to actually like is Em and Liam,” Niall nodded.

“Em and Liam?” Aida suddenly asked, it was now her turn to glance confused around at the boys. “How do you know that?”

“It’s easy to tell. I don’t know why actually… Might be because they’re like… the cute couple,” Harry suggested.

“Well. I’m cute too?” I joked which luckily made all of them laugh. It felt quite weird to be discussing things like how other people imagined you as a couple and what you could then do and apparently not do.



After an hour and a half at the street market we decided that we could return to the hospital, without anyone getting too angry with us for interrupting.


We all stopped and listened giggling at the door for a few seconds before entering Em’s room, after having pushed our way through the mobs of fans everywhere we went, but we couldn’t hear a thing so we decided to cut the childish behavior and just open the damn door.


And there they were. Sleeping. Em in her bed, Liam resting his head against it, just like earlier, with his hand in her.


None of us really knew what to think about it. Had Liam just been holding her hand during her sleep, because he couldn’t stop himself from doing it, even though Em would get terrified when she woke up and saw what he’d done?


We got our answer a few seconds later when she woke up by the noise of us walking around the room. She smiled up at us.


“Hi guys,” she said. But… No, she couldn’t have missed the look of Liam touching her, no it was very clear that she was now… Brushing the back of his hand whispering to him:

“Liam. The guys are back.”

He started moving his head around making cute noises like children waking up.


“So…” Harry began looking just as stunned as me. “How do you feel about… you know. The rest of us?”

He was referring to the fact that she was now already able to hold her boyfriends’ hand.

“Uhm… Not very good yet, I think,” she answered looking down at her lap. “I’m… sorry.”

“No don’t be, I didn’t mean it like that!” Harry quickly exclaimed before handing the cupcakes to me. “It was just… Maja will give them to you then.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit as I did as Harry told me and walked over to the bed.

“Care for some cake?” I asked and they both immediately dug in for one.

“Thank you,” Em smiled. “You’re really great friends. Now I understand how important it was for you, Maja, to have all us with you at the hospital. I mean, it feels scariest whenever I’m alone.”

“That was completely different!” I exclaimed before restraining myself and everybody stared in my direction making me elaborate my point rather quickly. “I mean, I hadn’t gone through the same terrible experience as you, my bruises were luckily only physically. The worst thing about what happened last night is that mentally you must’ve been torn apart completely. You need us here much more than I did. And so we will stay with you. For as long as you like.”

I smiled reassuringly to make sure that nobody would be insulted by my sudden outbreak. But of course they all nodded agreeing. Yes, they really were such good friends, Em was completely right about that.



We spent the day in the hospital with doctors and psychologists running in and out of the room every once in a while, telling her good news most of the time; It appeared that she was full functioning, just like before, but there were still some tests that she would have to come back and do in six months’ time, which would be the last ones.


Around the late afternoon my phone buzzed and I looked down on it to see that it was an unknown number calling me once again. I hadn’t picked up earlier because I remember Aida telling me that several fans and haters had somehow gotten her number and had started calling to see if it really was her, Harry had told her not to pick up, but this time I just did, don’t really know why.


“Hello?” I said in to the phone.

“Uhm… Hello, my name is Ann, I’m Cara Martin’s aunt,” a woman’s voice said which made me flinch and quickly stand up from the sofa. “Is this Maja?”

“Y-yes,” I stumbled. I had almost forgotten about the terrible accident earlier this week because the other one that had happened last night.

“Ok, great. I’m calling you because I wanted to tell you that you are welcome at the funeral of Cara Martin on Tuesday at four o’clock at St. James’ Church. My sister told me that you had some friends that Cara knew as well?”

I had immediately started tearing up and so I hurried out of the room to not have all those eyes burning on me. “Uhm. Yes, that’s true,” I mumbled. “We… We would love to come. I’m so sorry, Ann.”

“Me too,” she said before hanging up and leaving me alone with eyes that couldn’t possible have any more tears left in them, but somehow I managed to cry once again.


The door opened and Em came out.


“What is happening?” she asked concerned as he pulled me in for a hug.

“It’s uhm… Cara’s funeral. On Wednesday. I have to go,” I said trying to hold back a couple of huge sobs that were pressing their way to me.

Em looked like he was a bit surprised, but also really sad the same way as me.

“We will all go,” was the first thing that had apparently had popped in to her head.

“Will you be out by then?” I asked.

“You bet I will be,” she said in to my shoulder. What a great person that girl was…


We returned to the room a few minutes later after having felt Em’s arms brushing my back comforting for enough time to make me restrain some of the feelings that were now going through my body. She was sad as well, but I couldn’t help but be amazed with how she managed to pull off a strong and confident image despite the huge amount of struggles that she must have been dealing at that moment.

She informed the rest about my call and they all agreed that we needed to go.


“But…” Zayn asked. “Are you sure that… you know, you will be fine with being at a funeral after all this?”

“I think that’s exactly what I need,” Em replied. “Something to take my mind off myself and how I feel. Someone else hasn’t been as lucky as me.”

“Man, you’re really starting to amaze me, Em,” Niall exclaimed which made her blush heavily. “Dealing with all this… it must be so hard.”

“Hey, boys can we make it on Wednesday?” Zayn then suddenly asked his friends.

“Yeah, I think so,” Harry mumbled looking down at his phone. “The flight doesn’t leave until eight o’clock.

“Where are you going?” Aida asked glancing confused around the room.

“LA,” Niall answered. “Paul arranged this trip for us, we’re doing a few gigs over there, there’s the AMA’s and so on.”

“Really? That sounds great!” I said. “For how long will you be gone then?”

“About ten days, I think,” he then said. “But we didn’t got to know this until yesterday and then… all this suddenly happened…”

“No, it’s okay,” Aida quickly said when he started to look like he was feeling bad for not telling us before.

“It’s good that we can make it to the funeral,” Harry nodded. “God, it’s been a really rough week.”


Everybody sat down looking like they were also completely exhausted from the thought of how many good people that had experienced the most terrible things during the last short space of time.


The memory of poor Cara had immediately killed the light atmosphere that had existed in the room for the last couple of hours, now we couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty for almost forgetting about the tragic destiny of our other friend. It was also easy to tell that it had all just become a bit too much now to handle. No one said a word, no one did anything but staring out in the air.
Niall and Zayn were the ones to break the silence by going out to call the rest of the gang and give them an update on both Em and Cara.



Leaving Em in the hospital after Louis and Eleanor had arrived back around ten o’clock in the evening was harder than I think both Aida and I had imagined. She was upset, sad and very scared all the time, all these feelings had been coming and going since the call from Cara’s aunt.


Several times she was shaking without knowing why, she started to sweat and take some deep breaths and every time she tried to get some rest she would wake up in the same condition from having the worst nightmares where she experienced the whole thing over and over again. Liam became a stranger to her again, and even though Aida really did everything she could to convince him that is was just a phase he would still look incredibly hurt and sad all the time. Not that we didn’t understand it, it must be the hardest situation for him to be in with a girlfriend being physically damaged without having any ability to help her.

Even the rest of the boys had to leave earlier than expected because it just all became too much for Em to handle and it was only because of Eleanor’s presence that Louis had any chance of getting to spend the night in the same room as her.

Both Em and Eleanor had to convince us for a long time that everything would be all right without us, but as soon as we’d left the room it just felt completely… wrong.


“Em shouldn’t be in there,” Aida said as if she’d read my mind. “Not without us, or not at all. It’s killing me to think about how unfair this is.”

“I know…” was the only thing I could mumble back at her.


We went straight towards our rooms once we entered our apartment that looked completely different that evening. How could it still look the exact same with all the things that had happened in the mean time?


My exhausted body dragged itself unconsciously to the bed in my room, I didn’t even take off any of the clothes that I’d been wearing for several days now. The only thing I managed to do was to set the alarm clock to 6.30 the next morning.

God, work was probably the last thing I wanted to do right now, it felt like such a waste of time when there were people actually needing your help and it was definitely not the costumers at Aunt Betty.



But I couldn’t sleep at all. I kept tossing and turning in the bed making myself go crazy with the thought of my dear friend feeling so scared somewhere way too far away from me. She wasn’t allowed any sleep, why should I be then?

What Em must be going through those moments scared me like hell and I almost made a little jump when it knocked on my door and I heard Aida’s voice ask quietly:

“Maja? Are you asleep?”

“No,” I replied. “What is it?”

“Can I sleep in here?” she then asked.

“Sure,” I immediately said and moved over in the bed to make room for her. “Here.”

She found her way in the dark and snuggled up under the covers right next to me.

“This is better,” I admitted once I felt the warmth of Aida’s body finding its way to mine.

“Much,” she agreed.



Even though I felt a lot calmer with a friend by my side, I still didn’t find any proper rest that night, and several cups of black coffee didn’t make up for the lack of sleep for two days, which was what I concluded as I felt the anxiousness and crankiness get its grip on me more and more during the day. I couldn’t wait to get off and get to see Em again, I wanted to be there for her as much as possible, which was difficult with having to smile and nod at strangers that were actually only going on my nerves.


Niall had offered to pick me up and drive me to the hospital as soon as I got off, but of course that felt like ages before I found myself sitting next to him in his car. He didn’t have time to check up on her, since the boys and he would have to do rehearsing for the gigs in LA and at the same time I don’t think he wanted to make anything too hard for Em with his presence.


When I got there I was the only one in the room with her, except for Eleanor, who looked completely burned out, probably from having stayed up all night as well and help calming poor Em down from nightmares and other sudden anxiety attacks.


“Hey you,” I said in to Em’s thick blonde hair hugging her tightly. “How are you feeling?”

“A bit better now,” she mumbled looking completely horrifying herself; tired, dark bags under her blue eyes that were now red around them, messy hair and pale skin made her seem even more affected by the night. She was sitting in the armchair with her legs pulled up underneath her right next to Eleanor in the sofa.

“Rough night?” I asked both of them after having given her a hug as well.

Em nodded.

“Aida will be here right after work, but she doesn’t get off until five,” I informed them. “Are you hungry? I brought some chocolate…”

“No thank you,” Em mumbled shaking her head.

“El?” I asked the other girl, who also shook her head.

“No, I have a photo shoot in an hour,” she smiled and so I put down the purple packet of Milky Way that I’d bought on the way to the hospital.


Aida arrived two hours later after Eleanor had left for work and so it was now only us three girls sitting in the room with doctors and psychologists coming and going through the rest of the late afternoon.



It wasn’t until the recognizable face of Officer Green peeping through the opening of the door that we looked up in surprise curious to hear what she had to tell us.


“Hi Em,” she smiled walking closer to us shaking each of our hands. “I’m here because I have some information about the rapists from Saturday night.”

“Really?” Aida and I asked at the same time leaning forward in the sofa as she sat down right next to Em in a chair.

“I have some good news and some bad news…” she began.

Notes