”Do you want the good or the bad first?” Officer Green asked us all, but both Aida and I remained quiet to let Em decide, despite the desperate and eager feelings that went through our bodies at that point.

“The bad,” Em said. “No the good!”

“Okay, so the good news is that the DNA test from the blood from your mouth let us to one of the rapists,” the woman smiled making all of us nod understanding as we all wanted her to continue as fast as possible. “He’s now arrested and charged with rape, you will get more information about the trial later on.”

“Well, that’s great to hear,” Aida said calmly. “And the bad news?”

“The bad news is that we haven’t got any DNA that could lead us to the other one, who is still at large by this time. We’re still searching for other evidence among the first one’s belongings,” she answered.

“Oh,” Em said looking down in to her pale hands that lay lifeless on her lap. “It’s better than nothing. Thank you so much, Officer Green.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll let you know, if we find out any more about the last one.” Once again she shook both of our hands before she left the room.



For several minutes none of us said a word, not a single movement was made, we just sat down staring out in the air without knowing what to say, do or think.

Cause Em was still scared.

Happy that one of the rapists was finally locked up and in no condition of hurting her again. But the other one wasn’t. And the thought of that skinny, smelly, terrible person running around the streets of London almost made me go crazy, I couldn’t imagine what thoughts that must’ve been going through Em’s tired mind.


I got my answer a few seconds later once I started to notice the shaking movements that was going through her body. Aida and I immediately stood up to come closer to her chair.


“Ssh, it’s okay,” Aida said in the most calm and comforting tone that I’d ever heard her use before. “Relax.”

As she spoke those words I ran my hand lightly over Em’s back and I actually started to feel it loosen up a bit after having being tensed up so much.

“I’m…” she began with a voice that was still trembling violently. “I’m just… so scared. What if he finds me?! He must be so angry!”

That last bit she almost squealed making the rest of us jump a bit in surprise. The anxious and vigorous glance in her eyes looked so scary that it almost made me feel the same way as her.

“I think he’s the one, who’s scared as hell,” Aida immediately said convincingly. “Imagine having cops chasing you, knowing what you’ve done to a person. I don’t think he would dare touch that person again. Or any other, for that matter.”

Em was quiet for a bit, before she sighed: “Wow. That was the fastest I have ever calmed down after one of these… anxiety attacks or something. Thank you girls.”

“Really? That’s great to hear!” I smiled.

“I’ve just been waiting around for it to get the slightest bit better, it’s so frustrating,” Em said. “The psychologist says it’s completely normal though.”

“Of course,” Aida replied. “No human can go through what you’ve gone through without getting marked by it in some way.”

“I think you’re doing great,” I agreed. “You’re amazing.”

“I’m not sure whether Liam would agree with you,” she just mumbled looking down at her lap once again.

“He does,” Aida said without showing any emotion, obviously trying to convince Em about the opposite of what she looked like she felt as she had tears forming in her eyes at the thought of how her relationship with her boyfriend had drastically changed over a few hours.

“I’m just… It kills me that I’m not at all capable of showing him my love in any fucking way,” she exclaimed with a sigh that was the starter of the salty tears streaming down her face. I instantly moved closer to her to resume the brushing on her back as she continued:

“That… need to be feeling him touching me as before is what I want to do the most right now in this kind of sick situation. But… as soon as he does, it just come back to me all at once, like the most terrifying flash back I could ever imagine. No matter how many times I try to convince myself that it is actually a person very close to me that is sitting right in front of me, and not… those… monsters.”

The sobs interrupting her more and more until she broke down leaning her head against Aida’s chest, who was kneeling down in front of her chair.

“Oh God, Em…” I mumbled before I managed to shut my mouth in time. I didn’t mean to make her feel even more disturbed and guilty than already. I wrapped my arms around her and so did Aida, and I think it actually helped for her to feel kind of protected that way cause it didn’t take very long for her to compose herself and dry off her face.

“I’m so sick of crying…” she mumbled and tried to smile instead but it just looked very weird on her tired and swollen red face. “Isn’t there anything we can do instead of talking about all this shit, I’m not doing very much else with the rest of the people around here anyway.”

“Well…” Aida began a bit hesitating, “we do have a few gigs this Friday and Saturday, but I’m thinking that we should probably cancel those, because of all this…”

“No!” Em immediately yelled making me jump from her sudden loud voice. “Hell no. I want to sing, I want to do those gigs! I love playing with you guys. Let’s rehearse.”


There was absolutely nothing we could do to make her change her mind and it honestly felt quite relieving to see her eyes light up at the thought of singing for the first time in what seemed like forever. As she sat there in the chair with a bowed head of tangled thick hair and tired bags under her eyes it was hard to imagine the happy, goofy and crazy Em that we’d known for years but that had unfortunately been scared away for a time.



But as soon as she got to sing… There was still nothing stopping her. Her scary looks completely disappeared and the glow that was so special about her suddenly reappeared. No more tears, no more nightmares, no more anxiety. Just friends hanging out playing a bit of music together.

It was easy to tell that Em felt the same way. The sound of her amazing and magical voice didn’t at all fit the surroundings and the white clothes that she was wearing. The voice might be the only thing about that hadn’t been destroyed by those horrible guys Saturday night.
I couldn’t but feel a bit mockingly happy at the thought of them not being able to take one of the most precious things to her away from her. And with that she could still conquer everything.


This way several hours flew by in the matter of only a few seconds and suddenly Liam, Zayn and Perrie entered the room interrupting our crazy cover of Respect by Aretha Franklin that we always did for fun, when we got trouble concentrating about the serious rehearsing.


“Hi guys!” Em smiled making all of them, especially Liam, smile widely back at her.

“Perrie, you’re back!” I said and went over to hug her. “How was LA?”

“Great!” she said. “Very busy though, good to be back. Especially when I heard about you, Em.”


They hugged each other tightly as well, I think that somehow Perrie had always felt the same way about Em as Aida; a slightly bit protective and not wanting anything bad happening to her, and so this accident had made both of them feel so guilty about themselves as friends and even though Perrie wasn’t nearly as close to her as Aida, she still looked a bit relieved to finally be holding on to the blonde haired girl and be sure that she was doing okay, despite of the tough situation.


Those three were the ones to spend the night at the hospital, since Aida and I would have to get some sleep before working tomorrow. I was starting to feel the result of two days without any sleep as I dragged my tired legs up the stairs to Niall’s apartment next to Aida who went up another floor to Harry. They lived closer to the hospital and I could get a lift tomorrow morning instead of taking the tube.


“Hey you,” I smiled even more widely than usual when I saw Niall’s gorgeous face on the other side of his door. I wrapped my arms around his waist and instantly snuggled in to his chest. If he hadn’t been chuckling and that way making my head jump I probably have fallen asleep standing up right there with him.

“Someone’s exhausted,” he said rubbing my back. “How was Em? So sad I didn’t get to see her today.”

“I think she’s a bit better each day,” I answered. “It’s still tough on her though.”

“I can imagine,” he replied and started pulling me towards the kitchen. “Are you hungry?”


I felt my stomach grumble and suddenly realized that I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch and now, when it was almost half past eight in the evening my body would start to complain about the lack of nutrition and nothing but cigarette smoke from my Marlboro Lights.

“Very,” I almost exclaimed making him chuckle at me once again before he stuck his head inside the fridge.

“I have… uh! Leftovers from burger yesterday!” he exclaimed happily in the most cute way that made me want to kiss his face forever.

“Lovely!” I said pecking his cheek as he started pulling out the stuff from the fridge.


“Wow, that is some mighty big burgers,” I gushed once I saw the buns that he had leftover, they were honestly huge and God knows, I have eaten some really heavy ones during my time as an overweight.

“That’s the way to do it,” he smiled proudly down at all the food as we started layering stuff on each of our buns.

“How are we going to take a bite of these?” he suddenly asked as he looked concerned down at his burger that was definitely way too tall to be eaten by a human mouth.

“Let’s give it a try,” I suggested laughing at the thought of how bad this would go.



And so it did. We lifted up each of our huge burgers as we sat down in the kitchen closely across from each other and both ended up dropping tomatoes, spinach, cheese, cucumber and onion down at ourselves and sometimes also the plate. Bursting in to laughter didn’t help at all and so I had to take a long break from the food before I had air left to be eating anything. Of course Niall didn’t have any trouble digging in to it bite after bite, no matter how wrong it would go. He ended up helping me finishing mine as well as he started to feed me in the most cute and cheeky way, where he ended up feeding himself more than me though.


It felt incredibly nice to have my mind taken off all that stuff with Em, just for a brief moment, cause it was always lying in the back of my head reminding me about what had happened every minute that I wouldn’t think about it myself. Her situation wasn’t something that you could just let go of for a time, it sometimes felt like I was about to have the same anxiety attacks as Em, just because I would get so concerned over again and getting scared that something might happen to her again.

The heavy laughs between Niall and I seemed to be the only thing that could preoccupy my mind for long enough to forget about it for just a second.


It wasn’t hard for him to tell that I was very upset even though I did my very best in order not let it affect the atmosphere between us, but of course he was also worried about her and so, as we were cleaning up the kitchen in silence, he suddenly stopped me from putting plates in to the dishwasher and wrapped his arms around me tightly.


“It’s going to be all right,” was all he said. His warm breath against my forehead felt amazingly calming as I stood there with my eyes closed and just feeling Niall’s perfect embrace around me, protecting me from every bad person or thought that might be on the other side of his arms. I didn’t want him to let go at any point, I just wanted to hide my face in to his chest and breathe in his lovely fresh scent.


That night none of us felt like ripping each other’s clothes off as usual, it actually felt quite weird that there was suddenly something preventing me from eating his face right up like I normally would. Now I just quickly grabbed one of his big shirts and snuggled up in his arms once again, somehow feeling scared that some more bad things would happen if I moved around outside his protection. And I didn’t move outside it, until I was almost late for work when he dropped me off at a small street a few minutes from Aunt Betty, since Tottenham Court Road was a way too public place for him to be driving around.




Once again working at that bagel shop that Tuesday seemed to be going slower and slower after each time I thought of my friend in the hospital only having one thing to do, and that was to get better but without much result unfortunately.

I walked around behind the counter and in the café completely unconscious of what was going on, I had my mind somewhere else and I would often have to ask for people’s order several times before remembering what they’d told me seconds earlier. It was probably quite embarrassing for me, but I didn’t care at all. I didn’t care about anyone else than Em.


It wasn’t until I saw a very familiar tall, blonde ponytail of thick hair, now without most of the tangles that I’d seen yesterday, coming through the door to Aunt Betty that I actually gave the slightest notice to people around me.

Notes

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