”Oh. Okay,” he said looking a bit surprised. “Are you sure you can move?”

“Sure, there’s nothing wrong with my legs,” I replied before following him towards the door. So many pairs of eyes were glued on to us, but I did my very best to ignore all of them, even though I knew what they were thinking; they were concerned with Niall’s and my relationship and I didn’t blame them. I had pretty much made my decision to put an end to all of our misery the moment he looked at me from the door to the room earlier.


“What is it?” he asked and turned towards me with a worried face. His eyes were still wet from tearing up like me only a few seconds before and they kept glancing down at the band aids that covered my chest, where I had gotten multiple stiches to close the wounds that had been caused to it. I couldn’t help but finding it a bit ironic the way the wounds reflected how I felt at that point.

“Niall, I…” I began but immediately got interrupted by my own sobbing that suddenly increased heavily against my will.

“Wow Maja, take it easy,” he quickly said and pulled me in for another tight hug. “I’m sorry about all this.”

“I… I have to tell… you… something,” I heaved doing my most intense job on calming down my lungs in some way.

“So you said.” He pulled away and looked me straight in the eyes, he really made this the hardest thing to do ever.

“I… I’m not sure… whether we should… be together. You know… whether you would be better off without… all this…”

“Are you breaking up with me?” His gaze was penetrating and burning in some way, as if he was struggling to take in what had just come out of my mouth.

“I…” His look made me stutter and hesitate. “I just think… that you would probably be… happier… without this relationship…”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Wow, he certainly made this a thousand times worse than it already was.

“No, I’m… I’m serious, Niall. I don’t want to be the one who… keeps putting your mood down…”

“What the fuck?!” he suddenly exclaimed and this time I just got more surprised than sad. His eyes were completely filled with fire and he actually looked a bit… angry. Yeah, like he was really pissed off. “What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know, just… all the things that have happened. I feel like I’m more trouble than joy to you and wouldn’t want that for you. I just hate to see you feeling down.”

“Well, I hate to see you feeling down too. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with you.”

“What…”

“Maja, what happened tonight wasn’t your fault. That that shit, which I still don’t know much of, happened to you and Aida was so terrible, no wonder that you’re completely wrecked out after that. But the fact that I feel so sad on your behalf shouldn’t make you want to break up with me. It’s only a reflection of how much I care about you. God, why did you twist it up like that?”

He was distraught, I could tell. But his words had had its effect on me. Even if I could wrap my mind around the fact that I might exaggerate things in to something they weren’t, I was still convinced that he deserved better. He could find someone to care as much about as me, but someone who didn’t go through all the shit that I was apparently destined to go through.

“I’m sorry, I just think that you would honestly be better off with someone who didn’t come with the issues that I do,” I tried to explain.

“A rape is not an issue that comes with you, it’s something horrible caused by the most disgusting kind of guys who really couldn’t care less of who you are as a person.” He quickly ran his fingers through his hair and as he stood there with a deep frown of frustration on his forehead, I started to feel a bit guilty. “But I know you, Maja, I care about the person that you are and I know the issues that you come with.”


Like hell you do…


“And you don’t find that overwhelmingly suffocating?” I blurred out before thinking which made him shake his head in defeat.

“I don’t know what to say,” he admitted while staring at me.


Then maybe you should say something, Maja. Tell him the truth, go on. Or are you still afraid to let him see the real you? That what you’re going to tell him will be the one drop that would make the cup overflow? Well, you can’t blame him if he wants to be without that issue – if he wants to be without a liar. Aren’t you the one to always preach about honesty? And yet, here you are; on the verge of breaking up with the most incredible boyfriend you’ve ever had, because of things that you haven’t even told him. Is that fair? If there’s anything that guy deserves, then it is the fucking truth.

Oh God damnit, that shitty subconsciousness!


“I’m actually a bit disappointed in you,” Niall said and immediately pulled my out of my travelling thoughts.

“What?” I asked as if I didn’t hear what he said, though the only problem was that I didn’t know how to take it in.

“Yeah, I’m disappointed. Or actually no, I’m not.” His face now suddenly changed to a much softer one which made me even more confused. “You’ve been going through so much by now, no wonder you get anxious and doubtful about everything.”

I nodded. It was the truth.

“I understand that something like this may make you feel like you’re burdening me with all the struggles and tears that come with it. But you really don’t. It doesn’t matter to me, cause all I want is for you to be happy and so I’m going to do my best to help you.”

I was speechless. Here I was, about to break up with him, but of course hen then shows another incredible side of him that only brought me in even more doubt than I already was.

“But…” he continued, to my relief because I didn’t have a clue of what to say. “Don’t you ever doubt how I feel about you and whether I want to be with you or not. Cause I really do think that I do everything in the world to show that I want to. Unless… it’s mostly because you don’t feel the same way about me?”

“No. No!” I exclaimed as the tears overflew again and made it a lot more difficult to read his face expression. “Never. No, I really want to be with you, I just thought that after tonight…”

“Hopefully you thought that I would get here as fast as I could and then stay by your side until you would get better?”

“Yeah, but at the same time I thought that you would find that being a burden.”

“Oh, just shut the fuck up.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, it’s all bullshit. Don’t you ever dare assuming something like that again, please.”

Yeah, he really was angry with me. And I knew he was right. God, why did I always convince myself that the people around didn’t want the best for me? Maybe because I had already convinced myself that I didn’t deserve the best. How could anyone else then?

I had just let my own low self-esteem almost ruin my relationship – the best thing that had literally ever happened to me, and then I was about to just throw it all away because of my selfish personality. The thought of losing Niall made me cry harder than I had been doing it until now.

“I’m sorry!” I sobbed and covered my face in my hands. “That was a terrible thing to think about you.”

“It was,” he said and pulled me back in to his chest. “Because it’s not even near the truth. I understand if you were worried that this might be a bit much for us to handle. I do understand that. But we will get through it all, I promise.”


The words that came out of his mouth, just the mere sound of his deep voice against my hair was enough to give me that last push that I’d needed all night. I was now starting to realize all those things that had happened, the things that had been done to Aida and I, the things that we would have to deal and struggle with for maybe the rest of our lives.
But I didn’t react the same way as Em, I didn’t get afraid of Niall’s touch, but maybe that was because I hadn’t been put through the same kind of rape that Em had experienced. Instead I was just clinging my fingers in to his jacket and pressing myself as close against him as possible, ignoring the pain it caused to the wounds on my chest.


We were standing there in the hospital hall way for what seemed like only a second before Eleanor popped her head out of the door to check on us.

“Everything all right?” she asked quietly with a hesitating voice.

“Yeah…” I sniffled and dried off my eyes with the back of my hand. She nodded and quickly closed the door again with a kind smile that always seemed to have the same effect on me as Niall’s beautiful eyes, they made me completely calm down and relax for just a second, no matter what else would be going on around me.

“Are we okay?” I asked him and looked up where I was met by a soft kiss on the lips.

“Only if you promise to never doubt me again,” he said while leaning his forehead against mine with his eyes closed as if he was silently praying that I would give him that promise. And so I did.

“I promise.”


I had somehow feared the other’s reaction when we were about to go back in the room, but it turned out that they were all just smiling slightly and looking very understanding as if they already knew what was going on, which I was very relieved about, since there were so many other things that I had to worry about at that moment.


The night was very long. I tried to get some sleep, but ended up waking up with the sweat drifting down my entire body and shaking limbs over and over again. The sight of those dark eyes kept haunting me in my sleep, maybe because it was the only place in me where I couldn’t control the thoughts in my subconsciousness. And so I immediately got attacked by some terrible dreams – or more like memories – and I could almost still feel the disgusting smell of those guys in my nostrils, when I would wake up with a squeal that ended up waking up the rest of the people in the room as well. Luckily we had managed to force everybody besides Em, Harry, Liam and Niall home.

It was easy to sense that Aida was the one struggling the most; she ended up forcing herself to stay awake, cause no matter how strong she could be in all different kinds of situations, the views of a friend getting raped and humiliated was more than even she could bear. Every time she fell asleep she would wake up after only a few minutes screaming my name, which only frightened me even more than I already was.

Our poor friends who were spending the night must’ve quickly started to regret their decision cause none of them were in no position of getting absolutely any sleep at all and when they did, it would in the most uncomfortable way sitting up in a chair or leaning against the wall. Which was also the reason that all of them looked like hell the following day.

Everyone once in a while I would spend some time crying, I did know the reason why I cried, but it always came out of the blue and I had apparently no chance of controlling it the slightest bit.

Just like with Em a psychologist came to talk to each of us in private, right before we would have to leave the hospital – the psychologist assessed that we weren’t in that critical a condition to need to stay in there longer, which I think we were all really relieved about.

Liam made sure to get us an appointment with a lawyer to the trial, which we would meet up with on Sunday. It felt too weird to be thinking about rational things like that, when all those other irrational things had taken place just the night before.

I had a lot of trouble figuring out how I felt after the rape. I thought I would be devastated and feel a lot more affected than I did, cause besides the nightmares and the sudden crying that I never knew the reason for, I was feeling quite all right. Even when we were out of the hospital I didn’t get why everything felt so normal, but my theory was that it would have something to do with the fact that I hadn’t been alone, like Em. I had been in this kind of horrible situation with a friend that I knew I could trust with my life and she felt the same way about me. And having Niall by my side also helped a lot, his bright and comforting personality was always so reliable, I knew that no matter what mood I would be in, he could find a way to make me smile.
The most negative thoughts that actually went through my mind that following Friday were about myself. How could I ever have had any doubt about him?! I literally hated myself for making him feel less worth, just because of some shit that didn’t have anything to do with him. The rape was just the last drop that made the cup overflow, I finally got completely convinced that my concerns about my terrible and self-destructive personality wasn’t worth spending any time with, and especially not for a truly great guy like Niall.
And of course he’d shown his best side and made me believe again that those were just some ridiculous thoughts that didn’t hold any truth in them.

Now I was just left with another kind of self-hatred; The thought of my horrible self was so frustrating, but the fact that I’d actually gotten myself convinced about those thoughts was even more frustrating.

“We’re still doing our gig at Dirty Dicks tomorrow night, right?” Aida asked me when we were driving home with Harry and Niall that afternoon. Man, she was one strong Wonder Woman.

“Sure,” I smiled at her. She had tired bags under her eyes from getting no sleep, pale cheeks because of spending so much energy on crying and dry lips from dehydration. But the fire was still there, behind the green color in her eyes. The steel. The rock that no one could ever turn over. The rock upon which I was standing.

Notes